Business news in brief

By The Associated Press

Jury: BNSF Railway contributed to two deaths in Montana town

HELENA, Mont. | A federal jury says BNSF Railway contributed to the deaths of two people who were exposed to asbestos decades ago when tainted mining material was shipped through a Montana town where thousands have been sickened.

The jury awarded $4 million each in compensatory damages to the estates of the two plaintiffs, who died in 2020. The jury did not find that BNSF acted intentionally or with indifference.

Attorneys for the estates of the two victims had argued that the railroad knew the asbestos-tainted vermiculite was dangerous but failed to clean it up. Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate purchased the railway in 2010.

Tennessee gov.: Volkswagen plant workers made mistake in union vote

GALLATIN, Tenn. | Tennessee Republican Gov. Bill Lee says he thinks workers at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga made a mistake by voting to unionize under the United Auto Workers in a landslide election.

Before the vote, Lee and five other Southern Republican governors spoke out publicly against the campaign, arguing that if autoworkers were to vote for union representation, it would jeopardize jobs. Instead, the union wound up pulling 73% of the vote at a facility whose workers had narrowly rejected the union in 2019 and 2014.

Next up, workers at Mercedes factories near Tuscaloosa, Alabama, will vote on UAW representation in May.

Delta Air Lines raising their pay

Delta Air Lines is raising pay for flight attendants and other nonunion workers by 5%. And the airline is boosting starting pay for all its U.S. jobs to at least $19 an hour. Delta CEO Ed Bastian announced the pay raises in a memo Monday to employees. The pay raises come as Delta braces for another attempt by a union to represent its flight attendants.

—From AP reports