"After months of negotiations, the IBEW’s Railroad members at four of the largest U.S. freight carriers finally have what they’ve long sought but that many working people take for granted: paid sick days.
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.”
Cue leftists: “Yes our stated goals were achieved and objections overcome, but it didn’t arrived perfectly packaged with a bow on top looking like our ideal utopia, therefore all problems with progress are clearly the Democrats fault.”
Seriously, please stop. Progress is never going to occur in exactly the way you think it should. It’s still progress. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
4 sick days, and the ability to sacrifice earned vacation days for 3 more. You really think they would have had to settle for that if they were allowed to strike? It’s not even close to what they asked for, and they had significantly more leverage than the company until the Biden admin stepped in and defanged the union entirely.
They specifically asked the president to not interfere with their right to strike. Once he had taken their rights away from them, they lost nearly all leverage they had, and so the agreement negotiated is better than they would’ve been able to get themselves, but worse than if their rights hadn’t been infringed. Of course it’s a win, it’s more than the 0 they had before, but it’s not sufficient, and still leaves our railroads dangerously understaffed, and does nothing about the other components the workers had demanded, such as the points based attendance systems that are themselves leading to significant safety concerns among railworkers.
Prove it then. You’re moving the goalposts here, so explain why you’re so sure that they can be moved. What evidence is there that the rail companies, who were refusing to give any sick days, would have capitulated to more than what they’ve agreed to now?
For that matter, I’m not convinced that the public would overall support the striking workers. If towns lost electricity, heating, and/or clean drinking water because of delays caused by the strike, I couldn’t see them standing behind the workers. Even though of course the rail companies are to blame.
Which would a rail company rather do, lose hundreds of millions of dollars a week? Or, negotiate with the union? Why does the public need to support the strike? The public didn’t support the strikes in the 1890s-1930s that won the 40 hour week, overtime, minimum wage, and various other labor benefits. They were too busy being propagandized by the complicit media of their day.
If that logic worked, every strike would instantly win because the company loses out on millions of dollars. Writers have been striking for quite a while now and you don’t see any capitulation. Just losing money isn’t enough.
And this is why the public opinion matters. If the company thinks they can wait out the strike, they’re going to choose that. In that time period, public opinion can either strengthen or weaken their position.
This isn’t the 1890s-1930s. The head of the factory isn’t onsite when the workers decide to go on strike. The head of the factory isn’t unfathomably richer than the workers. Income inequality has escalated to the point that owners aren’t going to feel the hit of a strike immediately. The rich CEOs can afford to wait without their lives being affected. It’s cheaper for them to work towards the end of an unsuccessful strike than to capitulate.
Just so you don’t get the wrong idea, I think the solution is actually nationalizing industries, at least partially. Rail service has become too crucial to our way of life to let a private business handle it. We’re seeing how they abuse their position to neglect workers and enrich themselves.
Yeah, I’m with you there, though I’m likely further to the left than you, I believe all industries should either be nationalized or socialized depending on its function.
I think we’d be much better served trying to make that happen than argue if a strike would’ve been more successful or not. At the end of the day, we’ll never know the answer there. It’s better we agree that good was done. We disagree on if that was the most good possible or not, but we agree it was good. We’re better off trying to do more good than figure out if we maximized that previous good. One in the hand is worth two in the bush after all.
Oh come on. Better terms for owners would have been doing absolutely nothing and leaving the rail workers with zero paid sick leave.
Public opinion is a reality whether you like it or not. An unpopular strike that disrupted regular people’s lives might sound like a great idea in your utopia, but here in the real world what it’s likely to accomplish is support for the suppression of strikes. You can’t FORCE class consciousness onto people. You can try, but it’s not going to work.
The union itself is reporting this as a win. How is that not enough for you?
No, that would be the BEST terms for the owners. That wasn’t an option, because that could potentially lead to people in the streets. They made minor concessions to placate the workers and so Dems could say they did something.
Are you seriously saying that the union never would have gotten more than this if the strike hadn’t been crushed? This is as good as it get for the workers, right? The Dems stepping in was of zero benefit to the workers.
As far as the Union saying it’s a win….what the fuck else were they going to say? They had no cards left to play when the strike was crushed. The leaders were basically forced to accept this and say thank you. That’s how shit works under capitalism.
Uh…they could say “this is not what we wanted, this is bullshit, but we’ll take it if we have to” because there’s utterly not one thing stopping them from saying that.
Do you not understand that the initial demands from the union were MORE than they actually wanted to get in the end? Because that’s how negotiations work. What everybody is demanding in the opening round is not what anyone actually expects to get in the end.
The union itself reporting this as a win tells me that this is where they were hoping to end up, or very close to it
February 2023:
https://www.reuters.com/business/white-house-renews-pressure-railroads-over-paid-sick-leave-2023-02-09/
“White House renews pressure on railroads over paid sick leave”
June 2023:
https://www.ibew.org/media-center/Articles/23Daily/2306/230620_IBEWandPaid
"After months of negotiations, the IBEW’s Railroad members at four of the largest U.S. freight carriers finally have what they’ve long sought but that many working people take for granted: paid sick days.
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.”
Cue leftists: “Yes our stated goals were achieved and objections overcome, but it didn’t arrived perfectly packaged with a bow on top looking like our ideal utopia, therefore all problems with progress are clearly the Democrats fault.”
Seriously, please stop. Progress is never going to occur in exactly the way you think it should. It’s still progress. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Democrats: “Better than nothing” ™
Yes. That’s how politics work in actual reality.
Maybe for the peasants, but the rich get everything they want at lightning speeds.
4 sick days, and the ability to sacrifice earned vacation days for 3 more. You really think they would have had to settle for that if they were allowed to strike? It’s not even close to what they asked for, and they had significantly more leverage than the company until the Biden admin stepped in and defanged the union entirely.
The union itself reports this agreement as a win. How is that not enough for you?
They specifically asked the president to not interfere with their right to strike. Once he had taken their rights away from them, they lost nearly all leverage they had, and so the agreement negotiated is better than they would’ve been able to get themselves, but worse than if their rights hadn’t been infringed. Of course it’s a win, it’s more than the 0 they had before, but it’s not sufficient, and still leaves our railroads dangerously understaffed, and does nothing about the other components the workers had demanded, such as the points based attendance systems that are themselves leading to significant safety concerns among railworkers.
Prove it then. You’re moving the goalposts here, so explain why you’re so sure that they can be moved. What evidence is there that the rail companies, who were refusing to give any sick days, would have capitulated to more than what they’ve agreed to now?
For that matter, I’m not convinced that the public would overall support the striking workers. If towns lost electricity, heating, and/or clean drinking water because of delays caused by the strike, I couldn’t see them standing behind the workers. Even though of course the rail companies are to blame.
Which would a rail company rather do, lose hundreds of millions of dollars a week? Or, negotiate with the union? Why does the public need to support the strike? The public didn’t support the strikes in the 1890s-1930s that won the 40 hour week, overtime, minimum wage, and various other labor benefits. They were too busy being propagandized by the complicit media of their day.
If that logic worked, every strike would instantly win because the company loses out on millions of dollars. Writers have been striking for quite a while now and you don’t see any capitulation. Just losing money isn’t enough.
And this is why the public opinion matters. If the company thinks they can wait out the strike, they’re going to choose that. In that time period, public opinion can either strengthen or weaken their position.
This isn’t the 1890s-1930s. The head of the factory isn’t onsite when the workers decide to go on strike. The head of the factory isn’t unfathomably richer than the workers. Income inequality has escalated to the point that owners aren’t going to feel the hit of a strike immediately. The rich CEOs can afford to wait without their lives being affected. It’s cheaper for them to work towards the end of an unsuccessful strike than to capitulate.
Just so you don’t get the wrong idea, I think the solution is actually nationalizing industries, at least partially. Rail service has become too crucial to our way of life to let a private business handle it. We’re seeing how they abuse their position to neglect workers and enrich themselves.
Yeah, I’m with you there, though I’m likely further to the left than you, I believe all industries should either be nationalized or socialized depending on its function.
Ok, now on this point I agree with you completely. If losing a service will do that much damage to the public, then that service should be socialized.
I think we’d be much better served trying to make that happen than argue if a strike would’ve been more successful or not. At the end of the day, we’ll never know the answer there. It’s better we agree that good was done. We disagree on if that was the most good possible or not, but we agree it was good. We’re better off trying to do more good than figure out if we maximized that previous good. One in the hand is worth two in the bush after all.
Crushing a labor strike so that Dems could negotiate better terms for the owners. Truly a win for the working class. You did it Libs!
Oh come on. Better terms for owners would have been doing absolutely nothing and leaving the rail workers with zero paid sick leave.
Public opinion is a reality whether you like it or not. An unpopular strike that disrupted regular people’s lives might sound like a great idea in your utopia, but here in the real world what it’s likely to accomplish is support for the suppression of strikes. You can’t FORCE class consciousness onto people. You can try, but it’s not going to work.
The union itself is reporting this as a win. How is that not enough for you?
No, that would be the BEST terms for the owners. That wasn’t an option, because that could potentially lead to people in the streets. They made minor concessions to placate the workers and so Dems could say they did something.
Are you seriously saying that the union never would have gotten more than this if the strike hadn’t been crushed? This is as good as it get for the workers, right? The Dems stepping in was of zero benefit to the workers.
As far as the Union saying it’s a win….what the fuck else were they going to say? They had no cards left to play when the strike was crushed. The leaders were basically forced to accept this and say thank you. That’s how shit works under capitalism.
Uh…they could say “this is not what we wanted, this is bullshit, but we’ll take it if we have to” because there’s utterly not one thing stopping them from saying that.
Do you not understand that the initial demands from the union were MORE than they actually wanted to get in the end? Because that’s how negotiations work. What everybody is demanding in the opening round is not what anyone actually expects to get in the end.
The union itself reporting this as a win tells me that this is where they were hoping to end up, or very close to it
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