The country's two largest rail unions may strike Friday. What it means for Indiana

Two of the country's largest unions representing railroad workers are planning to go on strike Friday morning unless they come to a satisfactory contract agreement with large freight railroads, or Congress intervenes.

The stakes are high across the country, just as they are in Indiana, which is known as the Crossroads of America and is a central link in the national freight rail network.

"If it happens," said Kenny Edwards, Indiana legislative director for the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transportation Workers' Transportation Division, "it’ll cripple the country."

Who is threatening to strike?

There are a dozen national unions that represent rail workers. Most have come to agreements with the National Carriers’ Conference Committee, which represents freight railroads in collective bargaining. But SMART Transportation Division and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen are preparing to strike after midnight Thursday over an impasse on quality-of-life proposals like sick time and attendance requirements.

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What's the impact in Indiana?

A work stoppage would cause a serious disruption to the nation's supply chain and likely bring Indiana's 43 freight railroads ― the fourth highest in the country, according to the Association of American Railroads ― to a screeching halt.

Indiana's three largest railroads ― CSX Transportation, Canadian National Railway and Norfolk Southern Railway ― have main lines in the state that link several consumer and manufacturing regions, including the Northeast, the southern United States and eastern Canada, according to the 2021 Indiana State Rail Plan.

SMART and BLET represent half the nation's rail workers, and specifically, conductors and engineers, the workers who move the trains. The other 10 unions plan to honor the picket line, a BLET union official said. Together, the two unions represent about 2,400 workers in Indiana.

Indiana would feel the pain as one of the most manufacturing and agriculture-intensive states in the country, especially as the strike threat looms over the start of harvest season, Indiana Chamber of Commerce CEO Kevin Brinegar said.

He's already fielded a panicked phone call from a tomato grower, whose materials used to turn their harvest into products like ketchup come in by rail.

"We could be impacted as much or more than any other state in the country," Brinegar said.

What steps have been taken in case there is a strike?

Several rail operators have begun curtailing service to try to prevent unsafe conditions should the trains be suddenly left unattended. Norfolk Southern began issuing embargoes on Tuesday on security-sensitive materials. In a statement, the operator said it will start cutting back on bulk-unit trains and automotive deliveries up to 72 hours before the strike deadline in "certain markets."

Amtrak is taking similar precautions to make sure trains don't get stranded in the middle of a route. There are four intercity passenger rail lines in Indiana, all serviced by Amtrak but on track that is owned by Class I freight companies. The South Shore Line, Indiana's only commuter rail, will not be affected because workers there are not part of national negotiations, but negotiate contracts locally with the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District, South Shore Line President Michael Noland said.

"We're certainly monitoring the situation, but we expect to be able to run normal service in the event there is a labor disruption," he said.

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Is Amtrak involved in dispute?

Though Amtrak doesn't have employees directly involved in the dispute, almost all of its 21,000 route miles outside the Northeast Corridor are on tracks owned by freight railroads.

On Tuesday, Amtrak preemptively suspended service on three of its long-distance trains: the Southwest Chief from Chicago to Los Angeles, the Empire Builder from Chicago to Portland and the California Zephyr from Chicago to San Francisco. There could be more impacts to all other long-distance routes later in the week, according to an Amtrak statement.

Amtrak says it will reach out to impacted travelers with offers to get a refund change their travel plans at no additional cost through Oct. 31 or get a refund.

What's the beef about?

The unions and the railroad companies, which are known as Class 1 carriers, represented by the National Carriers’ Conference Committee, entered a six-month mediation process with the National Mediation Board early this year, to no avail. In July, President Joe Biden established a Presidential Emergency Board to help the parties come up with a settlement.

The PEB issued its recommendations on Aug. 16, which the NCCC accepted, but the unions did not.

The mandated "cooling-off" period following the release of those recommendations, during which the unions cannot strike, ends at midnight Sept. 16.

The sticking point is quality of life, Edwards said: Most workers are on-call instead of having predictable schedules, and the unions want to modify their point-based attendance policies so that missing work for health reasons or medical appointments are not penalized. Those appointments are difficult to schedule around unpredictable work schedules made less flexible by understaffing, Edwards said.

"We tend to live around our work rather than have work allow us to live," he said.

The NCCC says employees can "mark off" work time "for any reason, as long as they maintain a reasonable level of overall availability under carrier attendance policies," according to an FAQ posted online. The rail carriers testified in PEB hearings that "mark offs have risen significantly, making it more difficult to maintain uninterrupted and efficient operations and service, particularly with the reduced level of working forces," according to the PEB's report.

The PEB recommended a 24% wage increase over a five-year period, annual lump sum payments and adjustments to health benefits. But the PEB rejected the unions' proposals around sick time and attendance policies, saying these should be worked out at the local level through grievance and arbitration.

Those economic terms are fair, the BLET union official said, but their members are not willing to accept a contract that doesn't modify the attendance policy so that missing work for health reasons doesn't result in "points" that lead to termination. The unions have dropped their demand for a separate bank of paid sick days, the official said.

"No working-class American should be treated with this level of harassment in the workplace for simply becoming ill or going to a routine medical visit," SMART Transportation Division president Jeremy Ferguson and BLET president Dennis Pierce said in a joint statement. As we have said from the day that they were implemented, these policies are destroying the lives of our members, who are the backbone of the railroad industry."

When was the last railroad strike?

The last railroad strike in 1992 lasted two days before Congress intervened and then President George H.W. Bush signed a return-to-work bill.

It would take a bipartisan effort, amid midterm election season, to see another congressional intervention.

Meanwhile, Brinegar said the timing is distressing.

"We're trying to work our way out of the pandemic, logistics supplies and things are gradually improving, you see more cars on lots, the Fed is trying to get inflation under control," he said. "This could be a huge setback on many of those fronts."

Contact IndyStar transportation reporter Kayla Dwyer at kdwyer@indystar.com or follow her on Twitter @kayla_dwyer17.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Rail strike in Indiana would be massively disruptive. What to know: