2 Unions Spar Over Railroad Merger

Two major railroad unions are on opposite sides of the debate over a merger that would create the United States’ first transcontinental single-line freight railroad.

As the proposed $85 billion merger-acquisition of Norfolk Southern by Union Pacific chugs its way through the U.S. Surface Transportation Board for approval, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) has positioned itself against it.

The combined Union Pacific Transcontinental Railroad would connect about 50,000 route miles across 43 states and have an estimated market cap of $250 billion. It would be the largest railroad merger in history.

“This merger is bad for workers, customers, and our communities,” BLET’s president, Mark Wallace, said in a statement.

BLET pointed out that Wallace also wears the hat of president of the Teamsters Rail Conference, which “represents the majority of the unionized workforce at what would be the combined railroad.”

On the other side of the tracks is the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers, known as SMART, with a total advertised membership of about 230,000 workers.

SMART responded to the warnings by BLET and others in a statement saying that the “fearmongering, speculation, and rhetoric” need to “stop now.”

“The BLE-T and the BMWED (who make up the Teamsters Rail Conference) are claiming that a railroad going coast to coast will destroy our supply chain and kill all kinds of railroad jobs,” wrote SMART’s transportation division.

“It isn’t hard to prove that wrong.”

The unions made those statements in early August. Neither union responded to requests for comment by The Epoch Times.

Layoffs or Paychecks?

SMART said that it is the “union employees of both railroads” who would “win” from the merger.

BLET pointed to an analysis that says the merger would result in roughly 1,000 jobs lost and 500 transfers.

Which union is right? Both may be correct.

A newly publicized 109-page document reveals plans for about 1,200 net union jobs to be created at the new railroad in the first three years after the merger goes through and for more than 1,100 office jobs to be cut.

A Jobs-for-Life Pledge

To help sell the deal, Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern have made a promise to current unionized rail workers should the merger go through.

Every unionized employee of the railroads “with a job at the time of the merger will continue to have one,” the railroads wrote on a single website that has been created by both to promote the merger.

This would be something like tenure for the rank-and-file rail workers. They could still be fired for cause, but the promise that the railroads put in writing to their unions is that there will never be layoffs.

The Epoch Times inquired of the railroads if the jobs guarantee applies even to the unions that oppose the merger.

A spokesperson confirmed that it applies to the holdout unions as well as the ones on board.

The Competition Problem

The American Chemistry Council reached out to The Epoch Times to signal its opposition to the merger. Its members transport a significant volume of chemicals via freight rail.

Along with several other major shipping groups, the council believes that the merger would harm competition in freight pricing.

These groups are pressing this case to the regulators on the Surface Transportation Board, who will have to weigh input and approve the merger.

Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern have “failed to show how this merger would enhance competitive rail service or support the manufacturing renaissance taking place across the country,” American Chemistry Council President Chris Jahn said in a statement.

One analyst agrees that the merger could create competition problems by making it harder for the remaining regional railroads to compete against a truly transcontinental shipper.

“Shipper rates could go up as a result and, ultimately, prices for commodities for consumers,” Diana Moss, vice president and director of competition at the Progressive Policy Institute, said.

Moss also said comparison of the American and Canadian markets is “deeply flawed.”

SMART brought up Canada, where “coast-to-coast railroads have been the backbone of the Canadian economy and supply chain since 1885,” as evidence that the U.S. economy has little to fear from a transcontinental railroad.

That doesn’t work because “Canada has two transcontinental railroads, CN and CPKC. They compete head to head,” she said.

“The United States would have only one if [the merger] goes through, with zero competition—big difference.”

—Jeremy Lott; Stacy Robinson

BOOKMARKS

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Republicans will have their first midterm convention in Dallas next week. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said Democrats plan to counter that with their own initiative, but didn’t give specifics.

Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have announced the Foundry School initiative, a manufacturing skills training program. Rubio said America became deindustrialized in recent decades and is now “dangerously dependent on other nations.”

Just Stop Oil—a left-wing environmental activist group known for throwing soup at Van Gogh paintings—blocked the United Kingdom Parliament on Thursday. Dozens were arrested during the event, which marked the group’s first major return since pausing its public campaigns in 2025.

Thousands of people took to the streets across Spain on Wednesday to protest the country’s government and Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s handling of the Ceuta immigration crisis. Owen Evans has more in his latest report.

—Stacy Robinson