Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has endorsed President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign, a sign of the president’s strength in uniting his party to have the backing of one of its most liberal members
Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has endorsed President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign, a sign of the president’s strength in uniting his party to have the backing of one of its most liberal members
Alright, I’ll bite. Name me any other labor movement where a single union’s negotiations have the power to evaporate up to 4% of the nation’s GDP in its first month?
I ask you that to illustrate that the rail situation was absolutely dire with a projection on 90+billion in losses for the country each day after the first day and a projection of 700,000 lost jobs after the first month. It’s the only reason the government even has a seat at that bargaining table and it’s a damn good one. I wouldn’t dare give that power carte blanche, but I’m not faulting the government for taking the steps it took in that situation. Instead, I’ll choose to reward the further efforts to get the unions what they deserve even after being forced to play their hand.
The progressive move forward would be to dissolve and nationalize the rails after that shit show, but that’s a completely different conversation. We don’t have a system built on progressive values, we have one that’s been shattered and glued together several times and these are the late stage knells that we can expect at this point. But the path to actually building those progressive systems isn’t to throw away progress due to imperfection. The Biden admin getting those wins is progress worth preserving and building upon is my point.
Yeah, they’re a very important workforce, that was rapidly dwindling over time, over shit like not being allowed to be sick. How much does that hurt the GDP? The railroad companies made the situation dire themselves by teetering the economy on fewer and fewer, harder and harder worked workers. How about this, to save the economy, Biden forces the employers to agree to what the union workers settle on.
I don’t disagree with that being a better solution, but it wasn’t an option. Unironically, this was the train car moral dilemma. I think you’re undermining your own argument, though. That while rapidly declining workforce due to the sick day issue and the issues that arise from that may very well be a reason the Biden admin is trying to right that wrong. I still argue that instead of changing who the government forces to agree, the rail system should be nationalized. We’ve seen that the companies in charge of them clearly can’t manage them not just for their playing chicken with the economy forcing the government to bail them out of that disaster, but also the several toxic derailments since.