Re: The Not Railroad Strike

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It's the Democratic Party politicians as they are now, call them Democrats or neoliberals or just liberals, they are just like Republicans they are more concerned with getting reelected. The Democratic Party is no longer the party of the working man/woman, they now share that group with the Republicans. They're the party of the wealthy just like Republicans have always been and mostly college educated, which Republicans used to be and they mostly live on the blue coasts. I'm college educated and I live on a blue coast, I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy in the Democratic Party. They talk union and get union donations, but do they really support the unions?
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: The Not Railroad Strike

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I agree with HighDesert. The working person doesn't have any real representation from elected officials.

It is a national disgrace that working people don't have paid sick leave. Every working person should have paid sick time off. Every person should also should have available healthcare no matter what their employment status is. Medicare or whatever you want to call it for all. Medical insurance and care should not be dependent on your employment status.

Maybe the Congress Critters should have to survive with what the people in the lowest income level have for sick time and medical insurance.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: The Not Railroad Strike

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President Joe Biden signed legislation Friday to block a national U.S. railroad strike that could have devastated the American economy. The U.S. Senate voted 80 to 15 on Thursday to impose a tentative contract deal reached in September on a dozen unions representing 115,000 workers, who could have gone on strike on Dec. 9. But the Senate failed to approve a measure that would have provided paid sick days to railroad workers.

"It was tough for me but it was the right thing to do at the moment -- save jobs, to protect millions of working families from harm and disruption and to keep supply chains stable around the holidays," Biden said, adding the deal avoided "an economic catastrophe." Eight of 12 unions had ratified the deal. But some labor leaders have criticized Biden, a self-described friend of labor, for asking Congress to impose a contract that workers in four unions have rejected over its lack of paid sick leave.
Teamsters President Sean O'Brien harshly criticized the Senate vote on sick leave. "Rail carriers make record profits. Rail workers get zero paid sick days. Is this OK? Paid sick leave is a basic human right. This system is failing," O'Brien wrote on Twitter.

Congress invoked its sweeping powers to block strikes involving transportation - authority it does not have in other labor disputes. The contract that will take effect with Biden's signature includes a 24% compounded pay increase over five years and five annual $1,000 lump-sum payments.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden- ... 022-12-02/
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: The Not Railroad Strike

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I can't make a direct comparison any more between what Biden did with what St. Ronnie did--which I consider to be way worse. I think Biden saw that eight unions supported the deal and four did not. He spent a lot of time in the Senate, so he has a good idea about what could happen. I still see him as a neoliberal, but I will accept this reluctantly as he says the labor fight is not over. Time will tell.

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

Re: The Not Railroad Strike

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Manchin slammed for rejecting paid leave for union workers who 'helped build the state’s economy'
"Four out of 12 rail unions—representing the majority of rail workers—have been threatening to strike, after a labor deal brokered by President Joe Biden failed to meet their demands for paid sick leave," The New Republic has reported. "Workers currently get zero paid sick days. Biden, who has touted himself as a 'pro-labor president,' called for Congress to impose the deal anyway and block the strike, saying it would cause too much economic damage."

Out of all Senate lawmakers, six Republican lawmakers voted with Democrats in favor of the bill. Manchin was the only Democratic lawmaker to vote against the bill.
https://www.alternet.org/2022/12/manchin/

If Manchild had his way West Virginia would still be run by coal company towns that have their own fiat money and keep the people in debt, with the state song being Sixteen Tons.

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: The Not Railroad Strike

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From an interesting opinion piece at NBC.
“The president was in a hard place, trying to maintain safe supply chains and get people their Christmas presents,” said Faiz Shakir, an adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, “but what workers have felt for the past few decades is they’re always getting the shaft.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white- ... -rcna59943

The Teamsters Union came out big in 2020 to support Biden.
https://teamster.org/wp-content/uploads ... ue_Web.pdf

National Teamsters came out for Biden in 2020, but many rank and file voted for Trump. That's been the problem with the Democratic Party, the college educated and progressive wing and blue coasts have dominated the party and the working class have been left behind.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/2 ... den-418329

The Democrats get a lot of money from labor unions.
https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=P

Police unions have often endorsed Republican candidates, they did it in 2022.
The Wisconsin Fraternal Order of Police has endorsed some Democratic candidates in past elections. But this year, in each of the 13 races it weighed in on, the union decided Republicans would be more forceful champions of law enforcement. That was the case even in a competitive U.S. House of Representatives race, in which Democrat Brad Pfaff has repeatedly attacked his rival, Republican Derrick Van Orden, for attending the Jan. 6, 2021, pro-Trump rally at the U.S. Capitol. More than 100 police officers were injured in the storming of the Capitol that day. But despite running ads highlighting Van Orden's presence at the rally, the Democrat failed to win the state police union's endorsement.

The rightward shift held true even in races where a Republican candidate attended the Jan. 6 rally. More than a dozen candidates who have publicly acknowledged being present at the event – none of whom have been charged with a crime – are running for U.S. Congress, statehouse and statewide offices. Six of those candidates received police endorsements, a Reuters review found. In interviews, union representatives said they felt comfortable backing them because there was no proof they broke any law or supported the violence that ensued.

Democratic calls for police reform after the 2020 protests, on the other hand, had too often implied that all officers were unfit, said Andrea Edmiston, a spokesperson for the National Association of Police Organizations (NAPO), which represents about 241,000 officers around the United States. "We don't judge someone who thinks there needs to be police reform," Edmiston said. "But are you going to work with law enforcement, are you going to support law enforcement?" In the 2018 midterm elections, NAPO made endorsements in 11 races across the country, and five Democrats earned the group's backing. This year, none of the association's 20 endorsements went to Democrats.
The North Carolina Sheriff Police Alliance added a new requirement for candidates who wanted their endorsement this year: proof that they denounced the "defund the police" movement that became a rallying cry for some on the left calling for law enforcement reform after the 2020 protests. Although Democrats around the country have sought to distance themselves from the movement, none in North Carolina provided sufficient proof that they had denounced it, said Rickey Padgett, the group's state secretary.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/police ... 022-11-03/

The "defund the police" movement goes back to the 1960s but recently the George Floyd and BLM movements advocated it. Democrats have been trying to distance themselves from it ever since.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/05/politics ... index.html

The left wing media will blame Manchin and other centrist politicians, but plenty of Democrats and Republicans voted for House Joint Resolution 100 a bill that banned the rail strike.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-con ... 00/actions
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: The Not Railroad Strike

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So, stupid question - could they not have passed a bill that ended the rail strike by mandating that the railroads provide the benefits that the strikers were wanting? That would have averted the impact to the economy, too. Right?

This was the government deciding who would win in a contract negotiation. They could have picked either side. Why not pick the side of labor?

Re: The Not Railroad Strike

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jc57 wrote: Sun Dec 04, 2022 12:30 pm So, stupid question - could they not have passed a bill that ended the rail strike by mandating that the railroads provide the benefits that the strikers were wanting? That would have averted the impact to the economy, too. Right?

This was the government deciding who would win in a contract negotiation. They could have picked either side. Why not pick the side of labor?
Because the corporations and stockholders provide more campaign finance contributions.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: The Not Railroad Strike

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TrueTexan wrote: Sun Dec 04, 2022 1:35 pm
jc57 wrote: Sun Dec 04, 2022 12:30 pm So, stupid question - could they not have passed a bill that ended the rail strike by mandating that the railroads provide the benefits that the strikers were wanting? That would have averted the impact to the economy, too. Right?

This was the government deciding who would win in a contract negotiation. They could have picked either side. Why not pick the side of labor?
Because the corporations and stockholders provide more campaign finance contributions.
Yup. At this point, the Dems give not a shit about workers.

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