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Who's really important
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this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2023
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Didn't Biden sign a law forcing an entire sector into a labor contract that was rejected by all the unions?
After the railroad workers were forced to end their strike, the Biden administration and the union continued working on the problem and on April 20 the workers got the sick day agreement they demanded. It's not like they were just dropped by the administration. While I do grant that breaking the strike was not great, it's not as if that was the end of the story.
Oh cool, he threw them some scraps after breaking the strike. What a fantastic win for labor power.
The railroads don't agree, bot I don't really know about it
That article is older than the recent agreement that got the sick days. So sentiments may not be the same.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/may/01/railroad-workers-union-win-sick-leave
They'd of got a lot more if they were able to strike. A strike is the biggest tool unions have to leverage. They might of got a better deal without even having to strike. The lack of the possibility ruined their chances of getting anything better. I wish they'd done some kind of slowdown or walk out anyway.
Fortunately, as several other commenters point out, that wasn’t the end of the story.
They ended up getting their sick days and the union explicitly thanked the Biden administration for working tirelessly behind the scenes to make it happen.
“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#:~:text=“We're%20thankful%20that%20the,national%20agreement%2C”%20Russo%20said.
Unfortunately, there is a large segment of the population for whom it is only convenient to recall only the first half.
News makes more money by writing about misery and discord. For what it's worth, I never saw anything about this either, and am glad I did.
I'm sure it doesn't benefit the wealthy for the workers to feel they have an ally in the current administration. I believe we do.
Oh it's going to be brought up all the time, just not the ending.
They asked for 14, we’re going to strike for at least 7, and got 4 and the ability to turn 3 PTO days into sick days. Not exactly what I would call a victory, but it’s definitely better than nothing.
We have been so cucked by the rich that we call these losses “victories” now.
I hate this “well it’s better than nothing!” Mentality the working class has. Why are Americans such cowards.
Even though the strike was broken, the union (and the Biden administration) continued fighting for it and now they have their sick days. This happened back in April.
That's the point, Biden is still a capitalist croney, he may have resolved the issue for these people, and for anyone who cares to look deeper he looks like the good guy for going on to get them their demands, but in the grand scheme he just silenced a large modern union movement and took it out of the limelight so as to discourage other union activity.
Cost of doing business, they'll nickle and dime the populace until they can't.
As for those complaining about people getting paid more it's usually one of three things, selfish 'I've got mine' types wondering why they haven't got theirs and someone else has, bad actors, mindless drones.
I honestly can't relate, I come from Australia and we have strong workers rights, http://www.fairwork.gov.au
Unions baby, the 8/5/40 full time work week was a result of Australian union activity and is now a standard for full time employment in most of the developed world.
But rights cost lives so eventually that's what the US population has to be willing to spend to buy their freedoms from their capitalist owners, that's real capitalism.
You'll get there, your population just needs to be uncomfortable enough that the cost can be justified, that's the real free market.
So he would have been a better union ally if he had not gotten the union sick days?
He would have been a better union ally if he let them strike. You're not a hero for tossing a couple bandages at someone you just shot.
Why are you being deliberately disingenuous?