The struggle for workers’ rights is not one battle, and enforcing a precedent that the government can and will back corps during a strike diminishes the power of the strike, arguably the most powerful tools for workers’ rights, at is core. Biden essentially declared strikes aren’t acceptable, but they’ll deign to help groups when they see fit, and when this happens under a republican government, we all know there’ll be no work done afterwards to satisfy the workers, who now have a diminished position to work with.
The foundation of workers’ rights that’s been built up over the last hundred+ years was very much damaged by Biden, and he shouldn’t get a pass for that. At best it was a stupid blunder he worked to fix, at worst it was a manipulative effort to weaken the effectiveness of these groups while also establishing a reliance on “sympathetic” governmental powers as necessary to get anything done. Neither is particularly great.
Alternatively, you could look at it as the Biden administration declared that strikes above a certain level of disruption to critical infrastructure warrant the government stepping in, even if the demands are valid.
Something about the administration unambiguously endorsing a large but not critical infrastructure strike, like they are with the UAW, implies that maybe the point isn’t to signal that strikes are unacceptable.
It’s almost like the executive branch has to balance a myriad of competing interests, all of which are important.
The government could’ve stepped in in support of the striking workers, but they didn’t. Now that the strike isn’t causing “problems”, they’re all for it!
Yes, that’s almost precisely it. The administration wants to avoid problems with critical infrastructure, but supports strikes that aren’t threatening critical infrastructure.
It’s why you see the administration negotiate to prevent a strike, block the strike, and then help negotiate for what the strike was aiming to get, and then go on to support workers who are on strike.
I never claimed it was hypocritical. I’m saying it’s duplicitous. When the chips were down, Biden chose corporate interests over workers when he just as well could have pressured the corpos instead. Now he’s acting chummy-chummy with workers when it suites him better.
The struggle for workers’ rights is not one battle, and enforcing a precedent that the government can and will back corps during a strike diminishes the power of the strike, arguably the most powerful tools for workers’ rights, at is core. Biden essentially declared strikes aren’t acceptable, but they’ll deign to help groups when they see fit, and when this happens under a republican government, we all know there’ll be no work done afterwards to satisfy the workers, who now have a diminished position to work with.
The foundation of workers’ rights that’s been built up over the last hundred+ years was very much damaged by Biden, and he shouldn’t get a pass for that. At best it was a stupid blunder he worked to fix, at worst it was a manipulative effort to weaken the effectiveness of these groups while also establishing a reliance on “sympathetic” governmental powers as necessary to get anything done. Neither is particularly great.
Alternatively, you could look at it as the Biden administration declared that strikes above a certain level of disruption to critical infrastructure warrant the government stepping in, even if the demands are valid.
Something about the administration unambiguously endorsing a large but not critical infrastructure strike, like they are with the UAW, implies that maybe the point isn’t to signal that strikes are unacceptable.
It’s almost like the executive branch has to balance a myriad of competing interests, all of which are important.
The government could’ve stepped in in support of the striking workers, but they didn’t. Now that the strike isn’t causing “problems”, they’re all for it!
Yes, that’s almost precisely it. The administration wants to avoid problems with critical infrastructure, but supports strikes that aren’t threatening critical infrastructure.
It’s why you see the administration negotiate to prevent a strike, block the strike, and then help negotiate for what the strike was aiming to get, and then go on to support workers who are on strike.
That’s not hypocrisy, that’s nuance.
I never claimed it was hypocritical. I’m saying it’s duplicitous. When the chips were down, Biden chose corporate interests over workers when he just as well could have pressured the corpos instead. Now he’s acting chummy-chummy with workers when it suites him better.