Of particular note:
The Association of American Railroads, which represents freight railway operators, said its members have been hiring in recent years to address staffing needs and recognize employees’ desire for better scheduling. The group said the number of overtime hours worked by BMWE union members increased to 4.7 hours per week in 2022, compared to 4 hours in 2016.
Cory Ludwig, who works as a machine operator repairing railway tracks in Iowa, said he’s been working Saturdays and some Sundays along with 10- to 12-hour shifts since September. Recently, he worked 13 days without a day off. With the mandatory Saturday work, he’s had to rely on friends and relatives to take care of his five-year-old and nine-year-old kids. He said the overtime demands have increased as he’s seen the number of workers assigned to his crew go down.
“You fall asleep and then you wake up in the morning and you go right back to work. It can really break a person down, it gets really wearing on a person after a while,” Ludwig said. “With less people trying to do the same amount of work, working long hours, working multiple weeks in a row without one day off, you get irritated and you get burnt out.”
Recently one of the union’s members had been working 22 hours straight when he fell asleep on the job, an error that could have put his colleagues’ lives at risk but also could have been avoided had the employee had a rest period, said Ballew. Another member was recently disciplined for refusing to work through his scheduled days off on short notice so he could care for a family member having health issues, Ballew said.
“The stress it puts on marriages and parenting and the things you leave behind for your spouse to deal with or the things you miss, that kind of stress builds up,” said Ballew. “In the rail industry, we have noticed recently a spat of suicides and I can’t help but think there is a correlation there.”
Thank God Biden stopped the railroad strike!
I swear if I hear another fucker say that the railroad workers got everything they wanted because Biden helped them negotiate I’ll lose it.
Good thing I voted for the lesser evil in 2020! Gosh if I had stuck to principles we’d have had a genocide or something 😒
I didn’t make a clear point. I meant that alcoholism is a coping mechanism and it is a net negative. Is mocking situations and derailing the seriousness of those situations similar?
I’m asking in a curious mood. I have no agenda here.
My point was coping mechanisms keep us alive so we can keep fighting. Without them we either tune out of current events or committ suicide. Religion is the opiate of the masses but I’m too irreligious for that, so instead I snark to keep myself alive.
Alcoholism is literally deadly so it’s a bad comparison.
Isn’t joking about corruption and laughing about how the world is fucked just as deadly?
I’m not trying to make some grand declaration. I’m just wondering what people think about joking about our messed up world is doing in diminishing actually doing anything.
Look, I either joke about this shit or I cast a 9mm ballot into my fucking head and cast the only god damn vote that matters.
And no, that’s not a joke. A public political suicide would do this country a lot of good.
I’m not angry at you. I am right with you laughing about the ridiculous way things happen.
My question is if this attitude is hindering to the actual conversation needed to be had.
Having to repeat that I want to be talking about the problem multiple times and being met with defensive posts not addressing the issue at hand, but defending the ego of saying what was said… that has me thinking that yes, distraction of complaining is effective at hiding the problems.
You are defending your complaints and not speaking of solutions.
It seems more like you question is if I am the problem. That’s what it sounds like. It sounds like you’re saying it’s my fault for mocking this situation, that it’s my fault that the conversation is stifled, that it’s my fault problems are being hidden.
As for solutions, we need a unified working class movement lead by a vanguard party to overthrow the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and establish democratic socialism. Am I hindering this by mocking this demon shithole country for murdering us? Am I to blame for why there isn’t a worker’s party that can lead a revolution? Am I to blame for our problems not being solved or conversations being had?
I’m getting defensive? You keep telling me over and over that I am the problem, how the god damn fuck am I supposed to respond?
I very specifically said you were not a target, just a launching point to talk about the topic. Have a good day.
But you never launched. I totally see where they were coming from about feeling attackedm i like where you started but you never went anywhere. Since you never made a point, it would be easy to interpret your unspoken point was to shame op for joking.
Are you interested in taking the next step in this discussion? I would hear where you planned to go