JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – CSX Transportation will comply with federal COVID-19 vaccine regulations by the Jan. 4 deadline, CEO Jim Foote said today.
Although CSX requires new hires and management employees to be vaccinated, the railroad has not yet decided whether it will issue a mandate for unionized employees, spokeswoman Cindy Schild says. CSX has offered financial incentives for employees to get vaccinated, however, and has asked craft employees to declare their vaccination status.
Foote says he fears the federal mandate may add to the railroad’s challenges retaining and hiring train crews. The ongoing crew shortage has hurt the railroad’s service and has limited the amount of freight CSX can haul, Foote told an investor webcast.
“It makes me nervous. Obviously,” Foote says of the vaccine mandate. “On the one hand I’m doing everything I possibly can to try to hire employees, and we’re not unique in that there are people out there that say they’re not going to get the vaccine.”
CSX is having trouble providing reliable local service due to crew shortages, which Foote says is part of broader labor issues that are also affecting the railroad’s merchandise and coal customers as well as the warehousing and trucking industries. “I’m not worried about us hiring too many people just simply because of the attrition rate,” Foote says.
CSX is closely watching the vaccine mandate litigation between railroads and unions, as well as the states that have mounted court challenges to President Biden’s executive order covering federal contractors and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulation requiring employees of large companies to be vaccinated or submit to weekly testing.
“At the end of the day, it’s my obligation to make sure the company’s in compliance with the regulations, whether they be executive orders or regulations put out by OSHA. We’ll be in compliance. That’s the way our business operates,” Foote says.
“We scratch our heads and say why, but at the end of the day we’re working diligently to come up with sound policies that meet the needs of all of the regulatory bodies and try to address fairly and reasonably the requests of our employees,” he says.
CSX continues to see strong freight demand across all commodities except autos, Foote says. Automakers have been forced to curtail production due to a global shortage of computer chips.
But disruptions across the supply chain and a tight labor market have placed limits on how much volume CSX can gain. “We wish we had the capability right now to move more,” Foote says.
BNSF Railway, Norfolk Southern, and Union Pacific all say they will require employees to be fully vaccinated by the Jan. 4 deadline. The railroads and their labor unions are suing each other over the mandate.
CSX says it continues to evaluate the White House’s executive order as well as the OSHA regulation.
Foote spoke at the Bernstein 2021 Global Industrial Conference.
— Updated at 1:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. CST with CSX clarifications on the railroad’s position on vaccinations for unionized employees and federal requirements.
