If Railroad Workers Can 'Tank The Economy,' Perhaps They Deserve Sick Days?

This is bad and embarrassing.

There are piles of headlines from today and yesterday reading some version of "Senate averts railroad strike."

" Freight rail strike averted, after frenzied negotiations " — Politico

" Senate votes to avert rail strike, sends the legislation to Biden " — NBC

" With Senate Vote, Congress Moves to Avert Rail Strike " — New York Times 

" Congress votes to avert rail strike amid dire warnings " — Associated Press

" Senate passes legislation to avert nationwide rail strike " — Axios

Of course, the Senate didn't really avert a national railroad strike. "Avert" would imply that they did something, passed some kind of legislation that made the strike unnecessary. No, they just forced workers to accept an unacceptable contract and barred them from going on strike.

Why? Because the big railroad bosses threatened to tank the economy if they didn't.

All the workers wanted was a few sick days. Currently, they have no sick days. They are allowed to use their vacation time when they are sick, but that has to be approved several days ahead of time at least — a system that doesn't work so well for those without psychic powers. Very few people know that they are going to get COVID or the flu or any other illness several days before they actually get it. It's not generally the kind of thing one can plan ahead for. Were this the case, I certainly would not have scheduled finally getting COVID for Thanksgiving this year.

A strike would have cost us $2 billion a day, and it would have been averted by said bosses giving in and giving their employees some sick days, but they refused. They wanted so badly to not have to give their workers guaranteed sick days that they were perfectly willing to destroy the economy in order to not have to do that, and our Congress gave in to them.

The railroad industry bought back about $125 billion of its own stock during the pandemic. It is truly not hurting. And while the new contract has a fair and healthy raise for workers of almost 25 percent over the next several years, a raise doesn't help if you just got fired for catching the flu.

The Senate voted 80-15 to force the railroad workers to accept a contract they had previously rejected. Awkwardly, the majority of those 15 votes were the sort of Republicans who have recently decided to try to rebrand themselves as being "pro-worker" — like Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio. The Democrats who voted against it were Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand, Elizabeth Warren, Jeff Merkley and John Hickenlooper, along with Independent Bernie Sanders (VT). Senators Chris Murphy and Raphael Warnock did not vote at all. Senator Warnock is on the campaign trail, and Senator Murphy was ... out sick.

Forty-three senators, all of whom have unlimited sick days themselves, also voted down a measure to guarantee the workers a mere seven paid sick days. It would have passed, except for the filibuster, as all Democrats except Joe Manchin — plus Republicans Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, John Kennedy, Mike Braun, and Marco Rubio — voted for it.

This is, of course, all being spun as something they didn't want to do but simply "had" to do to keep the economy from tanking, because — as mentioned — a railroad strike would have cost us billions. It's not. They could have sided with the 115,000 workers and forced the railroad companies to comply with the entirely fair demands of their workforce. They didn't.

It is fully understandable that they did not want the economy to tank, and that many Democrats were scared that they would be blamed if the workers went on strike and it did. Because they probably would have been. But if those workers are valuable enough to tank the economy, then surely they are valuable enough to merit sick days . Especially given the fact that, despite all appearances, we are still experiencing a pandemic. Hundreds of people are still dying every day from COVID.

That being said, this is not a good look either . I'm sorry, but it's not. It's a bad look for the Democrats who voted to bar the workers from striking and it's a bad look for Joe Biden who, while still asserting himself as "the most pro-labor President ever," encouraged them to do so. It disempowers organized labor and empowers businesses to not take union demands seriously.

The United States is the only country in the world with no official paid annual leave for workers. Every other country in the world, including countries with horrific labor rights records, requires employers to offer a minimum number of vacation days. Most countries also offer separate parental leave and sick leave .

Some of us sometimes wonder why that is, especially when our politicians do so love to pander to the working class in other ways. It's because the automatic assumption, even among many Democrats, is that it is the workers who are the problem in disputes like this and that they are the ones whose excesses must be tamed. They are the ones seen as asking for too much. We don't see wealthy railroad companies who want workers who can't take sick days as asking for too much, we don't see their desires as excessive or unreasonable.

But it is, in fact, entirely unreasonable to feel entitled to a workforce that can't take sick days.

It wasn't the railroad workers who were threatening our economy, it was the railroad companies. It wasn't the workers who wanted something excessive and unreasonable, it was the railroad companies. It wasn't the workers who were forcing the strike, it was the railroad companies. And they should not have been rewarded.

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