In an extraordinary show of support for organized labor, President Biden said he would join workers in Michigan on the front lines of their strike against leading automakers.
UAW has publicly stated they are withholding endorsement of Biden until he supports the UAW’s efforts to unionize electric vehicle facilities. That has yet to happen. Biden has actual influence over the big three that rank and file don’t, standing on the picket line is very performative unless it’s followed up by action.
For all you libs who take this criticism personally, understand that this is a good start. But that’s all it is. Applauding this without critical analysis is how Democrats diffuse political energy without delivering material gains. The working class cannot sit back, the pressure must force their hands to do more.
Applauding this without critical analysis is how Democrats diffuse political energy… The working class cannot sit back…
Exactly what needs to be understood more broadly.
We have been conditioned to believe that power is exercised only from the top down.
Man, if the DNC wasn’t a bunch of corporate shills and had let Bernie actually run a campain and supported his groundswell we wouldn’t have to have Biden in the whiplash-inducing position he’s been in:
- break railworker strike, then work behind closed doors to get them their demands
- appoint very pro-labor NLRB member who has done good work
- now join an actual labor protest against an industry our government bailed out to the tune of ~50b in 08/09 and gives massive tax subsidies to
TLDR; it’s good to see from someone who claims to represent the everyman, but until elected officials get more left than the democrats and start showing what they can do for poor white folks (minimum wage, visible labor protection, childcare, healthcare, etc.) they’re going to continue to lose them to TV crazies.
I don’t agree with breaking the railroad strike, but follow-up negotiations got zero coverage. Nada. Mass media got people thinking this is a double standard, yet it truthfully isn’t.
Labor’s power is our ability to withhold our labor. To take away the ability to strike is to take away our power.
Biden’s follow up has gotten plenty of coverage, the media has been falling over itself to sell it as a huge win, when the reality is he got rail worker 4 days sick leave and the ability to turn 2 vacation days into sick leave. Compair that to here in Seattle where anyone working within city limits is getting 12 days off a year and it becomes obvious what bread crumbs Biden actually got them. Not to mention that the administration only started pushing the rail companies in earnest after national pressure was mounting from the disaster in East Palestine.
Could it be people critical of Biden are actually paying closer attention than yourself?
It’s always a struggle, isn’t it. We hold our leaders to a standard, while the other side of the aisle blatantly doesn’t. It puts us at a disadvantage, and the whole country suffers because the oppo just loves to fall in line while we try to find a nuanced level of support for ours. It’s a FPTP issue, a media issue, a gerrymander issue, there’s so much wrong with our democracy and nuance is the first thing to go.
Well why didn’t you do that for the train workers, asshole??
Exactly my question. God forbid they actually have sick days.
When Joe Biden and Congress enacted legislation in December that blocked a threatened freight rail strike, many workers angrily faulted Biden for not ensuring that the legislation also guaranteed paid sick days. But since then, union officials says, members of the Biden administration, including the transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, and labor secretary, Marty Walsh, who stepped down on 11 March, lobbied the railroads, telling them it was wrong not to grant paid sick days.
“We’ve made a lot of progress,” said Greg Regan, president of the Transportation Trades Department of the AFL-CIO, the main US labor federation. “This is being done the right way. Each railroad is negotiating with each of its individual unions on this.”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/may/01/railroad-workers-union-win-sick-leave
Buden got the railworkers their demands. The media just never covered it.
Yes, but he shouldn’t have shut down the negotiations in the first place.
- It’s bad optics for him. He would have known perfectly well which action would be covered by the media, and which one wouldn’t be, and how that would look. It ends up looking like a strategic choice to appear anti-union.
- It weakens the railworkers union! Now they know they can’t get their demands on their own, they literally have to have federal intervention. Their bosses also know this. Biden also knew this.
I honestly agree. We need strong Unions and forcing them back to work sucks. But without the trains running, America’s economic infrastructure would collapse pretty quickly. Then everyone would be blaming Biden for that.
It was a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation.
So, Biden is going to Michigan for a photo op.
Even still, sounds to me like a very effective way to signal support for the striking workers. Obviously he can’t participate for the entire strike, he has shit to do and would easily garner much more criticism doing that. I suspect everyone that disapproves of this move disapproves of the man anyway.
Any time the president comes to town, no matter who it is, all I hear is people complaining about the traffic caused by all the security. No one ever seems happy about it. The more trivial the visit, the more upset they get.
Back when I was working as a flight instructor, president Obama did a bus tour across my state. The President has a TFR surrounding him at all times, and when he’s on the move, so is the TFR. It was real fun shutting down our business for a day so that the President could get absolutely nothing done because everyone had their minds made up who to vote for before the candidates were even announced.
Don’t forget he did the same song and dance for the rail workers and he forced them to suck down the corporate contract.
He got the rail workers their demands. It just never got media coverage.
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No he did not.
They got a 14.1% raise, and then five $1,000 lump sum payments that together add up to a 24% raise. Trick is that the starting point for future negotiations is that 14.1% raise, not the 24%.The big fight was over paid sick leave, which he completely shafted them on.
https://www.npr.org/2022/12/02/1140265413/rail-workers-biden-unions-freight-railroads-averted-strikeOne company(CSX) representing less than 4.5% of the rail workers came to an agreement on their own that the white house takes credit for, but the CEO of CSX says they weren’t involved in the talks.
Senators Sanders and GOP Mike Braun put pressure on the others to follow suite.
https://www.npr.org/2023/02/10/1155763336/freight-rail-workers-union-paid-sick-leave-bernie-sanders-csxIs that scattershot Botox?
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