President Joe Biden is set to join members of the United Auto Workers union Tuesday in Wayne County, Michigan, walking the picket line on the eve of a visit from former President Donald Trump.
The trip comes as Biden faces consistently low polling numbers on his handling of economic issues, and, back in Washington, the looming threat of a government shutdown this week. Both a prolonged strike and a shutdown could have economic consequences – something the White House is seeking to avoid as Biden tries to convince voters his economic policies are working. He’s also appearing in the battleground state of Michigan just one day before his chief political rival – whom he defeated in the 2020 presidential election – comes to the crucial swing state to make his own appeal to union workers.
Trump, the front-runner in the GOP presidential primary race, is scheduled to skip the second Republican debate to deliver a prime-time speech to an audience of current and former union members, including from the UAW, in Detroit on Wednesday. Trump has slammed the president for the visit, claiming Biden “had no intention” of walking the picket line until Trump said he would make a speech in Michigan.
A far cry from just 10 months ago when he blew up the railway picket line.
I had read that the Biden administration kept pressuring the railways behind the scenes after the strike was averted till the unions got what they had wanted in the first place anyway.
I don’t know where I first read it but this link seems to confirm it.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/may/01/railroad-workers-union-win-sick-leave
“We’re very happy about this. We’ve been trying to get this for decades,” said Artie Maratea, president of the Transportation Communications Union. “It was public pressure and political pressure that got them to come to the table.”
Only some unions got part of what they wanted
Further on in that article,
But the unions representing workers who operate the trains day to day, such as the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, have had far less success reaching agreement on paid sick days. “The railroads went to the non-operating crafts first and cut a deal with them,” said Mark Wallace, first vice-president of the Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen. “If a carman [who inspects and repairs railcars] has to call in sick and doesn’t come to work, the train will still run. If the engineer or conductor has to call in sick, the train is probably not going to go that day.”
Wallace said his union was negotiating with the major railroads, but said they were seeking to make it harder for the operations workers than non-operational workers to take paid sick days – perhaps by giving them demerits when they do.
Or from the union themselves at https://www.ibew.org/media-center/Articles/23Daily/2306/230620_IBEWandPaid
We’re thankful that the Biden administration played the long game on sick days and stuck with us for months after Congress imposed our updated national agreement. Without making a big show of it, Joe Biden and members of his administration in the Transportation and Labor departments have been working continuously to get guaranteed paid sick days for all railroad workers.
That really doesn’t mean anything since the IBEW was one of the unions that was willing to sign the railroads’ contract before the strike. It was the other unions that railroads dealt with that rejected that deal and would’ve gone on strike if Biden and Congress hadn’t stopped them.
I saw that story from a distance but didn’t really follow it. How did Biden negatively impact the workers striking against the railroads?
The railway strike would’ve caused shortages of chlorine for city water supplies, shortages of essential medicines like insulin and antibiotics, severe food insecurity and inflation, and would’ve led to millions of people losing their jobs. Railway freight accounts for 40% of freight transport in the US. Imagine 40% of everything that’s made every day suddenly not getting to where it needs to go. There’s a reason Congress has never refused to block a railway strike every time it’s been threatened over the last 150 years.
The contract was good for the workers but didn’t include paid sick days. Congress imposed the contract on the rail workers when a couple of unions didn’t ratify it (although most of the unions did).
Biden kept working behind the scenes after signing the law Congress passed to block the strike and got the rail workers their sick days without the suffering a rail strike would’ve had on the millions of Americans who were already struggling with high inflation on essentials. The IBEW union explicitly thanked him for it: https://www.ibew.org/media-center/Articles/23Daily/2306/230620_IBEWandPaid
Imagine if more people knew this. They only saw “Biden bad for unions” and parrot the line while it’s more “Biden administration weighs the challenges of a strike that would hurt common people, finds alternate path to satisfy all parties.”
By saying that he would intervene with the national guard if railway workers actually striked.
