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this post was submitted on 23 Sep 2023
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The rail strike would have had major economy-wide side effects, including people in other industries being laid off and inflation being exacerbated by shortages in basic food, water, gas.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/looming-rail-strike-would-take-a-major-toll-on-u-s-economy
After averting the strike, the Biden administration continued to pressure and negotiate with rail companies to get the paid sick days that were the sticking point. But there's been almost no news coverage about that fact.
"Negotiations with the other labor coalition unions continued toward a Sept. 15 deadline, but when it became obvious that the bargaining parties would not reach consensus by then, Biden asked then-Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh to assemble the sides and reach an acceptable agreement that would head off a national freight rail strike.
On deadline day, the parties reached an agreement on an updated contract that included the biggest wage increases in 47 years. Over the next several weeks, while acknowledging that the agreement was less than perfect, the IBEW and several of its fellow coalition unions voted to ratify the agreement. A handful of others, however, did not, instead threatening a December freight rail strike.
Biden, citing the potential economic impact of a national freight rail strike during the winter holidays, on Nov. 28 called on Congress to impose the emergency board’s agreement.
Since then, several other railroad-related unions have also seen success in negotiating for similar sick-day benefits. These 12 unions represent more than 105,000 railroad workers. (emphasis mine)
“Biden deserves a lot of the credit for achieving this goal for us,” Russo said. “He and his team continued to work behind the scenes to get all of rail labor a fair agreement for paid sick leave.”
https://www.ibew.org/media-center/Articles/23Daily/2306/230620_IBEWandPaid
A much, much larger question is this: If that rail infrastructure is THIS critical to the basic functioning of our economy, why are we allowing it to be held hostage by private for-profit corporations? This shit should be nationalized and those should be government jobs.
Thanks for posting this. I've been badmouthing Biden ever since he blocked the railroad strike, but that quote from a union leader — “Biden deserves a lot of the credit for achieving this goal for us. He and his team continued to work behind the scenes to get all of rail labor a fair agreement for paid sick leave" — finally cools my steam.
When he shows up and carries a UAW picket, I am ready to be honestly impressed.
The Union leader praising Biden for his later work voted to accept the original contract without sick days. They weren't the ones that were blocked from a wanted strike. They were happy with the original provisional agreement.
Eh. The union had far more demands than sick days. They wanted 15 I think?
Congress tried to give them a week and failed. Biden got them 5.
There were also other major demands like the end of Precision Scheduled Railroading that never got met.
Sounds like Biden got them more than zero.
Progress comes in steps, and I expect leaders to take steps, not cast miracles
Strike action may well have gotten a far larger step.
If he couldn't get at LEAST as much as the workers could've gotten themselves, the federal government should have stayed out of it.
"the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few," paraphrasing Spock
The fact that Biden even stepped on at all, should tell you how bad the situation was. Also he's not talking absolutely all the credit for this. Biden wasn't there to make demands, he acted as a mediator to try and resolve this issue before it could hurt the country he was responsible for.
The government cannot just force a company to make drastic financial policy changes. I do wish they'd dictate CEO wage limitations, but that is a different discussion.
You'd rather have a massive impact to every citizens life occur, than guaranteed sick days?
Yes, we need to have an impact to draw attention to the fact that ANY worker has to fight for something as basic as SICK DAYS. That shouldn't be a question, let alone for workers supposedly so important to the economy.
The system is broken, either the government doesn't want to give workers basic protections or isn't able to stand up to the rail conglomerates. Either way, shit's broken. It's gonna take some disruption to make progress.
And anyway, such strikes aren't uncommon around the world. We would survive just fine.
You're seeing the results that occured. Apparently it helped or else they would have asked them away and kept to their own efforts.
They were never gonna get 15. I assume 15 was the high ball with something in the middle being an acceptable target.
Perhaps, but again there were other demands as well. And 5 is quite low. I have a hard time seeing the federal government stepping in, keeping the workers from demonstrating their power, and then getting them a few crumbs of what they wanted as a good thing.
The big winner in that whole debacle was still the rail companies.
If that's the best the federal government can get from the rail companies, and they won't nationalize them, then the workers needed to strike anyway. Short term economic disruption be damned.
The government should step in the stop the rail companies, not the unions.
True.
Any company or corporation that is so critical to the functioning over this country that it absolutely cannot shut down... Should be nationalized.
If the government needs it to function for the country to exist, then the government needs to own it.
so essentially since these workers aren't as important, they're allowed to play around a little bit with a strike?
What on earth are you talking about? I literally just said these workers are SO important that I think they should be nationalized.
A strike is not a good thing. The purpose of unionizing is NOT to strike. Getting demands is the goal and they got that through back channels without a strike. The union itself reports this as a victory.
I'm literally unionizing at my job right now and I keep having to explain to this to my colleagues who are terrified they'll have to endure a long strike without pay if we unionize. A strike is a last resort desperation move. It. Is. Not. The. Goal. Collective bargaining negotiations is the goal. That was accomplished without a strike.
Collective bargaining and negotiations isn't the goal, and striking also isn't the goal. The goal is to win your stated demands (or as many of them as possible), like you said. Collective bargaining is safer and involves putting less at stake but is less of an exertion of force and offers less opportunity to flex your strength as workers united. Striking is riskier and is much more devastating to fail at but garners much more public recognition and cements how necessary you are in the event you succeed. Both are choices and both should be available and used at the appropriate time.
As for the original quote I made, I think there was a little bit of a disconnect there, I agree that rail workers should be nationalized (although that doesn't mean they shouldn't also be unionized), I'm saying that the problem is that the auto workers can have their strike entertained because they're "less important" (read: the consequences of their striking are less immediate) where rail workers can't have their strike entertained, because while they're just as exploited, they're also more day-to-day mission critical.
Yes. If you are an essential industry, you’re going to have less freedoms to protest work because of the ripple effects
Look at the ATC strike during Reagan’s presidency
If the economy can't function without giving workers time off then what's the point of the economy?
Which is exactly why that industry should be nationalized