Labor Negotiations

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LABOR NEGOTIATIONS
Railroads reach agreements with unions representing 95% of rail employees

The nation's freight railroads have reached tentative or final agreements with 12 unions representing 95 percent of the 145,000 Class I railroad employees covered in the current round of national bargaining. Only one union –the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers – does not have an agreement with the carriers.

Besides providing benefits and wage increases that will keep rail employees among the nation's most highly compensated industrial workers, the agreements also include a redesign of employee health care plans and a new cost sharing formula to manage health care costs that continue to increase dramatically.

In 2007, the freight railroads will pay more than $2 billion to provide employees and their families with medical, dental and vision coverage, costs that have risen over 130 percent since 1999. Under the new formula, the railroads will continue to pay the lion's share of the total health care bill.

The following unions have either a tentative or a ratified new contract: the United Transportation Union, the American Train Dispatchers Association; the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen; the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes; the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen; the National Conference of Firemen & Oilers; the Sheet Metal Workers International Association; the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Iron Ship Builders, Blacksmiths, Forgers and Helpers; the Transportation Communications International Union; the Brotherhood Railway Carmen; the Transportation Workers Union; and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.