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this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2023
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Biden already chose a side when it comes to unions. Ask the rail road workers.
Why does everybody post this tidbit but not the fact that the White House continued working with the rail companies after all of the strike talk and the Tentative Agreement and many rail workers got sick time as well?
I’m not speaking to their stance on unions, just the fact that the President’s job is to represent their constituency, just like all politicians. An economic crash due to a rail shutdown doesn’t benefit any person in the US.
I support unions and workers right to strike but at the cost of potential economic collapse?
I think more focus should be given to the lack of visible support on pro union/worker legislation.
You can't just take away workers right to their own power and self-determination and then think it's all good if you help them get some of the things they want. That's not actually being pro-union.
Every strike causes disruptions, and the bigger the disruption the stronger the strike. Accepting that workers get to use their power to decide what deal is acceptable is part of being pro-labor, even if it means your life is disrupted.
But if you for some reason don't believe that labor can engage in big disruptions to show their bosses they're serious and decide you simply must intervene in a worker-employer negotiation, then enforce the contract the workers wanted. And if you're not willing to force their bosses to accept a contract they don't like, then don't pretend you had no choice when you forced the workers.
There’s a difference between a disruption and the railroads shutting down in a country experiencing a pandemic and economic depression.
Disruption is fine, shelves being more empty, non-essential goods being harder to obtain is fine. Vital goods and services not getting where they need to, people losing their jobs, homes, health, lives etc. is not. I don’t know if all of that would have happened, I leave that to the people who should have an understanding of that impact. Those people elected for that.
Can the President unilaterally force the acceptance of a contract on either side? Was there a claim made that the President had no choice by me? By Biden?
It’s disingenuous to bring up the strike blocking without also acknowledging action taken afterward. It seems like narrative building used to present a skewed perspective. Especially when it’s often brought up not as a statement of fact but as an allusion to something else.
So your stance is that rail workers work for private enterprises but simply cannot strike. They can have pretend unions that join together to ask for stuff, but there's nothing they can do if they don't get it. That's not pro-labor. No one was going to die because the rails weren't running. The citations was always "the economy" and we literally just went through a crisis where supply chains were disrupted and people's jobs were saved by emergency acts. Or if you actually believe the apocalypse proclamations, then rail shouldn't be a private enterprise, and it certainly shouldn't be run by sick people who haven't had a good night's sleep.
It was an act of Congress. It could do nearly anything. There was an amendment for sick days that failed and Biden could have made that a requirement. Or just temporarily seized the railroads while negotiations continue. Truman nationalized the rails to avert a strike.
You can't say this is going to be an apocalypse, with intervention by Congress itself, and then say "oh, but the only option is blocking a strike and forcing company approved solutions".
Oh fuck off with your "disingenuous" insinuation. My initial reply is exactly about how you can't just give them a present after you blocked their core labor power and pretend it's fixes the original harm. The stuff afterward is good positive work, but in no way addresses the core harm of blocking a union's right to withhold their labor. He could have gotten them everything they wanted (he didn't) and it still wouldn't undo making a major attack on the rights of organized labor.
In one comment you say I insinuate disingenuousness and in another you say I called you disingenuous. I stated that presenting just a piece of the whole situation and omitting the rest is disingenuous. I stand by this as being disingenuous can be, quite literally, defined as slightly dishonest, or not speaking the complete truth.
No, that’s not my stance, and it’s not what I stated. My stance is that rail workers can strike, and the elected officials can use the Railway Labor Act to force a contract and delay a strike. My stance on the Railway Labor Act, the Taft-Hartley Act and any number of other pieces of legislation over the decades should be repealed and replaced with more modern legislation that favors workers.
Yeah, Truman nationalized rails multiple times. Do you know what else he did? During the 1946 rail strike, President Harry Truman at one point called for a law to allow him to draft striking rail workers into the military. Even after the strike ended, the House of Representatives passed a bill to draft striking workers (it died in the Senate). In 1950, Truman ordered the U.S. Army to seize control of the country’s railroads in anticipation of a strike.
The picture often changes when you provide all the information.
Holy fuck, I've been on the internet long enough to know when someone is making a personal attack while pretending they're just objectively describing an argument. I think you're a "disingenuous" ass who cries about people being rude to you all while doing the exact same thing.
What the fuck does that have to do with anything? Presidents can nationalize critical infrastructure in times of crisis. That he also did shitty things other times has zero impact on the ability of a president to handle crises with something other than force acceptance of management's terms. Unless you're suggesting we should be happy with a forced settlement because Biden might have drafted the workers into the military instead.
And you call other people "disingenuous". What a fucking joke.
Ok 👍
Because if you sign back to work legislation you are a worthless fuck.
Is that what you want to hear when it's your turn? Fuck this scab ass take. "I support workers rights, no really, it's just I need my treats."
When the working class is expressing it's power and one wants to claim they are "the most union friendly president you've ever seen," you get the fuck out of the way and let it happen.
I would expect that the elected representative acted I. The best interests of the majority of their constituents over that of a few. That’s literally what an elected officials job is supposed to be.
I can be both upset that action against a subset of the population and acknowledge the persons responsibility to work in the best interests of the majority.
That’s why what happens after is so important.
A lot of people in the US seem to tie their emotions up in their politics.
As to a subjective statement like Biden being the most union friendly president, I just ignore comments like that. There are people who claim Trump was the best president ever too. These are opinion statements, not measurable in any form of empirical data.
From what perspective though? Because you could also look at this as the erosion of the bargaining power of every US worker. From that perspective the majority was absolutely not served.
The entire point of the collective bargaining process is that it's supposed to cause disruption. The scope of the disruption should not matter. If your workers not working would cause the collapse of the economy, they should probably be getting whatever they want. If you ask me, taking someone's ability to determine the value of their work is basically slavery. If they all had decided to just quit their jobs instead of entering the bargaining process in good faith, would you have been in support of forcing those people to work those jobs against their will because of the economic fallout? There is no difference between these two paths in my mind.
Then this discussion is moot. The difference between these two is distinct and to suggest otherwise is a false equivalence.
You are doing serious mental gymnastics to make these arguments work...
When capital fucks labour, there is no release valve ;)
I’m sorry you feel the need to turn to insults and derision. That does nothing to support you position and serves only to make you an unlikable person.
The fucking irony of this offense after calling me "disingenuous". It just makes you an unlikable person.
Others have explained the flaw in your logic.
You are just here to shill neo liberal circle jerk.
People ain't having it.
You're wrong, and I find you far more unlikable than the other commenter. Sorry, not sorry.
Ouch
You're wrong, and back to work legislation defanged the main leverage the Union had in the first place. The whole point is being able to strike so you can force the business to accommodate your demands. Take the ability to strike away, and you've just gutted a big point of the Union's power.
Biden signing that into law was incredibly anti-worker, anti-union, and pro-corporate. This just falls back into the "too big to fail" scare tactic, and as someone else pointed out, a scab-ass take.
No matter how you dress this up, you're wrong, and I don't care if you ignore the comments. This point is going to be continually brought up. This is the slippery slope back to the literal wars we use to fight over working conditions because it was illegal to strike. Would you rather us return to civil war?
Let's talk about the history of copper mining in Montana, since you think what Biden did was so fucking great. Those people literally shot at law enforcement officers because it was "illegal to stop working" and the corporations brought in both pinkertons and law enforcement to force people to work.
Those are the stakes, and you can take your scab-ass fucked up opinion and fuck off. Biden was terrible for Unions across this country, and that single move set the stage for a terrible outcome for the American worker.
Ok 👍
The problem is that if you're willing to sacrifice the good of the minority for the stagnation of the masses, everyone is going to suffer. Because the majority is just a conglomeration of lots of different minorities. So no matter the issue, you're one chopping block away from being sacrificed for the sake of maintaining the status quo.
Breaking the strike didn't make anyone's life better... just made it less inconvenient for people who wouldn't benefit from the strike.
The benefit is that if you’re willing to protect the good of the majority for the prevention of greater harm to the masses, everyone is going to benefit.
Changing a few words in your statement flips it the other way.
It didn’t make lives better, it worked to prevent further harm. The making lives better should be coming after the fact in the forms of new legislation be pushed to prevent this scenario while protecting the workers and the unions at the same time.
This is why it bothers me so much when people allude to one action taken as if it means something more while also excluding additional details that don’t support what’s being alluded to.
It’s ok to be upset about blocking the strike while also acknowledging the tough decision to prevent harm to the majority.
What is wrong with stating the president broke the strike but continued to work after the fact to get the unions what they were looking for to begin with?
Then you can focus your criticism on what action has or hasn’t been taken to prevent this situation in the future while protecting the rights of workers or unions?
Wanting your shiny things but supporting unions and workers' right to strike is like trying to reconcile diametrically opposed forces. Pick one, do you want "muh economy" or worker's rights? Compulsion to work is a Soviet Communist tactic, and leads to the slippery slope of armed conflict we use to have here in the US before we all agreed that laborers not-shooting at our servicemen, law enforcement, and Pinkertons was a good thing.
Admittedly that portion was poorly worded on my part. My intent was more to say that I personally support unions and workers rights to strike. However, if I were President with an obligation to all constituents then in the short term I would make the decision that protects the well-being of the majority, which may mean forcing an agreement in the short term.
That’s why I think steps that come after are important because that speaks to the character of the person(s) involved. Specifically Biden’s White House gets credit for continuing to work for what the rail workers were asking for. It’s not nearly enough and certainly doesn’t address the root cause that created the situation in the first place.
In general I think the anti-union legislation, as I referenced in another comment, should be repealed to remove the governments power in this aspect. Critical industry and infrastructure that could cause widespread harm, like in this situation, should not be controlled by private, for profit entities in my opinion. Either nationalize it or give control of it to the unions.
All of this said, rail workers were not forced to continuing working, they were just not allowed to strike at the time. They could have all walked off the job, granted they would not have the protections they get from striking. I don’t work in a field with unions but my personal approach is to use my power of choice and refuse to work if I’m not being treat or compensated fairly.
Because that doesn't fit the narrative as well lmao