I love when someone tees up this stuff
So one of Biden’s FIRST actions in office was to fire the piece of shit that Trump put in charge of the NLRB, short cutting the normal procedure for it which actually caused a little bit of a fight, and then to put in a whole bunch of actually pro-labor people. They’ve been backstopping all these pretty remarkable union gains that have been happening the last few years.
The Teamsters, for whatever stupid/corrupt reason, are pretty much the only union that hasn’t come out swinging hard for Biden in the election, because unlike the media they are aware of how much things have been changing for them in the last few years and want it to continue instead of Trump putting Margaret Thatcher in charge of the NLRB of whatever the fuck he wants to do instead.
Oh, and also he broke a rail strike that would have caused some inflation (which I know the media and the people on Lemmy would have been super understanding of the full context of and wouldn’t have caused any problems), and then once no one was paying attention anymore, his administration kept working the issue and got the workers the sick days they were striking for in the first place. So you I guess you do have a point that he’s horrible. I take it all back.
Oh, and also he broke a rail strike that would have caused some inflation (which I know the media and the people on Lemmy would have been super understanding of the full context of and wouldn’t have caused any problems), and then once no one was paying attention anymore,
The railroad in question reached an agreement with some but not all of their unions to give them some of the sick days they had been asking for, Biden’s administration had no official role in it. Moreover, saying unions can’t strike when it’s economically or politically inconvenient is tantamount to saying that can’t strike at all. There’s a reason hundreds of labor historians wrote Biden and his labor secretary an open letter condemning them for what they did with this strike.
Of course, anyone saying they would have gotten any better treatment under a Republican administration is delusional or lying, and there is some pretty smoking gun evidence of racism from this particular union president (see: my other comment in this thread), which is probably why basically every other union has endorsed Biden except this one (like, unions are savvy political organizations that know to not make the perfect the enemy of the good, they do it all the time), but the fact is on at least one occasion when some unions needed Biden to stand up for them he threw them straight under the bus, and acting like he didn’t or it’s no big deal is extremely unhelpful to Biden’s reelection efforts.
Biden’s administration had no official role in it
Hm… I think you might be right. The White House sort of took credit for it, and I thought I remembered that they were in on some of the negotiations and I’ve been saying they were, but everything I can find now seems to indicate that it was just the unions pressuring the railroads. I can’t find anything to indicate that Biden’s people were involved.
Moreover, saying unions can’t strike when it’s economically or politically inconvenient is tantamount to saying that can’t strike at all. There’s a reason hundreds of labor historians wrote Biden and his labor secretary an open letter condemning them for what they did with this strike.
100%. I agree. Like I say, my personal feeling is that, if the workers want to strike, then fuck the economy. If the economy tanks and we get some level of “oh god I’m really struggling with the price of hot dogs / with how my stocks are doing,” then maybe all of those people who are unhappy about that happening should live for a year in the railroad workers’ shoes.
I’m just saying, it’s extremely relevant what all other actions Biden did for unions when it wasn’t the whole economy at stake, and that I kind of get why he did it. I’m not saying I think that’s the right way for the US government to react to a big rail strike or that the Biden administration is a good ending point for progress.
acting like he didn’t or it’s no big deal is extremely unhelpful to Biden’s reelection efforts.
Fair enough. Acting like the other 95% of his union actions didn’t happen is also unhelpful to Biden’s reelection efforts, though.
Regarding Biden and his administration’s involvement, I’ve had to explain this to people before so I keep the info saved:
Biden deserves a lot of the credit for achieving this goal for us,” Russo said. “He and his team continued to work behind the scenes to get all of rail labor a fair agreement for paid sick leave
I have another good one very applicable to the teamsters union, Biden and democrats saved their pension fund.
Pensions that 360,000 retired teamster union workers were relying on.
I really doubt Republicans would have lifted a finger. Probably would have just laughed as one of the largest unions in America collapsed.
Heck here’s some more good union news from Democrats. The new regulations and pro labor leadership of the nlrb have helped increase union election success rate to 74%, it’s highest level in at least 15 years. It brought back over 8,000 workers that had been unjustly fired from their work places as retaliation for unionizing activities.
The contrast with Republicans couldn’t be starker. Project 2025 recommends firing general counsel and leadership of the NLRB “day one,” purging existing civil servants so they can hire their own anti union sycophants, and passing new regulations to make it easier to dissolve unions and harder to form them.
In response to your second paragraph, someone posted above that it’s racism. The Teamsters, at least this… Uh governing body?.. Fired a number of people in leadership, 3/4 of them racial minorities. When they rehired for these newly opened positions only 1/4 of those hired were racial minorities.
Sick nasty
Thanks for your post, it’s well written.
and then once no one was paying attention anymore, his administration kept working the issue and got the workers the sick days they were striking for in the first place.
some of the workers got some of their demands. if they’d been able to bring the rail to a halt, they might have gotten it all.
Let’s take all that “how DARE Biden let there be inflation, doesn’t he understand my grocery bill” energy and apply it to this here comment right here
Honestly, in terms of my own personal beliefs, I agree with you. I think if the workers that make the US economy operate decide to bring it to its knees until it starts treating them like humans again, fuckin God bless ‘em and I’ll start eating ramen and eggs until they’re done. I just think it’s a little much to ask a US President to commit the political suicide that would be allowing that to happen (in particular because, given how eager people are to blame him for inflation that wasn’t his fault, I don’t think they would react well to a big economic disruption and lots of inflation that actually was squarely his “fault”).
i don’t give any credence to any argument that involves inflation. i don’t believe anyone makes any decision that causally increases or decreases the buying power of a dollar, except perhaps the buyer and seller in any transaction, but only within the confines of that transaction, anyway. i do care about people being able to overthrow the capitalist system and the president stepping in and saying “no” is fucking infuriating.
