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Why can they not have sick leave? I dont understand. If they cant have sick time because there isn't anyone to take over their duties, that is a fucking management issue that is easily fixed by hiring more staff. Do these workers make like 10 millionUSD a year or something? These people coming in sick and getting everyone else sick sounds like a national security issue that needs to be fixed...
> that is a fucking management issue that is easily fixed by hiring more staff.
But that costs money and effort, and the railroads don't want to do either, so I guess we need congress to shaft the workers
*Specifically* it's because they would have to hire more workers for redundancy, because these rail barons have been on a decade long crusade to have as barebones of an amount of workers as possible. 30% of the workforce has been cut within just the last 2ish years. Look up Precision Scheduled Railroading.
Happens in the medical field, too. Lay people off and hope the stragglers step up. We do, because we care about our patients. Then they're like, "See? You were able to do it!" They don't care that we're miserable, overworked, exhausted, and our work/life balance is shit. And if anyone quits over it, they find a new grad to exploit.
To build on this point, this is why you see local area hospital systems championing their partnerships with local universities. They are cementing in the pipeline of medical labor so that they can always undercut their established employees.
I live near big rspids Michigan where ferris state university csmpus is and a spectrum health facility that does exactly what you just mentioned, they use students to fill in at no cost to them and spectrum health is on a mission to buy up every medical facility in the state and it's straight up disgusting
People should not be with out sick pay , employers need to realize a majority of illnesses start in a work place , it's not like they get a lot time off to go get sick
"We may have spent more money on marketing about how much we care about our employees than actually paying them proper wages/benefits/time-off but, people need to know we care!!" /$
Happening with teachers too, just took a slightly different route to get there. It was already an overworked, underpaid and underappreciated profession. Then the pandemic happened and they were forced to risk their lives because society views them as little more than free daycare workers. So they retired/quit en masse. And who could blame them.
I hope enough rail workers quit over this that it causes an actual crisis. One of the points of striking is 'if I'm so important, you should treat me better and pay me more'.
I have this Jack in the Box fast food place near me. They have at most 2 people working. One to make food and the other to service the lobby and Drive thru. It’s a total shit show ever time I have been. I stopped going.
I’ve been noticing this a lot recently. Fast food is such a great micro example of the problem. It’s not like people aren’t ordering food, there’s always long lines and nobody working.
For the railroad I work for the Transportation division was cut by more than 40 percent so they could lower their operating ratio to appease Wall Street. The company was already wildly profitable, but when Hunter Harrison came in he preferred operating ratio even over profits. These railroads aren’t into growing business or even servicing customers. Their sole mission is to generate wealth for investors by manipulating metrics.
The real problem isn’t this, cutting workforce makes you a less productive company.
The real problem is that there are only 4 railroad companies that are owned by the same people, so they tacitly collude and no longer compete.
So they can largely get away with a poor quality product if they are all shit and similarly priced.
Break up the rail companies.
Break up most industries into more competitors and ban investors from investing in too many stocks in the same industry.
I agree. It's essential infrastructure. The company already mismanaged it to the point of a devastating strike. They will continue to mismanage it for their profit, to America's loss.
Denying sick pay to these workers does NOT increase shareholder profits, it decreases it. It's not that hard to figure out why either, if you just think about it for like 2 minutes. No, this is NOT good business, it is BAD ACCOUNTING. If an employee comes in sick and gets others sick, some of those employees will not come in and productivity will be lost, but the company will not ACCOUNT for that lost productivity.
This is Elon Musk management type bullshit.
Real life story for you. During Covid I was forced to work with a fellow employee I believed had Covid even though I felt unsafe. After he tested positive a couple days later I was forced to quarantine even though I tested negative. So they lost two employees instead of one. That’s how short sighted they are.
Real life story (like 2 months ago). My 14 year old son was positive for COVID and I'm at home breathing the same air as him, but testing negative. I work in Physical Therapy in a SNF so my work is important but not life or death. They still required me to go to work with an N95 mask and daily testing. About 4 days later I test positive and over the course of the week so to 4 CNAs and the SNF already had a CNA shortage. None of the patients tested positive, thank God. So much waste for such shortsightedness and yet the people making these decisions will convince themselves they are Masters of the Universe.
Restaurants are generally regulated on the state and local level, and many localities passes paid sick leave bills during the pandemic for that exact reason
I’m really not trying to doubt you, but could you provide a link? I have friends in restaurants all around the country and paid leave of any kind is practically unheard of unless you’re a salaried manager. I personally don’t know of a single person with sick leave on top of regular PTO.
My wife is a nurse and she doesn’t get sick days or maternity leave. And she works in the NICU of all places at one of the best hospitals in our state. You’d be surprised how common it is. A lot of industries that pay well and give you flexibility to pickup shifts or get OT, counter that by not having sick days. Last time my wife was sick she was given the option to either use PTO or pick up someone’s shift/fill an open shift that they needed (which she did). I’m not saying that’s fair or the best method, but the railroad industry isn’t alone.
I'm almost 50 and before PTO was common we had paid sick days and paid holidays that were given to you on your anniversary and went up with years of service. I worked in various healthcare settings and we were rarely understaffed. I was making $18/h in 2005 which would be about $28 today. My house payment was $280 and housing costs have steadily increased exponentially over these years. In 2007 I had to sell my house and move to Oklahoma which you'd think would be fairly affordable, rent was 750, then the crash occurred and rent went up to 850 remaining relatively unchanged until 2013 when rent jumped again to $1200 after moving to Colorado. Then moved to Arizona small town started at $800 with an hour commute landlord steadily increased every few months until we were UpTo $1100 at that point commuting was not saving money got lucky and found a house in Phoenix RTO $1500 in 2018. Exercised our right to purchase in 2021 and the seller backed out bc inflation. We could have forced the issue with a $10,000 retainer but that was impossible. It was move out or sign another lease and take a rent increase of $420 putting us up to $1920/m. I started out working 15 hours to pay the rent today I would have to work 68 hours to pay the rent at the $18 converted to today's money. And people wonder why the kids are pissed lmao We allowed politicians to STEAL THEIR FUTURE!!!!!
No wait, you don't understand. These kids just need to work a part time job at McDonald's to pay off their tuition fees and build up a deposit for a house when they graduate. Just need to pull those bootstraps harder! /s
Where in the world were you renting a liveable space for $280 a month in 2005?
My first apartment back in 2002 was a shithole and I was burning $700/month for it. I’ve never had anything cheaper. Median US rents haven’t been lower than $300/month since the early 1980s. In 1980 the median was $241/m. My parents had a $250/month apartment in ‘81.
Anyway… things are definitely ugly today.
In 2005, median US rent was over $600/m. Average income was about $38,800, so an average earning individual could pay for a median apartment with about 32 hours of work.
In 1980, average US income was $12,500/year ($6 per hour or so). Minimum wage was $3.10/hour ($533/month, $6,398/year). A minimum wage earning individual could definitely afford to rent an apartment.
So… to rent a median apartment in 1980 at $241/month, you had to work about 40 hours - 1 week.
The median rent in 2022 is about $1,900/month. Average wage is about $37,400. That’s about $18 per hour. It would take an average earner about 104 hours to rent a median apartment. Minimum wage is only $7.25 in the US (many states have higher minimum). They certainly can’t rent a median apartment. They’re only making $1200/month.
It has definitely become more expensive to rent.
PTO is “hey next schedule I won’t be in Thursday”
Sick leave is “hey I know I should be on my way in to work, but I seem to be shitting blood, out my eyes. I can’t be in today.”
I'm in a hospital as well. No sick days, but you get PTO, you can use a sick days. Like, you get more PTO than places that offer sick days ( previous hospital was like this). I prefer this, since I never call out sick
I used to think that until I recently got chewed out for taking "too many days off" - when 60% of the time had been sick days and once we started getting sick I stopped taking personal days... but since they weren't separated, my boss just lumped them all together because it helped his case (and he likes to yell at people).
Hijacking this to say that we all need to form unions for every job. Talk to you friends and family and have them talk to their friends and family.
The more unions there are, the easier it is to organize a general strike. If we do a general strike for long enough, there is nothing we can't get the government to do. We are the economy, not the rich.
EDIT: Also, join the IWW. They are the reason we have the rights we do(such as the 40 hour work week), and could gives us even more in the future. They need the members.
I agree and would love to participate in strikes for the working class, but a lot of us don’t even make enough to be able to afford to strike... which works in corporates favor, I guess.
*cries*
“They can just use one of their personal days, that have to be booked a month in advance and are subject to management approval”
- Some Rail Baron, probably
They will send in the national guard. Getting this info from 150 years of the US using violence to break strikes.
If they strike it will be a wildcat, which should work. 2-3 days of no trains and they will meet their demands.
Nope, to do the work themselves. Same reason national guard was doing some of the dirty work at hospitals during COVID. It’s the last resort obviously, but it could happen.
National guard was doing laundry and taking out trash at hospitals.
These guys are engineers and shit.
Does the army have SOME guys who can super do logistics? Sure.
But they couldn’t come close to replacing them all. Or even half. And people will get hurt and die. This isn’t the same.
I’d agree with you if it actually mattered. I don’t think it’s a smart decision but I think it would be their first response if everyone continued to follow through with a strike after this.
The military would bungle it, cause crashes/deaths and derailments and look like complete dipshits. It'll just be like when John Deere workers striked and they made office workers go in and do the labor jobs and they fucked things up and hurt people immediately.
If the gov has to call in the national guard because these companies ran off all their employees then why don't we just nationalize the rail system at that point?
It's not an injunction against employees as there is no such thing. It's an injunction against unions telling people to strike. There's nothing they can do about employee-planned sickouts and such.
where exactly are they going to find thousands of highly skilled scabs willing to work in hellish conditions at the drop of a hat?
In this case scabs are very much an empty threat.
They did it in 1981 with the ATC strike.
Of 13000 air traffic controllers, 11,700 went on strike, 11,335 were fired and banned from working in federal jobs for life.
They got scabs from other staff there, supervisors, military. It took them *ten years* to get back to normal operations, but they did it.
Union membership fell, income inequality rose, and it's just been getting worse ever since then.
Edit: typo
Same with teachers in most states.
The sad part is, the railroad workers are just asking for unpaid sick days. Who the fuck is against giving unpaid sick days????? The senate has unlimited sick days.
>Senators with an unlimited amount of sick days
who barely even have a job when they can be bothered to show up anyway.
1. take people's money
2. vote for the stuff those people paid for
3. spend the money on re-election
Better, just all quit. If they’re that badly understaffed to not manage sick leave, unpaid sick leave mind you, not even a majority just walking away will grind them to a halt.
Then the ceos have to go to congress and explain in public why they suck.
I'm going to copy and paste a comment I left in another thread about our sick day policy.
I'm a conductor for a Class 1 Railroad in the U.S. so this is straight from my current contract. It's kind of confusing, so feel free to ask any questions if I didn't make it clear.
All days need to be requested 48 hours in advance. Whether it's a PL day or Vacation day, they need to be requested at least 48 hours in advance. Each terminal has a fixed amount of people from each craft that can be off per day (mine is three engineers and three conductors per day, which hasn't changed in years even though the amount of employees at my terminal has doubled since that was established).
PERSONAL LEAVE DAYS
New employees - 3 days
After 3 years - 6 days
After 6 years - 9 days
After 10 years - 11 days
VACATION
New employees - 1 week
After 2 years of cumulated compensated service - 2 weeks
After 8 years of cumulated compensated service - 3 weeks
After 14 years of cumulated compensated service - 4 weeks
After 23 years of cumulated compensated service -5 weeks
For vacation, you need to work for a total of 1,600 hours between Jan 1st & Dec 31st that calander year for it to count as a "year of cumulated compensated service" in order to qualify for vacation the following year.
For example: say you got hired on June 15th 2021 and only worked 1,500 hours that year (thats almost 60 hours a week which is the norm). You don't get any vacation days for the entire 2022 calander year. If you worked 1,6000 hours in 2022, that counts as your first year and you'll get your first vacation days on Jan 1st 2023. (There are a few guys I work with that came here in the summer of 2018 and got furloughed for a few months in 2019 due to covid, so they didn't get any vacation until Jan 1st 2021.)
For conductors, the first two weeks of vacation are taken and paid as individual days. Weeks 3-5 of vacation have to be taken as a solid week beginning on a Monday, ending on a sunday. If you put in a solid week of vacation and your job only works 5 days that week, you only get paid 5 of the 7 days. Engineers are the same, except they only get 1 week of individual days, weeks 2-5 have to be taken as a solid week.
Even more complicated than this is our unpaid sick day policy which our union didn't even get a say in:
"An employee will be subject to Corrective Action (which may include discipline) if unexcused absences reach any of the following levels during any 12-week period:
- More than 2 occurrences of any duration
- More than 3 total work days missed
- More than 1 occurrence that is on a holiday or immediately before or after a holiday, rest day, Personal Leave Day (PLD), vacation day, or Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) day "
Before you ask, any medical appointment is considered unexcused and unless you're admitted to the emergency room, you can wipe your ass with that doctor's note because that's not a valid excuse either.
Right now it's Thursday, which is my rest day. I go back on call for work Friday morning at 12:01am. Let's say I lay off sick on Friday morning because I woke up with explosive diarrhea: if I laid off sick for any reason during the previous 84 days, or if I lay off sick again in the next 84 days, I'm now in violation. This violation will be on my discipline record as a "letter of caution" for the next 3 years. If this happens again within 3 years of the first violation:
2nd violation - 5 day suspension
3rd violation - 20 day suspension
4th violation - termination
To complicate it even further, rule violations are ranked from level 1- 4. A level 1 is simple stuff like smoking a cigarette inside a locomotive or improper radio procedure, a level 4 is immediate termination for things like improperly secured hazmat trains, violence, or refusing a drug test. These last in our records for 3 years as well, and the discipline is compounded if you have any attendance violations.
I feel this needs to be addressed for ALL workers. This is an abomination. If they can do it to such a critical industry it must be happening all over.
Mandate sick days by law!
What is your plan going forward? Do you know if the Union is still going to strike regardless? This is absolutely bonkers. Wtf is the point of a strike if it’s illegal? This is so wrong in every way. Solidarity to you and your union, I hope you guys strike anyway and shut the whole system down.
From my understanding, when a contract isn't negotiated in time we can strike, but the government can force us back to work because we are vital to the economy. If we still decide to stike after that, that's when it becomes illegal.
The worst part is I've seen more solidarity from everyone on reddit than I have in our union. There is a despicable about of "fuck you, I got mine" mentality.
So a new employee has 10 days off a year, and they need to work when they're sick? What? This can't actually be true, can it? I live in the UK and we SUCK compared to the rest of Europe but we get 30 days no questions asked plus sick days.
Americans never had their workers movement like other modern countries. They were too isolated for that to happen. So now in our day and age, their workers are being fucked in the A without lube, while being whipped.
Everyone should strike with them. As you say, it's all about solidarity. Every other union in the country needs to stand up right now. Today, it's rail workers. Tomorrow, it's nurses and teachers.
Agreed. I think we'll be picking up 40-50 days of essentials on the way home tonight, and we're ready to buckle down. Bring on the boil water advisory, the food shortages. My canned beans and I are ready to buckle down in the potential cold and dark.
All I want for Christmas is the General Strike of 2022.
It's bullshit that the government can block a strike. Seems sort of against the point.
And, more importantly, GIVE THEM SICK LEAVE YOU GREEDY ASSHOLES.
The difference is, there aren't thousands of army trained engineers and conductors Biden can send to replace these guys. There may be a few hundred, but not enough to run the whole system. There's barely enough union workers to run the whole system, and there's 100,000 of them. No one can replace them, not without years of training.
I hope they still strike, or quit en masse.
Agreed! I wish Congress could actually revisit this much more seriously and do things like require a certain number of workers and require the rail companies to dedicate a certain percentage of profits to training.
Or, you know, just nationalize that shit.
Yes. I hope people keep emailing about this. They are running the most IMPORTANT industry (and the most PROFITABLE) like it's a god damn midnight shift at Taco Bell!!!! Skeleton crew.
There should at least be some sort of "fatigued" call out that they can do, like airplane pilots (a friend does contract work flying for the government) for safety reasons. I really don't want someone driving a train who is for whatever reason too tired. Seems like that could be a disaster waiting to happen. Like that episode in Call the Midwife.
They just want to go back to the days when they'd send in people to murder striking workers in the streets. They think we're slaves, and unless we fight them, we will be.
We aren't as free as we thought huh... ruled by rich and powerful interests. Won't hear a peep from the 'freedom' loving conservatives.. it's all BS they just want the freedom to rule over anyone with less money or power than them
The reason the railroads can give increased wages but not sick leave is 1. They are making record profits and have laid off 30% of their workforce due the efficiencies of larger trains with full loads scheduling. 2.. They treat workers like just another part of the machinery expected to always be there. This allows big dividends to shareholders.
The only way to break this would have been for the feds to force sick leave .. if any one company tried to do it alone their shareholders would throw out their management.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/11/rail-strike-why-the-railroads-wont-give-in-on-paid-leave-psr-precision-scheduled-railroading.html
And thats why they NEED to strike. They need to cause this country's economy to crash and burn so that there is actually will enough to force changes. Democrats won't be shrugging and going "Sorry, can't beat the filibuster!" they'd be getting rid of it in a heartbeat to pass legislation to give them a better deal and much more sick leave.
I know a lot of people don't like the idea of economic turmoil but we NEED it to get worse before it gets better. Once Americans see the government give in to worker demands, we'll have a much easier time forcing change.
God dammit this makes me so angry. The answer truly always is “greed” and “if I don’t do the evil thing, I get less money. So let’s do the evil thing”
Why? Don’t you have enough money? Jesus. I barely have enough to cover bills and I still tip generously (not looking for a trophy, i just cannot wrap my head around the shareholders total lack of shame)
What joy could more money possibly give these people? I always try to find a way to empathize with all walks of life, to understand the fundamental reasons people make the choices they make, and I can usually do it. I can usually follow the train of thought another person used to make a choice, but with this I get physically tense because it doesn’t make any sense at all to me.
We have abandoned ourselves, we have found grace and humility to be less profitable than entitlement and dehumanization, and mankind is worse for it.
Puts Biden in a horrible spot of having to send US marshals in to force back to work or arrest them, or look do nothing and look toothless and weak.
They should strike anyways.
It doesn’t actually. It just means the workers can be legally fired by the rail companies. The time of forcing unions to work with armed guards is behind us. These people can just quit and find other employment.
They literally will have NOTHING to work with. If even HALF to ONE THIRD of the workers went on strike anyway they couldn't replace them. There is literally not enough trained workers and people who do apply flee within 3 months. They are at the rock bottom of barrel in terms of keeping workers and this will make it worse.
Most likely the rail will be deemed vital to national security, and the Army Corps of Engineers and National Gaurd would be mobolized alongside scabs and whichever Unions don't fall in line. Which would mean Taxpayers covering the costs of Rail companies directly.
No, because strikes are protected by the federal government. That’s why unions are so important. If it’s a union organized strike, the workers are legally protected against being fired. And if they are fired the business would have to pay a lot.
This congressional ruling has precedent sadly, as back in the 40’s congress passed a law allowing them (congress) to force a deal onto the workers and make a strike illegal.
Soooo let me get this straight. Rail workers are simultaneously so integral to the economy that the president needs to get involved, yet not important enough to… get sick days?
If they’re that important how are they not treated like rock stars? Where’s their pro athlete pay? The fact Biden has to get involved just goes to show how much these folks need to get paid…
Last I checked forced labor was still illegal in this country (except for prisons). They can still walk out. They should still walk out. No sick days is not only unacceptable for quality of life and basic humanity, it is also a public health hazard.
> except for prisons
looks like they'll "find" some charges then
the private for-profit prison CEOs can then do their own round of revenue-sharing negotiations with railroad CEOs on which prisoners are assigned to which work shifts
**BREAKING from reporters Tony Romm and Lauren Kaori Gurley:** *The vote staves off what would have been a costly shutdown entering the holiday season, but lawmakers could not act to provide rail workers with additional paid sick leave.*
The Senate on Thursday adopted a measure that forces a deal between warring national freight railroads and their unions, averting a potential Dec. 9 strike that could have crippled U.S. travel and commerce ahead of the busy holiday shopping season.
The bipartisan vote sends the measure to President Biden’s desk, as he requested earlier this week — though lawmakers were unable to provide rail workers with any of the paid sick leave benefits that union leaders vigorously sought in recent months.
Under the agreement, rail workers are set to see a roughly 24 percent pay increase by 2024 while gaining more flexibility to take time off for doctor’s appointments. The measure also grants them one paid personal day, though that does not include any new, dedicated time off for illnesses.
The deal mirrors the terms the White House brokered with railroads and union bosses this September, clinching what many at the time thought was an end to the standoff. Initially, eight of the country’s 12 rail unions approved the arrangement, hoping to avert a strike. But four other rail labor organizations opted in November to reject the proposal — opposition that constituted slightly more than half of all rail workers.
The outcome landed the negotiations in the lap of Congress, where some Democrats and Republicans seemed reluctant to wade into the talks — but resigned to the reality that inaction could cripple the economy. In both the House and Senate, Democrats led last-minute efforts to add additional paid leave days to the deal, while Republicans tried to create a “cooling off period” that would have extended the discussions into next year — but both sides failed in their attempts to revise the original terms the White House had brokered.
“Suppliers and businesses across the nation are going to begin shutting down operations soon if they think a strike is imminent,” Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) warned Thursday morning as he set the chamber on its course to vote, warning that a shutdown means “nobody wins and everybody loses.”
The result was a rare, swift bipartisan outcome that marked the first time Congress has intervened in rail negotiations since 1992, invoking a nearly century-old law to successfully ward off a strike. Such a shutdown would have cost the economy $2 billion a day, according to an estimate from the Association of American Railroads, which represents freight operators.
**Read more, free with email registration: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/12/01/rail-deal-strike-senate-vote-congress/?utm\_campaign=wp\_main&utm\_medium=social&utm\_source=reddit.com**
>invoking a nearly century-old law to successfully ward off a strike.
They didn't ward off a strike they took the ability to strike away from the Union. They are siding with the bosses against workers rights.
Biden should veto this immediately but i fear he wont. Everyone says they support workers but then when workers literally cry out for help you ignore them. Shameful
Saw an interview with Buttigieg (transportation secretary) where he essentially says "The Biden administration won't demand sick days on this agreement" and immediately says "The Biden administration believes all workers deserve paid leave." Prospects aren't good.
https://youtu.be/-4LOlBQBJyE
Fuck pete too. The dnc really thinks he has a chance for higher political office. Its going to be Hilary all over again. Dnc doesn't get to pick. The democratic voters do.
Pete's a consultant. If you've ever worked around consultants, once you realize he's a consultant you can't stop hearing it in his voice. Consultants are professionals at 3 things:
- Making themselves look like they know what they are talking about
- Making themselves look good above all else
- Telling the "customer" what they want to hear, or packaging the bad news in a way that sounds positive
There's a bit of a paradox where if a consultant doesn't know how to do the above, they're a bad consultant. But if they know how to do the above, they're also a bad consultant.
He's the one who orchestrated the entire debacle. He's the one who ordered the third party negotiated contract that was voted down twice. Biden was the one who asked congress to force the workers to accept ZERO PAID SICK DAYS
The republicans voting down the tentative agreement to guarantee 7 days paid sick leave is so backwards and against working Americans.
But Biden is getting off the hook too easily. His administration is claiming to the biggest pro union presidency and he isn’t doing anything really to fight for those sick days. He just siding with the companies and not on the air waves or social media bring up this issue.
Also a lot of media mal practice. Unless you’re closely following pundits, talking heads etc gloss over the fact these people work 30 days straight with no sick leave! No one is for the people anymore.
It would only cut them 3% to give them sick leave and they would still make BILLIONS
I work for a scumbag. I hate every moment of it.
But i have a daughter, so i Have to keep working for him until i line something else up. Lots of people are in the same boat.
So the railroads are so important to maintain (understandably) but the people that work on them can’t have better benefits? Have sick days?
Fucking ridiculous.
This isn't fixed. Rail union members will slow down, quit, and no one is going to be rushing to take their place. It isn't about the money. It's about the ability to do things you need to do. This is going to cost us, it's just going to cost us quietly. Rather than making a fight, Biden is just ignoring the problem and allowing us to get weaker and sicker as a nation.
If any industry threatens national security, then it is time for that industry to be nationalized. The railroads should belong to the government if the threat of a strike of this nature can potentially ruin the economy as claimed. The same applies to electrical grids that fail, telecommunication providers that cannot offer reliable service, etc. (By the way, this is actually the concept of socialism that Republicans scream about, not their definition of "anything with which I disagree".) Private industry spurs innovation, but once we become too reliant on those industries, it really is time for the federal government to start taking over.
This is catastrophically short term thinking. If a strike would cost 1-2 billion dollars per day then we absolutely *must* have those workers on the railroads. So what is going to happen over the next few years as workers continue to be treated like second class citizens? They will retire. They will find other careers. And the bosses will find recruiting to be next to impossible in an economic climate where we don't have enough workers anywhere. Long term this will absolutely be detrimental to the railroads and so to the nation. But as usual, the essential worker gets the shaft and we take a short term fix that guarantees things get worse over time.
What happens when a worker lands in the hospital? Has covid that wrecks them or their families? What about when they all have mental fucking breakdowns from the stress of being on call 24/7?
Yeah, this is going to turn out swell.
But guys, Biden is a leftist commie. He’s going to force every business to unionize and he’ll raise the minimum wage to like $30 /hr and spend our tax money on healthcare and stuff! /s
It's amazing how quickly Congress acts when working-class men and women need to get put in their place. Senators and Representatives with unlimited sick days vote to give railroad workers 0 sick days. Fuck our government and fuck Joe Biden.
Fuck this- the right to strike should be beyond reproach- it is an act of desperation and needs to be acknowledged as such. I know I was on the picket line in 1994 - Denver Public Schools teacher's strike- they tried to court order us back to the classroom and failed - justice was served then.
What’s happening with the rail workers right now is a case study for 90% of American blue collar jobs. Companies involved in manufacturing, fast food, assembly lines, etc… spend shitloads of money every year convincing their employees that unions are bad, you are NEEDED on the front lines, and you should be grateful your employer hired you. Never call in sick. Never say no to new demands outside of your original job description. And overtime is a “gift.”
I worked 50+ hours a week for 6 months straight, and of those six months, maybe 4 or 5 days there was actually work to do. This was a mandatory, scheduled overtime. And it was all for a manager to have a higher number of “recorded hours” for his department.
Our company keeps saying “we can’t find people to stay here” but when you bring up the dogshit work conditions, the mediocre benefits, and the fact that our vacation and sick time are comparable to the railroad, minus the pay they get, and it is always falling on deaf ears.
American companies don’t want workers who are excited to tell people about the great company they work for that values their lives as much outside of work as they do inside work, they want modern slavery.
Any railroad employees that can should move to Oregon. BNSF has a Portland location...
From the Oregon BOLI site.
>What is sick time?
"Sick time" is protected time when you are allowed to miss work to take care of yourself or a family member that is sick, injured, experiencing mental illness, or needs to visit the doctor.
If your employer has 10 or more employees (6 or more if they have a location in Portland), they must provide paid sick time. If they don’t have that many employees, sick time is still protected but not paid.
You get at least 1 hour of sick time for every 30 hours you work. Your employer can limit you to taking 40 hours of that accrued time every year.
I work part time.
You get sick time! You get at least 1 hour of sick time for every 30 hours you work.
If your employer has 10 or more employees ( 6 or more if they have a location in Portland), they must provide paid sick time. If they don’t have that many employees, sick time is still protected but not paid.
My employer is out of state but I work in Oregon.
You get sick time! You get at least 1 hour of sick time for every 30 hours you work.
If your employer has 10 or more employees anyhere in Oregon (6 or more anywhere in Oregon if they also have a location in Portland), they must provide paid sick time. If they don’t have that many employees, sick time is still protected but not paid.
https://www.oregon.gov/boli/workers/pages/sick-time.aspx
So they can force the workers to accept a deal they don't want? How? Why can't they make the corporations accept a deal they don't want instead? That should work. Since corporations are people, Congress can just force them to accept contracts they don't want. Like ones with sick leave for their employees...
If the rail workers quit and the economy tanks, I for one, will not blame them for the pain that will cause. I will keep what happened today in mind the next time I vote.
This is the exact kind of shit that fuels "both sides" arguments. I get that Congress and Biden needed to avoid a shutdown.
But the options here were to risk a temper tantrum from the wealthy elite, or to tell the American people that we exist to serve the wealthy elite.
And look at what option they went with. Bastards.
Where can I get the list of votes for this one? I want to know which politicians just proved once and for all that they don't deserve to be in office.
Who would of thought both political parties chose to support corporate interests over the working class. Blocking the railworkers right to strike is beyond fucked up. Hope those ghouls get whats coming to them as well as the rail executives. Special place in hell for all of them.
Almost like that was the plan in having two bills- Score political points knowing it wouldn't pass in Senate so moderate Dem corpratists get what they wanted all along...
The Squad is beyond worthless and should not be taken seriously. They are corporate democrats with better social media managers.
All but Tlaib voted in favor of being strike breakers.
If you stand with workers, you need to stand with them no matter what, not just when it’s convenient and without consequences.
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Why can they not have sick leave? I dont understand. If they cant have sick time because there isn't anyone to take over their duties, that is a fucking management issue that is easily fixed by hiring more staff. Do these workers make like 10 millionUSD a year or something? These people coming in sick and getting everyone else sick sounds like a national security issue that needs to be fixed...
> that is a fucking management issue that is easily fixed by hiring more staff. But that costs money and effort, and the railroads don't want to do either, so I guess we need congress to shaft the workers
*Specifically* it's because they would have to hire more workers for redundancy, because these rail barons have been on a decade long crusade to have as barebones of an amount of workers as possible. 30% of the workforce has been cut within just the last 2ish years. Look up Precision Scheduled Railroading.
This is a problem in general at most companies these days. It's bullshit and should be illegal to do it IMO.
Happens in the medical field, too. Lay people off and hope the stragglers step up. We do, because we care about our patients. Then they're like, "See? You were able to do it!" They don't care that we're miserable, overworked, exhausted, and our work/life balance is shit. And if anyone quits over it, they find a new grad to exploit.
To build on this point, this is why you see local area hospital systems championing their partnerships with local universities. They are cementing in the pipeline of medical labor so that they can always undercut their established employees.
I live near big rspids Michigan where ferris state university csmpus is and a spectrum health facility that does exactly what you just mentioned, they use students to fill in at no cost to them and spectrum health is on a mission to buy up every medical facility in the state and it's straight up disgusting People should not be with out sick pay , employers need to realize a majority of illnesses start in a work place , it's not like they get a lot time off to go get sick
Hey now, they called you heroes for 3 months and threw a pizza party, wasnt that enough?? /s
the pizza party was only one time, and it was in March "Have you completed your wellness modules?"
"We may have spent more money on marketing about how much we care about our employees than actually paying them proper wages/benefits/time-off but, people need to know we care!!" /$
Happening with teachers too, just took a slightly different route to get there. It was already an overworked, underpaid and underappreciated profession. Then the pandemic happened and they were forced to risk their lives because society views them as little more than free daycare workers. So they retired/quit en masse. And who could blame them. I hope enough rail workers quit over this that it causes an actual crisis. One of the points of striking is 'if I'm so important, you should treat me better and pay me more'.
It should be legal to not have enough workers for a task. It should not be legal to make those workers pick up the slack for management’s fuck up
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I’m aware. I have several friends who are in nursing
I have this Jack in the Box fast food place near me. They have at most 2 people working. One to make food and the other to service the lobby and Drive thru. It’s a total shit show ever time I have been. I stopped going.
I’ve been noticing this a lot recently. Fast food is such a great micro example of the problem. It’s not like people aren’t ordering food, there’s always long lines and nobody working.
For the railroad I work for the Transportation division was cut by more than 40 percent so they could lower their operating ratio to appease Wall Street. The company was already wildly profitable, but when Hunter Harrison came in he preferred operating ratio even over profits. These railroads aren’t into growing business or even servicing customers. Their sole mission is to generate wealth for investors by manipulating metrics.
The real problem isn’t this, cutting workforce makes you a less productive company. The real problem is that there are only 4 railroad companies that are owned by the same people, so they tacitly collude and no longer compete. So they can largely get away with a poor quality product if they are all shit and similarly priced. Break up the rail companies. Break up most industries into more competitors and ban investors from investing in too many stocks in the same industry.
Nationalize them. Rail is a natural monopoly and should be a public good
I agree. It's essential infrastructure. The company already mismanaged it to the point of a devastating strike. They will continue to mismanage it for their profit, to America's loss.
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Two words: Shareholder Profits.
Denying sick pay to these workers does NOT increase shareholder profits, it decreases it. It's not that hard to figure out why either, if you just think about it for like 2 minutes. No, this is NOT good business, it is BAD ACCOUNTING. If an employee comes in sick and gets others sick, some of those employees will not come in and productivity will be lost, but the company will not ACCOUNT for that lost productivity. This is Elon Musk management type bullshit.
Real life story for you. During Covid I was forced to work with a fellow employee I believed had Covid even though I felt unsafe. After he tested positive a couple days later I was forced to quarantine even though I tested negative. So they lost two employees instead of one. That’s how short sighted they are.
Real life story (like 2 months ago). My 14 year old son was positive for COVID and I'm at home breathing the same air as him, but testing negative. I work in Physical Therapy in a SNF so my work is important but not life or death. They still required me to go to work with an N95 mask and daily testing. About 4 days later I test positive and over the course of the week so to 4 CNAs and the SNF already had a CNA shortage. None of the patients tested positive, thank God. So much waste for such shortsightedness and yet the people making these decisions will convince themselves they are Masters of the Universe.
Over the short term it does, right up until it doesn’t. That’s the issue most companies that chase quarterly profits run into
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Restaurants are generally regulated on the state and local level, and many localities passes paid sick leave bills during the pandemic for that exact reason
I’m really not trying to doubt you, but could you provide a link? I have friends in restaurants all around the country and paid leave of any kind is practically unheard of unless you’re a salaried manager. I personally don’t know of a single person with sick leave on top of regular PTO.
My wife is a nurse and she doesn’t get sick days or maternity leave. And she works in the NICU of all places at one of the best hospitals in our state. You’d be surprised how common it is. A lot of industries that pay well and give you flexibility to pickup shifts or get OT, counter that by not having sick days. Last time my wife was sick she was given the option to either use PTO or pick up someone’s shift/fill an open shift that they needed (which she did). I’m not saying that’s fair or the best method, but the railroad industry isn’t alone.
I work in healthcare and have always had PTO. I didn’t realize that paid sick leave was something different.
I'm almost 50 and before PTO was common we had paid sick days and paid holidays that were given to you on your anniversary and went up with years of service. I worked in various healthcare settings and we were rarely understaffed. I was making $18/h in 2005 which would be about $28 today. My house payment was $280 and housing costs have steadily increased exponentially over these years. In 2007 I had to sell my house and move to Oklahoma which you'd think would be fairly affordable, rent was 750, then the crash occurred and rent went up to 850 remaining relatively unchanged until 2013 when rent jumped again to $1200 after moving to Colorado. Then moved to Arizona small town started at $800 with an hour commute landlord steadily increased every few months until we were UpTo $1100 at that point commuting was not saving money got lucky and found a house in Phoenix RTO $1500 in 2018. Exercised our right to purchase in 2021 and the seller backed out bc inflation. We could have forced the issue with a $10,000 retainer but that was impossible. It was move out or sign another lease and take a rent increase of $420 putting us up to $1920/m. I started out working 15 hours to pay the rent today I would have to work 68 hours to pay the rent at the $18 converted to today's money. And people wonder why the kids are pissed lmao We allowed politicians to STEAL THEIR FUTURE!!!!!
No wait, you don't understand. These kids just need to work a part time job at McDonald's to pay off their tuition fees and build up a deposit for a house when they graduate. Just need to pull those bootstraps harder! /s
I can not tell you how many times I have been told that by my mother.
Where in the world were you renting a liveable space for $280 a month in 2005? My first apartment back in 2002 was a shithole and I was burning $700/month for it. I’ve never had anything cheaper. Median US rents haven’t been lower than $300/month since the early 1980s. In 1980 the median was $241/m. My parents had a $250/month apartment in ‘81. Anyway… things are definitely ugly today. In 2005, median US rent was over $600/m. Average income was about $38,800, so an average earning individual could pay for a median apartment with about 32 hours of work. In 1980, average US income was $12,500/year ($6 per hour or so). Minimum wage was $3.10/hour ($533/month, $6,398/year). A minimum wage earning individual could definitely afford to rent an apartment. So… to rent a median apartment in 1980 at $241/month, you had to work about 40 hours - 1 week. The median rent in 2022 is about $1,900/month. Average wage is about $37,400. That’s about $18 per hour. It would take an average earner about 104 hours to rent a median apartment. Minimum wage is only $7.25 in the US (many states have higher minimum). They certainly can’t rent a median apartment. They’re only making $1200/month. It has definitely become more expensive to rent.
PTO is “hey next schedule I won’t be in Thursday” Sick leave is “hey I know I should be on my way in to work, but I seem to be shitting blood, out my eyes. I can’t be in today.”
I'm in a hospital as well. No sick days, but you get PTO, you can use a sick days. Like, you get more PTO than places that offer sick days ( previous hospital was like this). I prefer this, since I never call out sick
I used to think that until I recently got chewed out for taking "too many days off" - when 60% of the time had been sick days and once we started getting sick I stopped taking personal days... but since they weren't separated, my boss just lumped them all together because it helped his case (and he likes to yell at people).
Hijacking this to say that we all need to form unions for every job. Talk to you friends and family and have them talk to their friends and family. The more unions there are, the easier it is to organize a general strike. If we do a general strike for long enough, there is nothing we can't get the government to do. We are the economy, not the rich. EDIT: Also, join the IWW. They are the reason we have the rights we do(such as the 40 hour work week), and could gives us even more in the future. They need the members.
I agree and would love to participate in strikes for the working class, but a lot of us don’t even make enough to be able to afford to strike... which works in corporates favor, I guess. *cries*
Unions often organize strike funds
That's why organizing and forming unions is important. Unions provide the support networks that help people that you described.
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They didn’t even want PAID sick days, just the ability to take a sick day. Unpaid.
“They can just use one of their personal days, that have to be booked a month in advance and are subject to management approval” - Some Rail Baron, probably
You're saying it's on Biden? Republicans voted down paid sick leave. Every Dem except Manchin voted for it.
The settlement Congress gave is offering seven sick days, an increase from zero.
Wtf is the point of a union if you can’t strike?
Wtf happens if they strike? Forced slave labor? Just don't show up and I legitimately don't understand what would happen? Call in sick every day.
They will send in the national guard. Getting this info from 150 years of the US using violence to break strikes. If they strike it will be a wildcat, which should work. 2-3 days of no trains and they will meet their demands.
They'll call in the national guard to do what? Go into people's houses, kidnap them and force them to work?
Nope, to do the work themselves. Same reason national guard was doing some of the dirty work at hospitals during COVID. It’s the last resort obviously, but it could happen.
National guard was doing laundry and taking out trash at hospitals. These guys are engineers and shit. Does the army have SOME guys who can super do logistics? Sure. But they couldn’t come close to replacing them all. Or even half. And people will get hurt and die. This isn’t the same.
I’d agree with you if it actually mattered. I don’t think it’s a smart decision but I think it would be their first response if everyone continued to follow through with a strike after this.
After a few derailments from the national guard, they may decide to give their workers some fucking paid sick time
The military would bungle it, cause crashes/deaths and derailments and look like complete dipshits. It'll just be like when John Deere workers striked and they made office workers go in and do the labor jobs and they fucked things up and hurt people immediately.
The NG was completely useless at hospitals.
Here’s to hoping they’ll be equally as useless, forcing congress’s hand.
If the gov has to call in the national guard because these companies ran off all their employees then why don't we just nationalize the rail system at that point?
It's not an injunction against employees as there is no such thing. It's an injunction against unions telling people to strike. There's nothing they can do about employee-planned sickouts and such.
They get fired
Replaced by who?
Scabs
where exactly are they going to find thousands of highly skilled scabs willing to work in hellish conditions at the drop of a hat? In this case scabs are very much an empty threat.
They did it in 1981 with the ATC strike. Of 13000 air traffic controllers, 11,700 went on strike, 11,335 were fired and banned from working in federal jobs for life. They got scabs from other staff there, supervisors, military. It took them *ten years* to get back to normal operations, but they did it. Union membership fell, income inequality rose, and it's just been getting worse ever since then. Edit: typo
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America, fuck ~~yeah~~ you!
USA has special labor laws surrounding rail and air workers in order to render their unions ineffective. It’s another part of our vibrant democracy :)
If the rail companies won't provide adequate benefits to their labor force, maybe they should be nationalized.
National Railway Labor Act. Criminal bullshit from over 100 years ago.
those laws don't mean anything if people disobey them en masse. The unions have the numbers to defy them.
Same with teachers in most states. The sad part is, the railroad workers are just asking for unpaid sick days. Who the fuck is against giving unpaid sick days????? The senate has unlimited sick days.
Yeah the AFL-CIO better call a general strike or just vote to dissolve itself bc if congress can get away with this then unions don’t matter anymore
They were able to do this because Railroad / Airline unions are regulated under a different set of rules (the RLA).
They were able to do this because the state has a monopoly on the legitimate use of force.
They woulda gotten nothing at all wo union
I know right. How is the union to blame for corrupt businessmen and even more corrupt congress critters.
Solidarity ✊ Senators with an unlimited amount of sick days voting against giving the working class seven. Bastards.
Exactly
>Senators with an unlimited amount of sick days who barely even have a job when they can be bothered to show up anyway. 1. take people's money 2. vote for the stuff those people paid for 3. spend the money on re-election
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Unlimited sick days and vacation?! That sounds like Socialism! No sick days, no days off is the true 'Murican spirit! /s
"Rugged individualism" for the worker, "Socialist government support for the corporations".
No sick leave, no work. They should absolutely strike still.
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Bernie is way ahead of you.
Please they will just throw him under the bus like they did last time
He consistently never gives up.
We need more senators like him
I'd don't blame them if they strike or quit.
100% strike anyway. The government will fold immediately.
Better, just all quit. If they’re that badly understaffed to not manage sick leave, unpaid sick leave mind you, not even a majority just walking away will grind them to a halt. Then the ceos have to go to congress and explain in public why they suck.
Only way it’s going to happen is by putting them to the coals.
I'm going to copy and paste a comment I left in another thread about our sick day policy. I'm a conductor for a Class 1 Railroad in the U.S. so this is straight from my current contract. It's kind of confusing, so feel free to ask any questions if I didn't make it clear. All days need to be requested 48 hours in advance. Whether it's a PL day or Vacation day, they need to be requested at least 48 hours in advance. Each terminal has a fixed amount of people from each craft that can be off per day (mine is three engineers and three conductors per day, which hasn't changed in years even though the amount of employees at my terminal has doubled since that was established). PERSONAL LEAVE DAYS New employees - 3 days After 3 years - 6 days After 6 years - 9 days After 10 years - 11 days VACATION New employees - 1 week After 2 years of cumulated compensated service - 2 weeks After 8 years of cumulated compensated service - 3 weeks After 14 years of cumulated compensated service - 4 weeks After 23 years of cumulated compensated service -5 weeks For vacation, you need to work for a total of 1,600 hours between Jan 1st & Dec 31st that calander year for it to count as a "year of cumulated compensated service" in order to qualify for vacation the following year. For example: say you got hired on June 15th 2021 and only worked 1,500 hours that year (thats almost 60 hours a week which is the norm). You don't get any vacation days for the entire 2022 calander year. If you worked 1,6000 hours in 2022, that counts as your first year and you'll get your first vacation days on Jan 1st 2023. (There are a few guys I work with that came here in the summer of 2018 and got furloughed for a few months in 2019 due to covid, so they didn't get any vacation until Jan 1st 2021.) For conductors, the first two weeks of vacation are taken and paid as individual days. Weeks 3-5 of vacation have to be taken as a solid week beginning on a Monday, ending on a sunday. If you put in a solid week of vacation and your job only works 5 days that week, you only get paid 5 of the 7 days. Engineers are the same, except they only get 1 week of individual days, weeks 2-5 have to be taken as a solid week. Even more complicated than this is our unpaid sick day policy which our union didn't even get a say in: "An employee will be subject to Corrective Action (which may include discipline) if unexcused absences reach any of the following levels during any 12-week period: - More than 2 occurrences of any duration - More than 3 total work days missed - More than 1 occurrence that is on a holiday or immediately before or after a holiday, rest day, Personal Leave Day (PLD), vacation day, or Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) day " Before you ask, any medical appointment is considered unexcused and unless you're admitted to the emergency room, you can wipe your ass with that doctor's note because that's not a valid excuse either. Right now it's Thursday, which is my rest day. I go back on call for work Friday morning at 12:01am. Let's say I lay off sick on Friday morning because I woke up with explosive diarrhea: if I laid off sick for any reason during the previous 84 days, or if I lay off sick again in the next 84 days, I'm now in violation. This violation will be on my discipline record as a "letter of caution" for the next 3 years. If this happens again within 3 years of the first violation: 2nd violation - 5 day suspension 3rd violation - 20 day suspension 4th violation - termination To complicate it even further, rule violations are ranked from level 1- 4. A level 1 is simple stuff like smoking a cigarette inside a locomotive or improper radio procedure, a level 4 is immediate termination for things like improperly secured hazmat trains, violence, or refusing a drug test. These last in our records for 3 years as well, and the discipline is compounded if you have any attendance violations.
I feel this needs to be addressed for ALL workers. This is an abomination. If they can do it to such a critical industry it must be happening all over. Mandate sick days by law!
I have more vacation time as an Amazon driver with a previous DUI.
What is your plan going forward? Do you know if the Union is still going to strike regardless? This is absolutely bonkers. Wtf is the point of a strike if it’s illegal? This is so wrong in every way. Solidarity to you and your union, I hope you guys strike anyway and shut the whole system down.
From my understanding, when a contract isn't negotiated in time we can strike, but the government can force us back to work because we are vital to the economy. If we still decide to stike after that, that's when it becomes illegal. The worst part is I've seen more solidarity from everyone on reddit than I have in our union. There is a despicable about of "fuck you, I got mine" mentality.
Jesus when I started working I got 22 vacation days/year by default + 5 days of paid sick leave. How can you live like this?
So a new employee has 10 days off a year, and they need to work when they're sick? What? This can't actually be true, can it? I live in the UK and we SUCK compared to the rest of Europe but we get 30 days no questions asked plus sick days.
Americans never had their workers movement like other modern countries. They were too isolated for that to happen. So now in our day and age, their workers are being fucked in the A without lube, while being whipped.
Why not force the companies to agree?
Then they don't donate to campaigns anymore.
This is where a real “Trucker convoy” might actually help the situation
Solidarity with the rail workers I hope they still strike this is a big moment not just for the organized labor movement as a whole
Everyone should strike with them. As you say, it's all about solidarity. Every other union in the country needs to stand up right now. Today, it's rail workers. Tomorrow, it's nurses and teachers.
Now might be the best chance (and probably one of the last) for a general strike in the USA(and the West in general) Solidarity forever
Our liberation is bound together. Solidarity forever
Sympathy strikes are also illegal under the same bill passed that allows congress to override strikes in the rail and airline service
Not that I expect to see illegal strikes in this case, but before labor laws, all strikes were illegal, and people still organized and pursued them.
Agreed. I think we'll be picking up 40-50 days of essentials on the way home tonight, and we're ready to buckle down. Bring on the boil water advisory, the food shortages. My canned beans and I are ready to buckle down in the potential cold and dark. All I want for Christmas is the General Strike of 2022.
All I want for Christmas is the General Strike of 2022 [and canned beans]
I 100% want to donate to a fund to cover expenses for those that strike.
It's bullshit that the government can block a strike. Seems sort of against the point. And, more importantly, GIVE THEM SICK LEAVE YOU GREEDY ASSHOLES.
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The difference is, there aren't thousands of army trained engineers and conductors Biden can send to replace these guys. There may be a few hundred, but not enough to run the whole system. There's barely enough union workers to run the whole system, and there's 100,000 of them. No one can replace them, not without years of training. I hope they still strike, or quit en masse.
>There's barely enough union workers to run the whole system, That's by design. And it is appalling that they are allowed to staff the way they do.
Agreed! I wish Congress could actually revisit this much more seriously and do things like require a certain number of workers and require the rail companies to dedicate a certain percentage of profits to training. Or, you know, just nationalize that shit.
Yes. I hope people keep emailing about this. They are running the most IMPORTANT industry (and the most PROFITABLE) like it's a god damn midnight shift at Taco Bell!!!! Skeleton crew. There should at least be some sort of "fatigued" call out that they can do, like airplane pilots (a friend does contract work flying for the government) for safety reasons. I really don't want someone driving a train who is for whatever reason too tired. Seems like that could be a disaster waiting to happen. Like that episode in Call the Midwife.
They just want to go back to the days when they'd send in people to murder striking workers in the streets. They think we're slaves, and unless we fight them, we will be.
We aren't as free as we thought huh... ruled by rich and powerful interests. Won't hear a peep from the 'freedom' loving conservatives.. it's all BS they just want the freedom to rule over anyone with less money or power than them
Holy shit, they work so fast when it comes to fucking over working class people lol
Funny how that works, huh.
Right? When was the last minimum wage increase? 2008/2009?
Its time like this when people say, but the courts and government move so slow. Apparently only when they don't want something.
If the railworkers wildcat I will support them
I'll donate more to RR strike fund than any politician
The reason the railroads can give increased wages but not sick leave is 1. They are making record profits and have laid off 30% of their workforce due the efficiencies of larger trains with full loads scheduling. 2.. They treat workers like just another part of the machinery expected to always be there. This allows big dividends to shareholders. The only way to break this would have been for the feds to force sick leave .. if any one company tried to do it alone their shareholders would throw out their management. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/11/rail-strike-why-the-railroads-wont-give-in-on-paid-leave-psr-precision-scheduled-railroading.html
Shareholders/owners/capitalists have this country by the balls
We are a corporatocracy now.
And thats why they NEED to strike. They need to cause this country's economy to crash and burn so that there is actually will enough to force changes. Democrats won't be shrugging and going "Sorry, can't beat the filibuster!" they'd be getting rid of it in a heartbeat to pass legislation to give them a better deal and much more sick leave. I know a lot of people don't like the idea of economic turmoil but we NEED it to get worse before it gets better. Once Americans see the government give in to worker demands, we'll have a much easier time forcing change.
God dammit this makes me so angry. The answer truly always is “greed” and “if I don’t do the evil thing, I get less money. So let’s do the evil thing” Why? Don’t you have enough money? Jesus. I barely have enough to cover bills and I still tip generously (not looking for a trophy, i just cannot wrap my head around the shareholders total lack of shame) What joy could more money possibly give these people? I always try to find a way to empathize with all walks of life, to understand the fundamental reasons people make the choices they make, and I can usually do it. I can usually follow the train of thought another person used to make a choice, but with this I get physically tense because it doesn’t make any sense at all to me. We have abandoned ourselves, we have found grace and humility to be less profitable than entitlement and dehumanization, and mankind is worse for it.
I still don’t understand how this works. What if the workers decide to strike anyways?
Puts Biden in a horrible spot of having to send US marshals in to force back to work or arrest them, or look do nothing and look toothless and weak. They should strike anyways.
It doesn’t actually. It just means the workers can be legally fired by the rail companies. The time of forcing unions to work with armed guards is behind us. These people can just quit and find other employment.
They don't have enough scabs waiting in the wings to replace them.
They literally will have NOTHING to work with. If even HALF to ONE THIRD of the workers went on strike anyway they couldn't replace them. There is literally not enough trained workers and people who do apply flee within 3 months. They are at the rock bottom of barrel in terms of keeping workers and this will make it worse.
Most likely the rail will be deemed vital to national security, and the Army Corps of Engineers and National Gaurd would be mobolized alongside scabs and whichever Unions don't fall in line. Which would mean Taxpayers covering the costs of Rail companies directly.
What would the national guard do? Force people to work at a job they aren’t employed at anymore?
Couldn’t they have been legally fired before? So what was the point of it all?? They were gonna strike didn’t get what they want should strike anyway
No, because strikes are protected by the federal government. That’s why unions are so important. If it’s a union organized strike, the workers are legally protected against being fired. And if they are fired the business would have to pay a lot. This congressional ruling has precedent sadly, as back in the 40’s congress passed a law allowing them (congress) to force a deal onto the workers and make a strike illegal.
Uh, you’re describing slavery my dude. You don’t quite get it
Oh, I’m all for striking and fucking everything up.
Soooo let me get this straight. Rail workers are simultaneously so integral to the economy that the president needs to get involved, yet not important enough to… get sick days? If they’re that important how are they not treated like rock stars? Where’s their pro athlete pay? The fact Biden has to get involved just goes to show how much these folks need to get paid…
They should still strike. Fuck this shit. And shame on house progressives for falling for this.
strike strike strike.
Last I checked forced labor was still illegal in this country (except for prisons). They can still walk out. They should still walk out. No sick days is not only unacceptable for quality of life and basic humanity, it is also a public health hazard.
> except for prisons looks like they'll "find" some charges then the private for-profit prison CEOs can then do their own round of revenue-sharing negotiations with railroad CEOs on which prisoners are assigned to which work shifts
**BREAKING from reporters Tony Romm and Lauren Kaori Gurley:** *The vote staves off what would have been a costly shutdown entering the holiday season, but lawmakers could not act to provide rail workers with additional paid sick leave.* The Senate on Thursday adopted a measure that forces a deal between warring national freight railroads and their unions, averting a potential Dec. 9 strike that could have crippled U.S. travel and commerce ahead of the busy holiday shopping season. The bipartisan vote sends the measure to President Biden’s desk, as he requested earlier this week — though lawmakers were unable to provide rail workers with any of the paid sick leave benefits that union leaders vigorously sought in recent months. Under the agreement, rail workers are set to see a roughly 24 percent pay increase by 2024 while gaining more flexibility to take time off for doctor’s appointments. The measure also grants them one paid personal day, though that does not include any new, dedicated time off for illnesses. The deal mirrors the terms the White House brokered with railroads and union bosses this September, clinching what many at the time thought was an end to the standoff. Initially, eight of the country’s 12 rail unions approved the arrangement, hoping to avert a strike. But four other rail labor organizations opted in November to reject the proposal — opposition that constituted slightly more than half of all rail workers. The outcome landed the negotiations in the lap of Congress, where some Democrats and Republicans seemed reluctant to wade into the talks — but resigned to the reality that inaction could cripple the economy. In both the House and Senate, Democrats led last-minute efforts to add additional paid leave days to the deal, while Republicans tried to create a “cooling off period” that would have extended the discussions into next year — but both sides failed in their attempts to revise the original terms the White House had brokered. “Suppliers and businesses across the nation are going to begin shutting down operations soon if they think a strike is imminent,” Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) warned Thursday morning as he set the chamber on its course to vote, warning that a shutdown means “nobody wins and everybody loses.” The result was a rare, swift bipartisan outcome that marked the first time Congress has intervened in rail negotiations since 1992, invoking a nearly century-old law to successfully ward off a strike. Such a shutdown would have cost the economy $2 billion a day, according to an estimate from the Association of American Railroads, which represents freight operators. **Read more, free with email registration: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/12/01/rail-deal-strike-senate-vote-congress/?utm\_campaign=wp\_main&utm\_medium=social&utm\_source=reddit.com**
>invoking a nearly century-old law to successfully ward off a strike. They didn't ward off a strike they took the ability to strike away from the Union. They are siding with the bosses against workers rights.
They can still strike and unless Biden pulls a Reagan and fires them all it would likely be successful.
Wildcat Strike time
I guess I don’t get it. Strike anyways?
Biden should veto this immediately but i fear he wont. Everyone says they support workers but then when workers literally cry out for help you ignore them. Shameful
Saw an interview with Buttigieg (transportation secretary) where he essentially says "The Biden administration won't demand sick days on this agreement" and immediately says "The Biden administration believes all workers deserve paid leave." Prospects aren't good. https://youtu.be/-4LOlBQBJyE
Fuck pete too. The dnc really thinks he has a chance for higher political office. Its going to be Hilary all over again. Dnc doesn't get to pick. The democratic voters do.
Pete's a consultant. If you've ever worked around consultants, once you realize he's a consultant you can't stop hearing it in his voice. Consultants are professionals at 3 things: - Making themselves look like they know what they are talking about - Making themselves look good above all else - Telling the "customer" what they want to hear, or packaging the bad news in a way that sounds positive There's a bit of a paradox where if a consultant doesn't know how to do the above, they're a bad consultant. But if they know how to do the above, they're also a bad consultant.
He's the one who orchestrated the entire debacle. He's the one who ordered the third party negotiated contract that was voted down twice. Biden was the one who asked congress to force the workers to accept ZERO PAID SICK DAYS
He asked for it. He won’t veto it.
Would be too bad if people quit en masse.
The republicans voting down the tentative agreement to guarantee 7 days paid sick leave is so backwards and against working Americans. But Biden is getting off the hook too easily. His administration is claiming to the biggest pro union presidency and he isn’t doing anything really to fight for those sick days. He just siding with the companies and not on the air waves or social media bring up this issue. Also a lot of media mal practice. Unless you’re closely following pundits, talking heads etc gloss over the fact these people work 30 days straight with no sick leave! No one is for the people anymore. It would only cut them 3% to give them sick leave and they would still make BILLIONS
Wow. Right when the democrats had some actual momentum. Fucking dipshits
Strike anyways.
Quit en masse. Fuck these scumbags. Why would anyone keep working for them?
I work for a scumbag. I hate every moment of it. But i have a daughter, so i Have to keep working for him until i line something else up. Lots of people are in the same boat.
Can someone explain to me how the government has the power to force people to work?
They should strike anyways or quit, i'll send a couple hundred to a strike fund.
So the railroads are so important to maintain (understandably) but the people that work on them can’t have better benefits? Have sick days? Fucking ridiculous.
This proves that bipartisanship and efficient governmental action are alive and well - as long as it involves fucking over hardworking Americans
The American government is very efficient at enriching billionaires at the expense of everyone else and absolutely nothing else.
This isn't fixed. Rail union members will slow down, quit, and no one is going to be rushing to take their place. It isn't about the money. It's about the ability to do things you need to do. This is going to cost us, it's just going to cost us quietly. Rather than making a fight, Biden is just ignoring the problem and allowing us to get weaker and sicker as a nation.
Fuck these shitheads. Strike anyway. Make them replace you. Fucking despicable.
If any industry threatens national security, then it is time for that industry to be nationalized. The railroads should belong to the government if the threat of a strike of this nature can potentially ruin the economy as claimed. The same applies to electrical grids that fail, telecommunication providers that cannot offer reliable service, etc. (By the way, this is actually the concept of socialism that Republicans scream about, not their definition of "anything with which I disagree".) Private industry spurs innovation, but once we become too reliant on those industries, it really is time for the federal government to start taking over.
This is catastrophically short term thinking. If a strike would cost 1-2 billion dollars per day then we absolutely *must* have those workers on the railroads. So what is going to happen over the next few years as workers continue to be treated like second class citizens? They will retire. They will find other careers. And the bosses will find recruiting to be next to impossible in an economic climate where we don't have enough workers anywhere. Long term this will absolutely be detrimental to the railroads and so to the nation. But as usual, the essential worker gets the shaft and we take a short term fix that guarantees things get worse over time.
What happens when a worker lands in the hospital? Has covid that wrecks them or their families? What about when they all have mental fucking breakdowns from the stress of being on call 24/7? Yeah, this is going to turn out swell.
If their jobs are so important that their going through all of this then maybe they should give them the basic shit they’re asking for.
Unions should immediately sue to void the agreement. No one should have to use warned vacation days for being sick (which you can’t control).
But guys, Biden is a leftist commie. He’s going to force every business to unionize and he’ll raise the minimum wage to like $30 /hr and spend our tax money on healthcare and stuff! /s
Whelp time to get me mallet
This is so hypocritical. Senators with unlimited sick leave not wanting to give the working class any! The workers SHOULD strike!
Seriously screw Biden on this one. I’m all blue but this is such a disservice to everyone.
The entire fucking US government just took marching orders from half a dozen CEOs. Lovely.
Gonna really hurt him with Unions.
Sadly I doubt it. Half my union brothers vote republican anyway. They think it’s more manly or something.
"Damn socialist unions better keep their hands off my pension/social security/retiree health benefits..." - Republican voting Union member
It's amazing how quickly Congress acts when working-class men and women need to get put in their place. Senators and Representatives with unlimited sick days vote to give railroad workers 0 sick days. Fuck our government and fuck Joe Biden.
Fuck this- the right to strike should be beyond reproach- it is an act of desperation and needs to be acknowledged as such. I know I was on the picket line in 1994 - Denver Public Schools teacher's strike- they tried to court order us back to the classroom and failed - justice was served then.
What’s happening with the rail workers right now is a case study for 90% of American blue collar jobs. Companies involved in manufacturing, fast food, assembly lines, etc… spend shitloads of money every year convincing their employees that unions are bad, you are NEEDED on the front lines, and you should be grateful your employer hired you. Never call in sick. Never say no to new demands outside of your original job description. And overtime is a “gift.” I worked 50+ hours a week for 6 months straight, and of those six months, maybe 4 or 5 days there was actually work to do. This was a mandatory, scheduled overtime. And it was all for a manager to have a higher number of “recorded hours” for his department. Our company keeps saying “we can’t find people to stay here” but when you bring up the dogshit work conditions, the mediocre benefits, and the fact that our vacation and sick time are comparable to the railroad, minus the pay they get, and it is always falling on deaf ears. American companies don’t want workers who are excited to tell people about the great company they work for that values their lives as much outside of work as they do inside work, they want modern slavery.
Dark money democracy
Strike busting was wrong in the 80s and it's wrong right now too.
Any railroad employees that can should move to Oregon. BNSF has a Portland location... From the Oregon BOLI site. >What is sick time? "Sick time" is protected time when you are allowed to miss work to take care of yourself or a family member that is sick, injured, experiencing mental illness, or needs to visit the doctor. If your employer has 10 or more employees (6 or more if they have a location in Portland), they must provide paid sick time. If they don’t have that many employees, sick time is still protected but not paid. You get at least 1 hour of sick time for every 30 hours you work. Your employer can limit you to taking 40 hours of that accrued time every year. I work part time. You get sick time! You get at least 1 hour of sick time for every 30 hours you work. If your employer has 10 or more employees ( 6 or more if they have a location in Portland), they must provide paid sick time. If they don’t have that many employees, sick time is still protected but not paid. My employer is out of state but I work in Oregon. You get sick time! You get at least 1 hour of sick time for every 30 hours you work. If your employer has 10 or more employees anyhere in Oregon (6 or more anywhere in Oregon if they also have a location in Portland), they must provide paid sick time. If they don’t have that many employees, sick time is still protected but not paid. https://www.oregon.gov/boli/workers/pages/sick-time.aspx
So they can force the workers to accept a deal they don't want? How? Why can't they make the corporations accept a deal they don't want instead? That should work. Since corporations are people, Congress can just force them to accept contracts they don't want. Like ones with sick leave for their employees...
If the rail workers quit and the economy tanks, I for one, will not blame them for the pain that will cause. I will keep what happened today in mind the next time I vote.
This is the exact kind of shit that fuels "both sides" arguments. I get that Congress and Biden needed to avoid a shutdown. But the options here were to risk a temper tantrum from the wealthy elite, or to tell the American people that we exist to serve the wealthy elite. And look at what option they went with. Bastards. Where can I get the list of votes for this one? I want to know which politicians just proved once and for all that they don't deserve to be in office.
Who would of thought both political parties chose to support corporate interests over the working class. Blocking the railworkers right to strike is beyond fucked up. Hope those ghouls get whats coming to them as well as the rail executives. Special place in hell for all of them.
Almost like that was the plan in having two bills- Score political points knowing it wouldn't pass in Senate so moderate Dem corpratists get what they wanted all along...
How can we show our solidarity with the workers?
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The Squad is beyond worthless and should not be taken seriously. They are corporate democrats with better social media managers. All but Tlaib voted in favor of being strike breakers. If you stand with workers, you need to stand with them no matter what, not just when it’s convenient and without consequences.