For almost ANYONE else in The Gerontocracy, I would mildly excuse them as not cottoning on to the winds shifting to pro-worker in the last 5-10 years. But Railroad-Brain Joe Biden? It's inexcusable that he's caving to the rail execs.
Yeah buddy had a grand-slam opportunity to do the right thing AND burnish his choo-choo bona fides in the process. Instead he shit his shorts at the plate.
I'm not entirely sure that siding with the union would have hurt is approval rating. Unions are pretty popular right now. And, the rail companies are pretty unpopular even with other companies.
If he actually wanted to be pro-union while avoiding the strike, couldn't he have made the proposed legislation to be the union's demands instead of the compromise? It would have been a nice FU to the rail companies that have been bargaining in bad faith and destroying freight rail in the US.
A disgraceful heel-turn from a disgrace. Really reprehensible shit. Good blog though.
For almost ANYONE else in The Gerontocracy, I would mildly excuse them as not cottoning on to the winds shifting to pro-worker in the last 5-10 years. But Railroad-Brain Joe Biden? It's inexcusable that he's caving to the rail execs.
Yeah buddy had a grand-slam opportunity to do the right thing AND burnish his choo-choo bona fides in the process. Instead he shit his shorts at the plate.
I'm not entirely sure that siding with the union would have hurt is approval rating. Unions are pretty popular right now. And, the rail companies are pretty unpopular even with other companies.
If he actually wanted to be pro-union while avoiding the strike, couldn't he have made the proposed legislation to be the union's demands instead of the compromise? It would have been a nice FU to the rail companies that have been bargaining in bad faith and destroying freight rail in the US.
I think it's more the knock-on effects of the economic chaos that would hurt him, not being seen as too pro-union. And yeah I agree, the original agreement should have included the sick days. There's a great NYMag blog about why the rail companies are so stubborn on the paid leave front that explained a lot for me as well (TL;DR, it would hurt their bottom line exponentially more than upping pay). https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/11/rail-strike-why-the-railroads-wont-give-in-on-paid-leave-psr-precision-scheduled-railroading.html
Spoiler for anyone who doesn't want to read the full Intelligencer article: it doesn't make the railroads look any better.