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0 pointssoupfordummies3y ago0 comments

I haven't followed this super closely (as an aside, it's also really discouraging how little I've seen this story talked about. Buried in the newspapers, etc) but am I off base in thinking that gov't could have just sided with the workers and req'd the railroads to give sick days rather than just siding with the RRs and saying "no sick days"?

Wow what a run-on sentence! :P

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fineIllregister3y ago

Short answer: yes.

Longer answer: It is within the federal govt's authority to write the labor agreement from scratch. They could have used the workers' preferred agreement.

In fact, the bill the House of Reps passed did include the seven sick days. The Senate held a vote on whether to include the sick days in the deal; it received a majority of the votes but due to Senate rules (filibuster) that was not enough, and thus the provision failed.

Workaccount23y ago

The trade off seemed to come down to "sick days for workers" vs. "lower costs for consumers"

The government went with "lower costs for consumers"

Why "mandate on-call employees to cover sick employees" wasn't an option, I don't know.

fineIllregister3y ago

> The trade off seemed to come down to "sick days for workers" vs. "lower costs for consumers"

It doesn't have to raise prices. The costs imposed by the sick days (millions) are absolutely dwarfed by annual profits (billions).

Workaccount23y ago

I think the issue is that the railroads are running thin crews and extremely tight schedules. So Jim the engineer calling in 3 hours before he is due to commandeer 2,500 tons of freight for 500 miles creates a dire situation that not only delays that train, but throws off the schedule of dozens of other trains.

I'm just hypothesizing here, and I feel like I am missing something since it doesn't seem like having/adding on-call employees was an option.

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HDThoreaun3y ago

There is a bill that would do just that. Passed the house but then couldn't get past the filibuster even though it had 52 senate votes.

Throwawayaerlei3y ago

With only 43 votes against, that is 1 Democrat voting against (Manchin for some reason I can't imagine) and 6 Republicans voting for it, we have a deficit of 5 Democrats just not voting. We also see the same deficit in the 26-69 against 60 more days of negotiations.

This situation does not lend itself to pat answers, including why Team Pelosi didn't first try a bill with both provisions combined. This trainwreck (sorry) could be seen coming for weeks, there was plenty of time to try to do the right thing. Except of course for both parties' establishments hating this segment of the population.

HDThoreaun3y ago

There have already been more than a year of (non)negotiations. Railroads are just waiting for the government to bail them out, more time wouldn't change a thing. They didn't try a combined bill because they can count, and knew it would just be a waste of time that would cause fear in the economy. There was no time for fucking around here

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0 comments

fineIllregister3y ago

Short answer: yes.

Longer answer: It is within the federal govt's authority to write the labor agreement from scratch. They could have used the workers' preferred agreement.

Workaccount23y ago

The trade off seemed to come down to "sick days for workers" vs. "lower costs for consumers"

The government went with "lower costs for consumers"

Why "mandate on-call employees to cover sick employees" wasn't an option, I don't know.

fineIllregister3y ago

> The trade off seemed to come down to "sick days for workers" vs. "lower costs for consumers"

It doesn't have to raise prices. The costs imposed by the sick days (millions) are absolutely dwarfed by annual profits (billions).

Workaccount23y ago

I'm just hypothesizing here, and I feel like I am missing something since it doesn't seem like having/adding on-call employees was an option.

1 more reply

HDThoreaun3y ago

There is a bill that would do just that. Passed the house but then couldn't get past the filibuster even though it had 52 senate votes.

Throwawayaerlei3y ago

HDThoreaun3y ago

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse