End the RLA
Once again, the Railway Labor Act does what it was designed to do.. keep rail workers in their place.
The Senate passed the “One Big Beautiful Bill” by a vote of 51 to 50. They found room for overtime tax breaks, just not for those of us covered under the RLA. Senator Cantwell’s amendment was left on the cutting room floor, and so were we.
This law, written in 1926, was never meant to empower us. It was written to control us. Nearly a century later, it still does. It blocks strikes, silences collective action, and now it is being used to deny us something as basic as tax fairness.
How long will we allow a Depression-era law to define modern railroading? How long will we accept being called essential when it is convenient, and treated as expendable when it matters? If the Railway Labor Act cannot evolve to protect today’s workers, then it is time we organize to rewrite it or replace it.
nation’s first law guaranteeing workers the right
to organize and choose their own bargaining representa-
tives.