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Solidarity!
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2023
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They did end up getting paid sick leave in the end! The Biden administration kept negotiating with the companies until they capitulated.
That's good to hear. Still left a really bitter taste that they interfered. Not to mention the whole East Palestine stuff.
From what I understand East Palestine was unrelated to the union's demands. It still really highlights though just how shitty the companies are and how little they care.
I'm not thrilled with how everything went down either, but I do think it was the least worst option. The rail industry is "too big to fail", and the CEOs were perfectly willing to tank the economy and delay crucial food, energy, and water shipments. All for just some more money.
I firmly believe now that the industry needs to be nationalized. If a strike will cause more harm to the public than to the owners, those workers are essential for our everyday lives and the government needs to take control. And by causing harm, I don't mean "oh no the gifts will be late for Christmas" -- some of the issues with this would've been places running out of water treatment chemicals or heating in the winter.
The way I see it, the rail CEOs took the entire country hostage. They need to be ousted and their businesses taken over.
Its a damn shame it isnt nationalized. East Palestine wasn't exactly related but yeah, it did highlight. Not to mention it failed because of regulaions those business leaders rallied against. The UK is worse with this stuff and have a more gross history with their rail ceos and strikes.
We should at least push to nationalize the rails and sell access. Give the public interest more control over quality of the infrastructure, actually give Amtrak scheduling priority, force more strict regulations on safety equipment and procedures that would have prevented East Palestine.
Rail workers are still on-call 24/7, the raises they got are below inflation, and I'm pretty sure Biden's legislation only grants one additional day of leave with various rail companies granting a handful of additional days on top of that, with unused days not carrying over from year to year. Rail workers had leverage to demand more than this — rail networks are critical infrastructure — but the government struck down that leverage and then awarded them a concession prize that was less than they wanted. I see it as a blow to the power of unions, not a victory. It sends the message that the government can destroy your strike and then arbitrarily choose to give you whatever concessions they feel are appropriate. Biden could have chosen to give them nothing, they didn't win this. And at the end of the day, their bosses can still call them in at 4 in the morning and they still lose their job if they don't show.