This isn't a push against your overall point, but I think a larger systemic view is necessary. E.g., maybe the idea of retirement after 20 years is outdated. Or maybe the system needs to be re-thought in terms of how to keep that paradigm funded, particularly in economies with declining birth rates.
I think the point is, if the current contract without sick time gets pushed through, anyone who can retire soon may hold on until they hit 20 years, even if they’ll still have to work another job. People in the military do this very often. It’s exactly what I would do in their shoes.
20 years seems very short, though. Retirement age for train drivers in Europe (BE, FR, NL) seems to be around age 60, so that's a good 40 years of work.
Are US railway working conditions really so much worse that people's bodies basically fall apart in half the time?
It may be more related to having to work your way up to engineer. I don't know how it works in the US but I could see having to have 10+ years experience in the industry in other jobs before you can become a train driver.
Same thing with airline pilots; they're all older.
There’s a couple issues I have with this. The 20 year rule for jobs that “wear out your body” is a blunt heuristic. The military uses this, but it applies to both infantry and admin while they aren’t equal in terms of physical demands. Same goes for civil servant positions etc. it’s a bad measurement.
Secondly, the idea of retirement is an anomaly in human history. And it’s not clear that it’s particularly healthy for the individual or society.
I think there’s an argument to be had that in a productive society, people shouldn’t feel financially insecure. But I’m not sure giving 2 years of retirement for every 1 year of employment is the best way to do that.
Funding better benefits is certainly an option, but hard to do while also keeping costs down. Unfortunately, it seems like Americans prefer a consumerist economy and are addicted to cheap shit.
My personal opinion is that if rail (or air traffic controllers or whatever) are so vital to the economy, we should be willing to treat the workers as such.
Sounds like you think they should do a job-body-difficulty based means testing on the retirement the unions have fought and won for their members. That would be an excellent way for the bosses to divide-and-conquer the rail workers, diminishing the negotiating power of the unions and ultimately for them to end up with even worse pay and conditions in the future.
Sorry if that sounded too harsh, but I take a dim view of the idea that we - in our well-paid industry with all of the benefits that come with it - have any business suggesting that workers who probably already have less than us will need to make do with less pay/holidays/healthcare/retirement or anything like that
It depends. If the primary principle is that retirement is necessary because of the wear-and-tear on one's body, then, yes, we should have some way to gauge that wear-and-tear. It seems odd to me that we can use this as the primary mechanism to justify retirement but also push back on the need to measure it.
As far as this leading to diminishing the collective bargaining of the unions, the unions are in the drivers seat there. I prefer to think of union members as smart enough agents to understand and weigh those ramifications. If it's in their best interest to maintain solidarity, I'd hope they would. But maybe you're right and it plays on short-sightedness inherent in people.
FWIW, I am in favor of giving sick days to the rail employees. It seems a bit absurd not to. I don't know the particulars of the way PSR works, but it seems like the objective function/constraints need tweaking to capture the negative externalities to employees. To me, it's the govt's role to ensure those negative externalities are accounted for and they probably have a number of tools to accomplish this, up to and including regulation.
This isn't a push against your overall point, but I think a larger systemic view is necessary. E.g., maybe the idea of retirement after 20 years is outdated. Or maybe the system needs to be re-thought in terms of how to keep that paradigm funded, particularly in economies with declining birth rates.