Joe Biden Presidency thread *Please read OP - Threadbanned Users Added 4/5/21*

Lol.

If there was a strike, you would be calling for Biden's head.

More embarrassment for the Biden administration

Really? I would think looking for fairly basic conditions like more than 1 days paid sick leave is not much to ask and something most people would support.

What this does prove is the democrats have just as such contempt for the working classes as the republicans do , it's just they have most of the media due to them being better at pretending they care and the gullible fools falling for it all the time.

The democrats are merely a wolf in sheeps clothing .

I'm disappointed you didn't try to shoehorn "identity politics" in there somewhere.

Followed by the guy who stole a suitcase. It's scandal after scandal these days!!

Whether Bernie calls him out or not, the details are pretty clear. Biden has a poor track record of supporting initiatives that go against working class folks. Between this latest issues, his decades long support for the student loan industry, his support for the crime bills of the 90s, or the various free trade agreements. He's the same neo-liberal he's always been.

Any deal that. ~ 50% of voters reject is patently not a good deal. We wouldn't consider a referendum passing with a similar margin to be a good example of support.

You can try and hand wave away the articles written about the 2016 election, but it's fairly well documented and accepted that large feelings of disenfranchisement, and feeling ignored by Democrats played a significant part in voting sentiment.

If the Biden administration had included the paid sick days, the companies would have accepted it, as I doubt they would want to be seen as being responsible for a strike due to selfishness. Thankfully for them, the Administration is in lockstep with their desires and delivered the deal they wanted. Whereas the Unions are forced to accept any deal forced upon them by Congress .

Once again, you repeat the fallacy that the deal was crafted to pass Congress. They were not part of any consideration. They would always vote in favor of imposing the contract, that's a given.

It's not arrogance, it's reading the reporting on the negotiations and what the workers themselves have been saying. You've already declared your disdain of any media that doesn't support your narratives.

The obvious fallacy is presenting the Congressional vote as being anything other than a rubber stamp. They would always vote to force the Unions to accept the deal, as they are comfortably pro-business. There was no danger that the vote would go any other way. So saying it was necessary for the Administration to craft the contract to pass a vote is nonsense. It was always written to support the interests of the Railway companies.

Said companies would have been extremely unlikely to reject a deal that the PEB drafted. They have had record profits over the last number of years. Going to the public and saying that sick days are too costly would rightly be laughed out of it.

You repeatedly reference " a majority of unions", despite it being shown that ~ 50% of the workers rejected the deal. Why are you trying to dissemble that? You're throwing personal attacks at me, for providing evidence of the process involved, and why it's a bad deal.

You are trying to conflate two separate events. Congress would always vote to force a contract that would prevent a strike. That's entirely different from a vote on a stand alone measure to provide paid sick days. That fell victim to normal partisan politics, although I was surprised that Rubio and Cruz voted in favor. An easy win/win for Biden. Delivers the contract the Railways want, and gets useful outcome politically with the second vote.

You seem bizarrely willing to defend the position of the railway companies here. The 25% raise, that they so generously agreed to, amounts to an inflation indexing from what I've read. The sick pay they refused, would have been approx 2% of their annual profits. The reasoning used to reject it, in agreement with the by the PEB it should be added, was that it would allow the workers to create a healthy work/ life balance. These are the people you're looking to stump for? If an employer has issues balancing their rosters due to staff shortage, then they should probably hire more people. I don't think there are any economic barriers prevented these companies doing so, given the billions they make in profit.

One can gauge that this is a bad deal, both by the fact that roughly 50% of the voters rejected it, and also by the details therein. One wouldn't consider a referendum passing with only 50% support to be a good thing, or an indication of a proposition enjoying widespread support.

What I understand, is that the Railways companies have been exploiting their workers since their inception, and that the fight to extract concessions for decent working conditions has been a long and literally bloody fight for the workers and Unions. Your attitude reeks of letting Wall St regulate Wall St. The Railways know what they're about alright, and it's maximizing profits no matter what. This entire situation would have been avoided had they agreed to given sick days, which is clearly not an issue for them economically. It's pure greed and spite that drives their actions, nothing else.

Those companies would have had to accept the terms of any deal the PEB created. What was the alternative? Tell the American public they were willing to crash the economy because they don't want to give a basic right to the workers, one they can easily afford. Thankfully for them, the Administration looked out for their interests by ensuring that would never be the case. So now the Unions are under the thumb of Congress, faced with the choice of accepting a bad deal, or forcing the issue with unlawful strike action. I hope they do fight for their rights and don't let the companies and government get away with a further erosion of workers rights.

As you alluded to, the railroads have century+ of experience dealing with a poor public image. Nobody is going to #cancel the railroads, either, for the same basic economic reasons.

The 1877 strike didn't end, almost 2 months later, because the corporations lost and we nationalized the industry - hahahaha no. This was the massacre that prompted the Posse Comitatus Act. 50+ days of striking for fair wages and they were killed by the national guard. It was more palatable I guess.

A strike now for 7 days of paid sick leave? Not a hope in this political climate. And the polls reflect that, if you care about that sort of thing - and you are @AbusesToilets , arguing about who and what unions supported what options:

If you wanted 4 more years of MAGA, I couldn't think of a better way to get it in 2024 than by if Biden had encouraged a railway strike to occur over paid sick leave, when paid sick leave, as I understand it, can still be worked on via executive fanangling:

I don't agree that would be politically suicide for Biden to support the workers. Public sentiment is very much trending in favor of improving working conditions. You can see that in the recent unionisation efforts with Amazon, the pushback against the ending of remote work.

One of the consistent knocks against the Democrats is their failure to follow through on proposals to enact changes when in power. Biden claims to be the working man's President. This is a perfect moment to demonstrate that. From a purely objective point of view, the Railroad companies would equally suffer massively, both immediately from a strike and also a recession.

Again, you're trying to make one thing out to be another. There's a massive difference between voting to enforce a contract in order to avert a strike and the resulting economic disruption, over voting for providing sick leave. Averting economic strife is a broadly bipartisan issue, one that doesn't allow for either party to garner kudos. Whereas voting on providing sick leave would have provided an absolute win for the Democrats and Biden. The only shock was that any Republican voted for it at all.

I'm not basing my opinions on fantasy, strikes and economic pressure have been the fulcrum that's provided leverage for every advance made in workers rights in history. Usually with considerable violence, as Overheals link showed. You're the fantasist if you think a business will ever willingly compromise without the threat of industrial action, and it says a lot about the quality of the people involved that such simple demands have brought us to this place.

The irony of talking about virtue signaling, when Biden states he's the working man's President after refusing to support them.