I have been following the possibility of a rail strike that will strike(no pun intended) fear and hate in the eyes of the consumer…..but all that could be premature…..Biden has ridden in on his white horse to save his bacon.
The House moved urgently to head off the looming nationwide rail strike on Wednesday, passing a bill that would bind companies and workers to a proposed settlement that was reached in September but rejected by four of the 12 unions involved. The measure passed by a vote of 290-137 and now heads to the Senate. If approved there, it will be quickly signed by President Biden, who on Monday asked Congress to intervene and avert the rail stoppage, which would unleash an estimated $2 billion-per-day hit on the economy. The unions have threatened to strike if an agreement can’t be reached before a Dec. 9 deadline.
Lawmakers from both parties expressed reservations about overriding the negotiations. And the intervention was particularly difficult for Democratic lawmakers who have traditionally sought to align themselves with the politically powerful labor unions that criticized Biden’s move, the AP reports. Democrats responded to that concern by adding a second vote Wednesday that would add seven days of paid sick leave per year for rail workers covered under the agreement; that bill passed 221 to 207, reports the Washington Post. It will take effect only if the Senate goes along and passes both measures. The call for more paid sick leave was a major sticking point in the talks.
The railroads say the unions have agreed in negotiations over the decades to forgo paid sick time in favor of higher wages and strong short-term disability benefits. The unions maintain that railroads can easily afford to add paid sick time at a time when they are recording record profits. Several of the big railroads involved in these contract talks reported more than $1 billion profit in the third quarter. Republicans voiced support for the measure to block the strike, but criticized the Biden administration for turning to Congress to “step in to fix the mess” and criticized Pelosi’s decision to add the sick leave second bill to the mix. They said the Biden administration’s own special board of arbitrators recommended higher wages to compensate the unions for not including sick time in its recommendations.
So will this settle the problems with band-aid solutions?
I Read, I Write, You Know
“lego ergo scribo”
In Saner Thought 
Nobody should have to work without sick pay in 2022. Unions struggled for too long to achieve that, and should not give it away.
Best wishes, Pete.
I agree…..and too many forgot just how good the unions have done for the workers in the past. chuq
In doing what he did, he has saved our bacon as well. What do you think Trump would have done? My idea was to fire all the essential railroad people and give their jobs to all those migrants who will do the work that Americans refuse to do.
Gee I cannot think of a thing that Trump could have done that would have made sense. chuq
He could have closed the borders tighter so that the trains could not escape to Mexico.
And dry up the produce market and help raise prices higher…..chuq
It doesn’t matter what anybody does, as long as greedy bastards think they can make a nickle every time a moose farts, there is going to be inflation of one kind of another… unless american consumers go on a lot of boycotts.
I do my part…..the government could do more to help as well chuq