President Joe Biden will travel to Michigan on Tuesday and walk the picket line with members of the United Auto Workers union, he announced Friday, a trip that comes after the president faced political pressure to ramp up his public support for the union members.
  • Someguy89@lemmy.world
    0·
    1 year ago

    Although I support this I can’t help but wonder… why didn’t you do this during the rail strike? Hypocritical much? Such a slap in the face to those workers.

    • Chetzemoka@startrek.website
      0·
      1 year ago

      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.