Good
So, Biden and Congress are going to step in again and break this strike like they did with train workers, right? They’re both logistics unions that will (apparently) cripple supply chains if they go on strike.
If they say there’s no legal mechanism for that: they have a template and it already passed constitutional tests - the same teeth the Railroad Labor Act has can just as easily be applied to UPS/FedEx/DHL via a new law.
If Biden and Congress aren’t consistent with their logic on this it just proves how deep in the railroad baron pockets they really are.
Except that the Biden Administration kept working with the railroad unions for months after the strike to pressure the railroad companies to give them sick leave, resulting in the railroad companies caving and giving the unions everything they wanted this spring. Union leaders are on record saying they couldn’t have gotten it done without the Administration’s help.
But progress doesn’t sell as well in the papers as doom and despair, so almost no one knows about it.
So…in other words…justice delayed is not justice denied? The workers just need to shut up and live with bad contracts - we just need to trust they’ll do the right thing?
The result was:
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Labor got crushed - effectively the government did their negotiating for them. Why pay dues to a union that can’t even strike and can’t even negotiate by itself?
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Railroads made absolute fortunes
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A pittance was doled out since they had so much bad PR due to all the train derailments
Personally, I think it’s hypocritical the government tells two groups with the same criticality to supply chains two different things. For one group, it’s a threat to the nation and our financial survival, so they can’t go on strike. For the other group, silence.
But is it as critical if FedEx, USPS, and the others exist? Railroads to on strike, there is no one else. UPS goes on strike, Amazon just ships with FedEx.
Thanks for the additional context. I never heard anything about this. You can’t say the Biden Labor department has been idle. They have also been very present with the Longshoremen negotiations on the west coast recently. I wish they were even more pro-worker but this just goes to show that elections matter.
Good. Especially this time of year when the drivers are literally roasting in their trucks and big brown refuses to put in ac.
I like how the interviewee remarked on his concerns for the younger union members.
I imagine the Teamsters are too large and too savvy to go for a new contract that creates a two-tier system of new members with a crappier package than senior members. They should know that would be a death spiral for union membership.
USPS looking at this to finally be profitable!
… Unless you actually work there cuz that’ll suck
Edit: It’s a joke guys
This article is about UPS(United Parcel Service) and not the USPS(United States Postal Service). UPS is a publically traded company.
The implication is that the disruption to UPS’s service will drive business to the USPS.
USPS usually handles the last mile. Guess what big company handles the other miles for them.
“United States Postal Service”
It’s not meant to be profitable. It is a service. As in: not a product. A service performed by your government. Subsidized by taxes because that’s how it works. That’s why it’s (almost) always the cheapest option when you need to ship or deliver.
Also, it WAS profitable, for the vast majority of its history. It only stopped being profitable something like 8-10 years ago, when Congress mandated that (IIRC) pensions had to be funded 70 years in advance.
It sometimes seems like there’s nothing good in this country congress won’t eventually destroy. The USPS was, and is, mostly an excellent organization. Only sabotage will bring it down.
I mean, it would be nice if ALL government pensions had to be funded decades in advance. Singling out the USPS was some blatant bullshit though.
The USPS would be profitable if they didn’t have to beg Congress to raise the price of stamps and weren’t forced to fund pension liabilities for people who won’t retire for 30 years.
I consider myself a news junkie, and I’d never even heard of this until right now. God, do I wish good news like this actually got the airtime it deserved!
