I'm not involved in this at all, but I know from hard experience (a railroad sale) that there is only one way for employees to have dignity and justice in the workplace, and that is by working under a union contract, which is an enforceable legal document. Anything else is working "at will", whereby all perks annd bennies can be taken away at any time, the boss's relatives get the best jobs, and workers may be fired without reason.
If I worked on the C&TS, I'd prefer to be a state employee (as suggested before), since the C&TS is no longer a "railroad" under Railroad Retirement. As a state employee, I'd likely be covered by a union contract, have proper benefits and a retirement plan, have seniority rights of some kind, and some dignity. I'm not sure how this would work out under the current situation, but contracted management with company employees is not unheard of in the railroad industry. On the RR where I work, the mechanical department employees work for the railroad under their old contracts (with all rights), but are managed by a contracted outside company.