Americans say they are being required to work an exorbitant amount of overtime to compensate for staffing shortages that have plagued the economy.

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 😒

  • the post of tom joad@lemmygrad.ml
    1·
    11 months ago

    Golly, i was gonna ignore you but you keep showing me that you need my help.

    You joke, because you have nothing to contribute.

    says the man who only adds hominim to a discussion he was not part of. Can you show me where your arrogance springs from?

    And you are offering alternatives how?

    You forget your place, meat.

    You are not a supervisor, you’re the same muck monkey i am, sitting down in the dirt. You’re a wage slave, a mook. A gear for the machine.

    So am I. I’m so tired and angry, I have no recourse but to criticise you.

    Don’t you ever forget what a worthless removed you are, how little your matter matters to the folks that actually have power.

    My mood doesn’t justify my behaviour you say?

    You fucking LARPer, you dont have power so you act superior in a place where no one can touch you… well i see who you are, so don’t you dare forget your place here in the dirt with me.

    I know that pretending to be better than others is how you cope with how shitty the world is, but try not to make your bullshit our problem next time, k?

    Does that help? Do you remember who you are? That’s right! We’re brothers. We are all brothers here. Now please show me that you actually read this long yet important lesson and,

    TLDR; no, read it again.