788
Ocasio-Cortez endorses Biden's reelection campaign, sending a strong signal of Democratic unity
(www.independent.co.uk)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2023
788 points (95.1% liked)
politics
19088 readers
3784 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
That point about the rail workers isn't accurate
From https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/6/23/2177130/-Big-win-for-Rail-Workers-under-the-Biden-Administration-info-on-the-climate-answer-America-needs
IBEW stands for international brotherhood of electrical workers. They have a division of electricians that work on railroads. I dont know why this guy keeps getting quoted as some head of railroad workers. Thats also one of the unions that voted in favor of the contract with no sick days, it was actual rail worker unions opposing it that were planning on striking before Biden decided workers dont get to strike.
I'm aware of who they are, that article just had the easiest quote to pull showing that the admin kept working at it quietly behind the scenes. A better, yet more convoluted article would have been the one I'm linking below that shows the wins so far, the work that still needs to be done, more sources speaking on how their individual unions are doing, and a larger conglomerate of players still helping (the Biden admin is still a player)
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/may/01/railroad-workers-union-win-sick-leave
oh good, a minority of rail workers got the right to be sick after Biden outlawed their right to collective bargain
Majority*, more or less the only ones still bargaining are the operators, and I don't understand your cynicism as the work is still being done. It's obvious from the results so far that it's succeeding, just slowly and out of the spotlight.
"granted paid sick days to almost half their workforce." is PR speak for minority.
My cynicism stems from the fact that collective bargaining was outlawed. Telling unions they're not allowed to go on strike. That's real, the president forbade a union to do what unions do, that's now a precedent we can just call upon whenever workers rights might inconvenience rich people, shit's not okay. Kind of hard to negotiate when your one point of leverage you have on the rich is not allowed. Any of this 'work still needing done' would have been done a whole lot sooner and better if not for Biden.
Older article
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/most-unionized-us-rail-workers-now-have-new-sick-leave-2023-06-05/#:~:text=Under%20the%20agreement%20effective%20Aug,use%20as%20paid%20sick%20time.
I also disagree with the "better" part and the precedent you think that vote sets, for a few complicated reasons. First, "better" would have included hurting 100% of Americans with even more increased prices than were already being suffered from inflation numbers on the back end of the COVID economy. The administration had to choose between helping the union workers and helping all Americans. In the end, they chose both, just not immediately as illustrated above. As far as the precedent goes, rail unions are in a very unique position as Congress has a permanent seat at the bargaining table, this is not something other unions face. While we're on precedents, they had already agreed on a contract months before and still moved to strike, that's also a dangerous precedent. The whole thing was a shit show top to bottom. All things considered, I think the Biden admin is handling it the best that any ever could have.
Yeah, you think the labor strikes to get us the 8 hour work day and overtime laws didnt raise prices? This logic you're using can dismiss any labor movement, because the employers are holding prices hostage. Same logic used against minimum wage, against child labor laws. I cant afford shit and Im willing to afford even less shit temporarily for another industry to get better workers rights. Anything to hurt scumbag employers not even allowing workers to get sick.
And no, they didnt agree on a contract months before. Some union leaders agreed to it, others rejected it, no one ratified it, before congress and Biden enforced the agreement by legislation. Why the hell would they strike against a contract they agreed with?
Man you are debating in serious bad faith of you're going to posit me as anti union.
You're right, all unions had not agreed in the contracts months before, several agreed, but after brushing up, 3 of the 12 unions objected and it only takes 1 to spike the negotiations, that's my error. I was mistaken in believing that when they sent the negotiated contracts to Congress in September that they had reached agreement, but moved to strike after negotiations feel apart in the cooling phase.
As far as everything else goes, yes, the point of strikes is to cause discomfort as a way of balancing power between labor and capital, however that doesn't change the government's obligation when it's of such large consequence. They had exactly one lever and were forced to pull it, some more gleefully than others. At the end of the day, the Biden administration didn't let the conversation stop there, and that is what sets the administration apart for the alternative.
again, this applies to every major labor movement in history, I would definitely call this anti-union if you're saying governments should prevent their one point of leverage over employers. You know what happens without the government intervening? The employers cave, and that's what prevents the strikes that would hurt everyone else. But why would they have in this scenario?
Alright, I'll bite. Name me any other labor movement where a single union's negotiations have the power to evaporate up to 4% of the nation's GDP in its first month?
I ask you that to illustrate that the rail situation was absolutely dire with a projection on 90+billion in losses for the country each day after the first day and a projection of 700,000 lost jobs after the first month. It's the only reason the government even has a seat at that bargaining table and it's a damn good one. I wouldn't dare give that power carte blanche, but I'm not faulting the government for taking the steps it took in that situation. Instead, I'll choose to reward the further efforts to get the unions what they deserve even after being forced to play their hand.
The progressive move forward would be to dissolve and nationalize the rails after that shit show, but that's a completely different conversation. We don't have a system built on progressive values, we have one that's been shattered and glued together several times and these are the late stage knells that we can expect at this point. But the path to actually building those progressive systems isn't to throw away progress due to imperfection. The Biden admin getting those wins is progress worth preserving and building upon is my point.
Yeah, they're a very important workforce, that was rapidly dwindling over time, over shit like not being allowed to be sick. How much does that hurt the GDP? The railroad companies made the situation dire themselves by teetering the economy on fewer and fewer, harder and harder worked workers. How about this, to save the economy, Biden forces the employers to agree to what the union workers settle on.
I don't disagree with that being a better solution, but it wasn't an option. Unironically, this was the train car moral dilemma. I think you're undermining your own argument, though. That while rapidly declining workforce due to the sick day issue and the issues that arise from that may very well be a reason the Biden admin is trying to right that wrong. I still argue that instead of changing who the government forces to agree, the rail system should be nationalized. We've seen that the companies in charge of them clearly can't manage them not just for their playing chicken with the economy forcing the government to bail them out of that disaster, but also the several toxic derailments since.
Listen, I'm thrilled that the workers got their sick days and credit where credit's due to anyone in the admin who helped secure that, but that doesn't make my point inaccurate. The Biden administration helped deny railroad workers their right to strike. That counts as breaking the back of the strike, even if after breaking their back they turned around and gave them (at least part) of what they were asking for. Breaking strikes via a literal act of Congress is a deeply upsetting, dangerous, and anti-worker move. Full stop.
In contrast to the IBEW statements you've quoted up above, look at the contrasting tone from the RWU in a recent Jacobin article:
(Emphasis added by me)