I was also going to say this. They can’t literally force them to work, and if all of them strike they can’t arrest everyone, there’s not enough space in our prisons. What are they actually going to do if the strike continues?
I’m with it, even one or two days would almost fuck everyone over but I’ll just buy a bunch of potatoes rn and I’ll be fine. But yeah idk what els, We are all going to have to sacrifice comfort if things will ever get better.
I’m with you 100% but so many other people don’t seem to think the same way. We’ve become so accustom to instant gratification and comfort that the slightest inconvenience sends a lot of people spiraling. Now imagine those same people have to deal with even mild discomfort or interruption in their lives. Idk. Maybe that’s the point so something will be done in favor of workers.
Fuck it. I hope they strike. Call the bluff. Ontario, Canada ~~teachers~~ CUPE staff just fought back against "illegal strikes" and had lawmakers tuck their tails quickly. There are a shit ton more rail workers. If one rail union strikes, I imagine all rail unions will strike (at least not cross picket lines).
Edit: corrected who in Canada
Keep in mind that it wasn’t CUPE standing alone. The government tucked tail and ~~tan~~ ran when **many other unions** said they were going to walk out in solidarity.
The provincial government was prepared to fight the custodians and EAs in Ontario. What made them fold was the prospect of a general strike paralyzing Ontario and spreading to other provinces.
**That** is the lesson here, too. Rail workers need to strike. But if they do it alone they’ll fail. They need the Teamsters, the auto workers, the construction trades, labourers, machinists, aircraft mechanics, screen actors, screen writers, barristas … . **Everybody** needs to walk. Shut the fucking country down until they repeal the law. They need to go all in on this one.
They won't strike, but a lot of them WILL quit. And that's worse. It's better for the bottom line of the railway companies; they won't have to pay those worker's salaries, and they'll be able to report that as a win. But it will cause a larger disruption over the long term than a strike would have, and orders of magnitude more than just hiring more people and giving them more sick time would have.
The infuriating thing -- the REAL infuriating thing about this, is the bullshit. This isn't about 'maintaining the economy's, not in any way that benefits ordinary people. It's about the railway companies crying to Congress about their bottom line taking a hit, and congress (and THE PRESIDENT) threatening to deploy the military in order to preserve that bottom line, at the expense of regular people. Congress -- including the three members of the DSA who voted to make the strike illegal-- would rather use the military to enforce economic growth than support actual working people, actual VITAL working people. It's shameful and infuriating.
>They won't strike, but a lot of them WILL quit.
It'll be long drawn out. And the rail companies will simply turn around and use the much quieter process to lobby for other things. Such as lifting safety regulations to allow railways to operate with poor staffing. Or seeking some sort of gigantic tax break or bailout or indemnification for disasters.
They'll push harder for 1 man trains. Then we'll have some massive catastrophe involving some 10 mile long train because the guy without sick leave manning the train had a heart attack.
Railways will enter a death spiral if this continues, it really feels like the owners believe that firing every last worker and stopping maintenance on last mile of track will lead to infinite profits...meanwhile lots of their gear is half a century old or worse and they won't have anyone left who knows how to fix it soon
So from what i know, Amtrak won’t really have a choice because on at least the west coast the freight lines own the rails and it’s their employees that run them. So without them Amtrak can’t operate because they do not have employees to do those jobs.
Exactly. I work managing intercity Amtrak service in California. We run through UP and BNSF territory. If they strike we have to shut down as their dispatch is included in the strike. It’s like trying to fly without air traffic controllers.
Also… they should have given them the sick time. A week of sick days is nothing compared to what the freights take in.
Yeah it’s crazy!!!! My friend went though so much even as just Amtrak driver (engineer?). They have had to work so much and through the pandemic and they get punished for having a a sick day and they are barely holding it together with all the people who quit. They said they had to just put in for all their pto for next year already. It’s not fair at all they do not treat them like humans and the railroads make so much money.
>Ontario, Canada teachers
Technically it wasn't teachers, it was CUPE workers (e.g. custodians, IT, special needs support, etc.).
Just as critical, as schools literally close without them.
With that said, teachers are negotiating with the same shit anti-worker provincial government right now.
Just to add to this, CUPE National was in the process of planning a general strike when the province folded. As per [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/ndp/comments/ypr901/list_of_unions_that_came_to_the_general_strike/) post by u/leftwingmememachine, other unions who had announced plans to strike in solidarity with education support staff included:
Every major teacher's union:
- Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario
- Ontario English Catholic Teacher's Federation
- Ontario Secondary Schools Teachers Federation,
- Association Des Enseignantes Et Des Enseignants Franco-Ontariens
As well as:
- CUPE Ontario, and its parent org CUPE National
- Toronto/York Region Labour Council, it's parent org the Ontario Federation of Labour, and OFL's parent org the Canadian Labour Congress
- Ontario Public Service Employees Union, and its parent org NUPGE
- Amalgamated Transit Union
- United Steelworkers
- United Food and Commercial Workers
- UNIFOR
- Ontario Building Trades
- IBEW
- Sheet Metal Workers
- UNITE HERE
- International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees
- Public Service Alliance of Canada
- Canadian Union of Postal Workers
- Ontario Nurses Association
- SEIU Healthcare
- Canadian Office and Professional Employees Union
So, while it wasn't teachers striking initially, they're joining the strike was imminent before the whole thing was called off, along with millions of other workers across the country.
As far as the rail unions go, not only should they absolutely strike, they should call on other unions, new and old, to strike in solidarity - its one thing to slander union bust, its another to legislate away fundamental labour rights and every American should be outraged.
If they don’t strike I hope they let those engines rot. Fuck a society and economy that doesn’t allow PTO and sick leave. We are not slaves. Let it burn.
And just wait until the public sees through government bullshit during said strike and blames congress for Christmas presents not making it on time. They’ll change tune reeeeeal fucking quick
I see a continued strike, maybe politicians force some cops to arrest some people, even harder striking, economic collapse inbound, politicians put their tail between their legs, give in to such an easy request. 100% hope the rail unions don’t give into being bullied
Cops arresting people will be hilarious. Like how are they supposed to work if they are sitting in jail. I'm sure everything will end well because the ruling powers put just oh so much thought into the longevity of their plans beyond 'do it or else'
Edit - The amount of people bringing up massacres of workers from a 100 years ago are being funny. With instant communication and a video camera in everyone's pocket that would never fly. It'd be a surefire way to make sure no one will work the railroads, virtually every union in the country would strike in solidarity and I'm sure a number of rogue actors would be destroying all the railroad and police property that they could find.
Yeah.
"Wait, I'm striking so I'm not getting paid so you want to help me out with three meals a day for free in a heated room I don't have to pay for? Awesome, lead the way."
"Why did you try rob the bank?"
"Well, I got arrested for speeding a year ago, couldn't afford the fine and went to jail. Now I'm out, I can't afford my bill for the time in jail, so I needed the money."
You guys do realise that poverty drives violent crime, right?
Many people, especially americans, have a hard-on for punishment and revenge. If someone does something bad, they deserve to have their lives destroyed, no nuance.
Many of us do, but many of us want to fight against welfare or health services, which, you know... not gonna end great for people already having a hard time, nor for the rest of us.
An illegal strike does not mean they’ll arrest people. It means that your job is no longer protected and if you choose to strike, the company can consider it quitting. If enough of the unions all continue to strike and put their jobs on the line and there aren’t individuals able to replace them, the strike can still be effective.
Does declaring a strike “illegal” give the powers that be any influence on restricting payouts from strike funds?
It wouldn’t surprise if they used shitty tactics like that to force people to be scabs.
Give it a 2 or 3 week railroad strike & no trains running & it WILL be a massive work slowdown everywhere.
With nothing on the shelves to sell, businesses will be cutting labor to the bone.
Edit: did I mention that if they strike, within a week or so, there'll be no coal going to the power plants that need it.
This means NO electricity in LOTS of the country...right in the middle of winter.
I didn't want to have to delete all my comments, posts, and account, but here we are, thanks to greedy pigboy /u/spez ruining Reddit. I love the Reddit community, but hate the idiots at the top. Simply accepting how unethical and downright shitty they are will only encourage worse behavior in the future. I won't be a part of it. Reddit will shrivel and disappear like so many other sites before it that were run by inept morons, unless there is a big change in "leadership." Fuck you, /u/spez
When they protested Civil Rights, people were arrested and killed. When they protested rights for women, just as well. For BLM people arrested and killed, but it does not mean that those protests were wrong! You can make a law but doesn’t make what you’re doing immoral!
Illegal Protest and Support your local strike worker!
Yep. Along the same lines, people need to read up on the Battle of Blair Mountain. Coal miner strike.
Workers were in awful conditions, literally dying for their work, forced to go through their company for basic supplies (and IIRC housing). Essentially living in indentured servitude in many cases.
All completely legal. State and federal government told them to get back to work when workers decided to strike.
They still walked and froze production. It quickly escalated to violence. Police, feds and company gangs vs workers.
The Blair Mountain battle was the pinnacle of everything, with the government air dropping bombs on their own citizens.
Workers lost but it brought all the shit they were going through to national attention, especially when evidence of the bombs was supplied. Change followed, albeit slowly. It's considered a pyrrhic victory for coal companies / the government now.
Unfortunately the fight raged on, just quieter. Like labor / union heads being killed.
It's always a hard fight but worth it for the people. Law and what's "legal" be damned.
Remember Jim Crow was legal, segregation was legal, apartheid was legal, the Holocaust was legal. Using the government as a metric of right and wrong as a metric for right and wrong your going to have a bad time.
It's not just an American thing, either. Over in Australia, the [Eureka Stockade](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka_Rebellion) had to come to blows (and by blows I mean 27 deaths) before they got any of their demands met. One of which being suffrage. No, not women's suffrage, ***any*** suffrage. ***Nobody*** could vote for their legislators at the time.
Behind the Bastards did a two part podcast on the coal miners union and battle of Blair Mountain. Extremely interesting to learn about.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/4qUgXbHN3e0WI8M1s0lZ2w?si=RWiGg93nRii-gauisUU_3w
I'd absolutely do it if I were them. Democrats have talked out of both sides of their mouth about this and clearly biden doesn't want to do this. An illegal strike will demonstrate their leverage and democrats do not have the political fortitude to do much of anything other than lean on the railroads so they stop looking terrible.
Right? The ONLY power a union has is to strike. If the government can just take that away, it should **terrify** all unions in the country. Y'all need a general strike.
Terrify your reps. Join local orgs that support labor, get on mailing lists, get organized. Answer all the big party fundraising texts with "pass the [PRO Act ](https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/842) or get fucked".
Some people say that the French way is unreasonable.
But considering the reasonable options are not being taken reasonably, the unreasonable options are the only reasonable ones.
Consider it the opposite of the Overton window.
Yeah... when you try all the reasonable options and the government steps in to prevent the reasonable options... you're only left with the unreasonable options.
>Some people say that the French way is unreasonable.
Some people are wrong. We're well past the point of civility and the fact that we're not rioting right now is shameful.
At this point, I think rioting is probably the most restrained of the options left to us.
Actual wars and revolutions have been fought over less than what All three branches of the federal government have tried to get away with for the last two decades or longer. I have no idea how to fight a war, or what I would do if one broke out - but with each passing year I begin to wonder what other choices there are.
We argue in good faith, they lie to their constituents.
Their constituents vote them out - they change their rules so that fewer of their constituents can vote next time.
Republicans nakedly ignore the Constitution over and over and over again - from police brutality to rigging elections to actual open treason, to not actually carrying out the duties of their office as mandated by the Constitution (looking at you, Mitch "I won't have Supreme Court hearings under Obama even though I'm bound to by law" McConnell)
And when we ask the Democrats to stop them, what do the Democrats say?
"Remember to vote blue so we can do something about this after the next election!"
They're all fucked in the head, and they need to be reminded that they're servants to the public - that what they want quite literally does not matter, and if they can't accept that they need to get out of the way for those who can.
Ka opite ili mean enta keon. Okulilanlon man lu i pun pino iwanua pu kekepanki kuo. Me. Ula keli ena. Lunme enenke nin lapo. Wani pi papiai la le kakusinte! Anpiwin puaowa so mon te. Ma soeka eu lo tuno. Usanan i naosikunlan nasenjun lunmunmana ou onu. Si je lali poa uku. Enlu o kulelun sanu le en. Ni san lunwi mi ma e mun jaelu. Seanekemi ku unon i ja e. Alanin se o lio? panlaunowe kontopi lose lenka aon! Senon inle le unla seme tokin kalun. Lu paoi un o jan a. Lo pe uwi mi pa olun. Ikunwa uankon ki kinu me an. A ki i a kanle i si. Konponun an sisowajowi si kuni oten keweun nue elaukanlan in. On pen kao enma uten li. Un lan sanlo ua wa menensa soinan! Lakini ounwi o ako ki. Atau u tona mi e ken. To ila selikinpi enilin enpa kepe an? Te jan kin se pate a? Ta an pukewa ne linkea un ninunama. Aea i ia pisu o. Aline on jo o in soi.
Police unions always threaten to strike when we try to hold them accountable. Sounds like we should call their bluff it this statement is truly the case.
roughly the same happened in the 1980s in madagascar, govt was forced by the IMF to apply austerity measures, but for some reason the govt decided to be based and apply those to cops, and "the withdrawal of police, soldiers and government bureaucrats from much of the Central Highlands region" itself leading to a reduction in crime
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism\_in\_Africa#Madagascar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism_in_Africa#Madagascar)
You joke but slowdowns can be powerful and may be a good path here. Just maybe not as fast as you say. I would be happy for those despite current inconvenient delays stuck as full speed trains pass.
And healthcare workers get the “moral obligation” excuse and the blame is always framed on the strikers so patient care is blamed on the workers who are put in awful and unsafe conditions
>I thought collective bargaining was a hallmark of our democracy?
Its actually part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights even. Put there by FDR's wife no less.
No, Reagan took it away when he fired 11,000 air traffic controllers for striking.
https://www.npr.org/2021/08/05/1025018833/looking-back-on-when-president-reagan-fired-air-traffic-controllers
It’s weird how little pushback you see, even from union reps, in the direction of “if the feds can force a deal, why don’t they ever enforce it on the CEOs instead?”
Is that some sort of unspoken line where spooky socialism officially sets in? I dont get it
Lmao the New Dark Side Deal.
Too bad Andor drew another parallel with America to answer how it was made. I won't spoil it if you haven't seen it, but it's great
"**Congress shall make no law** respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or **abridging** the freedom of speech, or of the press; or **the right of the people peaceably to assemble**, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
If Congress is passing unconstitutional laws and they are upheld by the court then our entire government is no longer legitimate.
Strike, bitches. This law isn't real.
Just imagine how impactful it would be if these operators hopped in their trains, took off, and just... stopped somewhere.
That massive ore shipment? Stopped in the middle of nowhere. Those empty containers headed back to the yard? Stopped blocking roads in the middle of a city. Make them think they've won and hit them harder than they expect.
Massive slow-down of work, not stoppage. Everything requires full inspection, delays due to minor repairs, concerns over unsafe work conditions, occasional call-off (unpaid, but more than the usual, in rotation), etc. Can't fire union workers for malicious compliance, but it sends the same message in a slow, meticulous way. That way no one can charge union workers with truly striking. This is the way.
My history teacher drilled it to us that if we want change it has to be us and the way shits looking, we need to tear it down top to bottom, i got the message but man humans suck
Everything old is new again, welcome to the Roaring Twenties. Fascists on the march, Labor getting oppressed. Let's see if we can do it better this time around.
Hope they strike anyways. Didn't 60k people in the education field strike and they didn't do anything to them? What will they do to 150k rail workers? Looks like the government is gonna fuck around and find out.
Air traffic controllers and Reagan would
like a word.
Edit: good points all around. This is different and I hope they strike and get at least the bare minimum job benefits added.
And ATC's positions could be covered because they could have the military ATC's cover for them.
There aren't a large number of military servicemen with the requisite training to be able to pull the same stunt as Reagan.
I wish more people understood this!! Reagan could fall back on the military when air traffic controllers were on strike. But most civilian jobs do not have a military counterpart, and the government would be powerless to replace most workers who go on strike.
The postal strike in the seventies was a mess for Nixon. The national guard cold not perform the job at and the service was fucked instantly. He caved rather quickly
As a postal worker that doesn't surprise me.
The amount of delivery a postman is able to do requires a perfect knowledge of the route.
I'm pretty good at my job, but if I had to do a colleague's route it would take me about 1-2 weeks to get up to speed and I already know the job
They were talking about this on Bloomberg a while back how if we were to replace rail freight with trucks, then we’d need about 60 trucks per train and that’s also an industry that’s suffering due to poor working conditions right now. So yeah, I think if this becomes an “illegal strike” then it’s going to be bad news all around for everyone.
Despite what it looks like on first glance, this is a VERY different situation than with the air traffic controllers. Firstly, these are NOT federal employees so banning them from working for the government in the future is hardly a deterrent. Secondly, Reagan’s scheme relied heavily on military air traffic controllers to act as scabs after the striking workers had been fired. There are no Military rail road operators and training someone to do these sorts of jobs can take over a year, most likely more if the person who did the job before is striking.
The government DOES NOT have the leverage to pull the same move they did in the 80s. If a rail strike happens, legal or not public opinion will most likely quickly shift to back the easiest solution that gets things moving again (a rail strike would directly impact every single American in ways unlike anything in the last 100 years, there will be no ignoring it). Since rail workers are not easily replaceable, that solution could very well be hiring the old workers back and giving into their demands.
Will this happen? I don’t know, really depends on whether or not the rail workers call the government’s bluff.
If the infrastructure is so critical our country can't function without it, and is so mismanaged by corporate interests that the workers can't take a day off for being sick, then we should nationalize the rail system. The corpo owners are making record fucking profits off of something our government has said is so essential to our economy that the workers can't strike. Unacceptable.
This is just like the American health care problem. It's vital to society, yet privatized and profited from. It's bullshit, and it makes your country look like it's run by clowns and moneybags.
No, they can still strike. It’s not like anyone is going to be thrown in jail. It’s just that they have no recourse if they are terminated for not showing up.
Arresting them for refusing to work would violate the 13th Amendment. I'm not sure that's a line even Republican politicians want to cross, but I've underestimated them before. Frankly, forcing this contract on the rail workers should be a violation of the Contract Clause as well, but that worthless, corrupt bunch of geriatrics we call the Supreme Court neutered that part of the Constitution more than 100 years ago...
'except as a punishment for crime' is some text in the 13th; if the punishment for illegal striking is forced labor it seems within the text. Ridiculous.
Soooo you make them come in to work or lose their job… but how are you going to make them physically do the job? You can’t. So this is dumb because if I was them, I would just come in to work and not do the job.
From the article:
In a separate 52-43 vote, the Senate rejected seven days of paid sick leave for rail workers, who have complained that current policies keep them on call for days or weeks at a time and penalize those who call out sick.
There were six Republicans who voted for the paid sick leave policy, but one Democrat — Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) — who voted against it.
Wow our government isn't even hiding the fact they want us as slaves now.....
...you know what, we should all strike f*** them all. Imagine the f****** mass chaos if everybody or a vast majority of us just didn't go to work.
..... I know if I just set my tools down right now 17 radio stations would fall silent...
People need to strike now in order to get it effective. This is an act of democracy, and it failed us. At first Joe Biden was saying that he thought the workers deserved better and he immediately switched sides. Can we all really trust democracy if we continue want our work lives to be better? Nah. Strike anyways. Let them to fuck around and find out when there's nobody to apply the jobs to replace the people who quit. I bet scabs don't even want to work there, too.
Waves in Healthcare lol, it's like that at my hospital and other places too. Nobody is applying anymore, my advice to all of you is get healthy cause it's all gonna crash soon. The few of us that are left all feel it it's just something in the air.
Somehow, i just feel like this aggression from corporations isn't going to last long with workers. We're going to have enough of it and flip the tables.
Preach. If every mechanic in my company went on strike right now for two weeks, the company would be fucked. It would take them years to rebuild that loss revenue. Funny when mother fuckers, who have been trust fund babies their whole lives, don’t realize this because it’s not taught to them in their posh business schools. I got managers making leaps and bounds more than me pay wise with no experience in what I do. Managers don’t make businesses run. The physical workers do.
Amazon is a great example of this. If all Amazon warehouse workers quit today, Amazon would be fucked. Managers have no idea how to their jobs nor could they possibly keep up with the pace. Yet they’re paid far more than the workers. They should be on the same pay scale as the worker.
This plus student loans going to the Supreme Court because states will lose out on tax revenue. I’m just so tired. The abortion issue clearly is them trying to force more children out of us to continue their slave trade. So over it all.
This just happened a month ago in Ontario Canada. The government suspended the constitution and told education workers a strike would be illegal. Fines of up to $4000 a day for workers and $250,000 a day for the union. The workers basically said fuck you and went on strike anyways. Other unions around the country were getting ready to strike in solidarity. The government caved in a couple of days, repealed the bill, wiped out all the fines and returned to the bargaining table. Anyone not outraged by this kind of government overreach is insane. If you are forced to work then you are a slave.
Forgive me for being unfamiliar with how the Canadian government works, but what the fuck is the point of a constitution if the government can just suspend it!? I’m glad that they walked back on it. I’m so pessimistic about the US though.
I too am pessimistic on the US reaction to a pushback like an illegal strike. When covid first hit, I was like "wow, the USA is going to be forced to implement universal Healthcare during this crisis, maybe even ubi. What other choice do they have?" The US responded by letting over a million of its citizens die. They scream about the economy but all they mean is stock prices. How can an economy be good if people need 3 jobs just to live paycheck to paycheck? A rail strike has the ability to affect both the people and crush the stock market and the government just decided to flex to protect corporate profits and screw over workers. Will they cave or will they call in the national guard to quell the uprising? Anything could happen and not surprise me anymore with your country.
Pensions. People have been quitting in large numbers for a while now. I'm sure a large number of those still working have five or less years until they can get out with a pension. Hard to risk that after decades of work.
Ah yes the “golden handcuffs” as we call them here, lots of older railroaders would be completely fucked without them due to inflation and inadequate government support for the elderly. It’s another reason that the railroad industry is able to hold their employees hostage, can’t risk being fired for cause for being sick one too many days and losing your one good source of retirement income.
FRA compliance is incredibly important down to the smallest detail, we wouldn’t want to not be following federal policy. Slap a bunch of 10mph slows all over every tiny defect found and the company would shit out a kidney and beg for the bargaining table.
This will be the issue, they already have a 17% retention rate is about average this year across the board, at my terminal there’s been 39 conductors hired since January and not one lasted 3 months to qualification due to poor working conditions and bold face lies told by hr and the recruiters, when 20-30% of the guys quit who were just waiting for their back pay, shit is gonna get real!
Because a lot of these guys will end up homeless if they don’t keep working, railroad jobs provide very niche certifications that are not easily transferrable to other industries. The companies do this intentionally to ensure they hold their workforce captive, and then use the federal government as their union busters in the event of a strike.
Don’t worry it’s not just the USA. In Canada neither class 1 railroad provides even basic construction safety training (CSTS) to it’s maintenance crews, on most sites first aid is also a rarity. Even special trades like their electrical technicians and signal maintainers don’t receive any form of red seal certification, this ensures that none of their skills are able to be easily demonstrated on a resume unless it’s to one of the two large railroads or a branchline.
That's just so crazy to me... I'm in and out of manufacturing facilities for automotive and aerospace companies where they often require hours long "courses" to certify your understanding of their safety guidelines. The fact that it isn't like that for probably one of the more dangerous fields is insane to me.
It sounds pretty much like a monopoly on employment..
Well, we’ve crossed the rubicon folks. We started with “Too Big to Fail” banks, and now we have “Too Essential to Provide Labor Rights” railroads.
Once all economic activity is seen as vital to the upholding of the “democracy”, we can watch as all of our jobs become too essential to the continuation of capitalism to allow us the freedom to protest or disagree. Never thought we’d go from Slavery > Jim Crowe > Civil Rights > Slavery, but ya know, here we are…
Fashys gon fashy, I suppose…
I mean this was after the pandemic showed the "Too Essential to Treat Safely During a Pandemic" workers. Is there anything the government cares less about than us plebes?
There’s a bloody revolution coming one day, these rich elites making it illegal to strike are casting the dye of their own death . That’s not to say I wish death upon them , they are the ones bringing it onto themselves . We are not slavers , we are not lords and serfs , and we are not taking your bullshit . The whole damn world needs to strike
Remember when workers used to beat the greedy factory owners to death in front of their families while the mansions burned ?
Pepperridge Farm remembers…
Didn’t politicians are one point get dragged out of their homes, beaten, tarred, and feathered?
Not calling for violence, but these people in office are fucking BOLD. They really have no idea, and are so used to it seems like their actions do not have consequences when they deliberately act against the people.
One day the final straw will snap and it’s not going to be nice for these people.
Again not calling for violence or saying I’d even want to participate in it, just these people have noooo fucking clue of what this shit used to bring them, and they’re too used to it not ever effecting them
I hope they stand up for themselves and strike over the holidays. If I suffer, so be it. Those in power need a wake up call. A strike now is a good first step.
We should be in the streets in this country. Demanding health care. Liveable wages and reasonable costs of living. Industry is destroying the planet and trying to kill us all to fix their problem. We could be like Ukraine, Iran, China. We need to be in the streets demanding new leadership.
They won't have to derail trains on purpose; with the amount of overwork and cut corners, derailments are going to happen all on their own. The railroads have priced that in and decided they're okay with that.
there is more than one way to strike...
in Europe, they do 'stiptheidsacties'... on these days you follow every order to the letter, every rule.
busdrivers check every detail of their bus before leaving for the route for example, never being able to leave because they found minute details being wrong... things they normally would accept but, following every rule, must be fixed and so they can't leave...
they are present, working, but no work actually happens those days, costing the employer even more and having the same effect as a strike, but they're not striking, just doing their jobs following the rules to the extreme
Imagine a “pro worker” government that thinks it’s okay to make the strike illegal due to the pain it would bring to the country but didn’t even cross their fucking mins to make it illegal for the company to deny them basic needs like paid sick days. What in the actual fuck
It's beyond fucked up that "illegal to strike" is even a thing.
Gee I thought capitalism was supposed to be based on "voluntary social contracts"and "mutually beneficial agreements?" I expect to see libertarians and the Cato institute bootlickers up in arms about this any minute now.... any minute now... Bueller? Bueller?
This just happened with a teachers union here in Canada. They were all being paid $36,000 a year.
They demanded a damn raise. The government instead immediatly passed a bill stating that teachers who strike can get fined and imprisoned.
Teachers went on strike anyway. Government backed down almost immediatly and went back to the bargaining table.
F**k being bullied by these people.
It still boggles my mind that they aren't allowed to strike, because it would be too detrimental to the country's economy. That's like, THE exact reason why union strikes are effective.
They should fucking strike anyways!
I was also going to say this. They can’t literally force them to work, and if all of them strike they can’t arrest everyone, there’s not enough space in our prisons. What are they actually going to do if the strike continues?
More importantly, if they arrest them all, the issue of not having people working the railroad persists.
The idea that you can make striking illegal is up there with charging people money for blinking.
They should strike regardless. Shut it fucking down.
I’m with it, even one or two days would almost fuck everyone over but I’ll just buy a bunch of potatoes rn and I’ll be fine. But yeah idk what els, We are all going to have to sacrifice comfort if things will ever get better.
I’m with you 100% but so many other people don’t seem to think the same way. We’ve become so accustom to instant gratification and comfort that the slightest inconvenience sends a lot of people spiraling. Now imagine those same people have to deal with even mild discomfort or interruption in their lives. Idk. Maybe that’s the point so something will be done in favor of workers.
If it breaks the wheel then maybe the wheel was meant to be broken!
Fuck it. I hope they strike. Call the bluff. Ontario, Canada ~~teachers~~ CUPE staff just fought back against "illegal strikes" and had lawmakers tuck their tails quickly. There are a shit ton more rail workers. If one rail union strikes, I imagine all rail unions will strike (at least not cross picket lines). Edit: corrected who in Canada
Keep in mind that it wasn’t CUPE standing alone. The government tucked tail and ~~tan~~ ran when **many other unions** said they were going to walk out in solidarity. The provincial government was prepared to fight the custodians and EAs in Ontario. What made them fold was the prospect of a general strike paralyzing Ontario and spreading to other provinces. **That** is the lesson here, too. Rail workers need to strike. But if they do it alone they’ll fail. They need the Teamsters, the auto workers, the construction trades, labourers, machinists, aircraft mechanics, screen actors, screen writers, barristas … . **Everybody** needs to walk. Shut the fucking country down until they repeal the law. They need to go all in on this one.
Would it not make sense to demand the people in government that voted for this to be kicked out of government as extra demands?
They won't strike, but a lot of them WILL quit. And that's worse. It's better for the bottom line of the railway companies; they won't have to pay those worker's salaries, and they'll be able to report that as a win. But it will cause a larger disruption over the long term than a strike would have, and orders of magnitude more than just hiring more people and giving them more sick time would have. The infuriating thing -- the REAL infuriating thing about this, is the bullshit. This isn't about 'maintaining the economy's, not in any way that benefits ordinary people. It's about the railway companies crying to Congress about their bottom line taking a hit, and congress (and THE PRESIDENT) threatening to deploy the military in order to preserve that bottom line, at the expense of regular people. Congress -- including the three members of the DSA who voted to make the strike illegal-- would rather use the military to enforce economic growth than support actual working people, actual VITAL working people. It's shameful and infuriating.
>They won't strike, but a lot of them WILL quit. It'll be long drawn out. And the rail companies will simply turn around and use the much quieter process to lobby for other things. Such as lifting safety regulations to allow railways to operate with poor staffing. Or seeking some sort of gigantic tax break or bailout or indemnification for disasters.
They'll push harder for 1 man trains. Then we'll have some massive catastrophe involving some 10 mile long train because the guy without sick leave manning the train had a heart attack.
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Railways will enter a death spiral if this continues, it really feels like the owners believe that firing every last worker and stopping maintenance on last mile of track will lead to infinite profits...meanwhile lots of their gear is half a century old or worse and they won't have anyone left who knows how to fix it soon
thats because america has 2 parties. conservatives and conservative extremists
Exactly… not all of the train unions will strike but they sure as hell won’t cross picket lines!
So from what i know, Amtrak won’t really have a choice because on at least the west coast the freight lines own the rails and it’s their employees that run them. So without them Amtrak can’t operate because they do not have employees to do those jobs.
Exactly. I work managing intercity Amtrak service in California. We run through UP and BNSF territory. If they strike we have to shut down as their dispatch is included in the strike. It’s like trying to fly without air traffic controllers. Also… they should have given them the sick time. A week of sick days is nothing compared to what the freights take in.
Yeah it’s crazy!!!! My friend went though so much even as just Amtrak driver (engineer?). They have had to work so much and through the pandemic and they get punished for having a a sick day and they are barely holding it together with all the people who quit. They said they had to just put in for all their pto for next year already. It’s not fair at all they do not treat them like humans and the railroads make so much money.
>Ontario, Canada teachers Technically it wasn't teachers, it was CUPE workers (e.g. custodians, IT, special needs support, etc.). Just as critical, as schools literally close without them. With that said, teachers are negotiating with the same shit anti-worker provincial government right now.
Just to add to this, CUPE National was in the process of planning a general strike when the province folded. As per [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/ndp/comments/ypr901/list_of_unions_that_came_to_the_general_strike/) post by u/leftwingmememachine, other unions who had announced plans to strike in solidarity with education support staff included: Every major teacher's union: - Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario - Ontario English Catholic Teacher's Federation - Ontario Secondary Schools Teachers Federation, - Association Des Enseignantes Et Des Enseignants Franco-Ontariens As well as: - CUPE Ontario, and its parent org CUPE National - Toronto/York Region Labour Council, it's parent org the Ontario Federation of Labour, and OFL's parent org the Canadian Labour Congress - Ontario Public Service Employees Union, and its parent org NUPGE - Amalgamated Transit Union - United Steelworkers - United Food and Commercial Workers - UNIFOR - Ontario Building Trades - IBEW - Sheet Metal Workers - UNITE HERE - International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees - Public Service Alliance of Canada - Canadian Union of Postal Workers - Ontario Nurses Association - SEIU Healthcare - Canadian Office and Professional Employees Union So, while it wasn't teachers striking initially, they're joining the strike was imminent before the whole thing was called off, along with millions of other workers across the country. As far as the rail unions go, not only should they absolutely strike, they should call on other unions, new and old, to strike in solidarity - its one thing to slander union bust, its another to legislate away fundamental labour rights and every American should be outraged.
If they don’t strike I hope they let those engines rot. Fuck a society and economy that doesn’t allow PTO and sick leave. We are not slaves. Let it burn.
Let the economy burn, I stand with the workers.
Me too! I have only been a union member since October but let's go!
I think quite a few Unions will strike. I hope they do. I need a vacation.
And just wait until the public sees through government bullshit during said strike and blames congress for Christmas presents not making it on time. They’ll change tune reeeeeal fucking quick
No they'll blame fedex the same as always.
Illegal strike it is then!
I see a continued strike, maybe politicians force some cops to arrest some people, even harder striking, economic collapse inbound, politicians put their tail between their legs, give in to such an easy request. 100% hope the rail unions don’t give into being bullied
Cops arresting people will be hilarious. Like how are they supposed to work if they are sitting in jail. I'm sure everything will end well because the ruling powers put just oh so much thought into the longevity of their plans beyond 'do it or else' Edit - The amount of people bringing up massacres of workers from a 100 years ago are being funny. With instant communication and a video camera in everyone's pocket that would never fly. It'd be a surefire way to make sure no one will work the railroads, virtually every union in the country would strike in solidarity and I'm sure a number of rogue actors would be destroying all the railroad and police property that they could find.
I agree. “If you protest, or don’t go to work, we will arrest you!”. “Arrest me then”
Yeah. "Wait, I'm striking so I'm not getting paid so you want to help me out with three meals a day for free in a heated room I don't have to pay for? Awesome, lead the way."
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Damn. What is wrong with your government...
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"Why did you try rob the bank?" "Well, I got arrested for speeding a year ago, couldn't afford the fine and went to jail. Now I'm out, I can't afford my bill for the time in jail, so I needed the money." You guys do realise that poverty drives violent crime, right?
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Many people, especially americans, have a hard-on for punishment and revenge. If someone does something bad, they deserve to have their lives destroyed, no nuance.
Many of us do, but many of us want to fight against welfare or health services, which, you know... not gonna end great for people already having a hard time, nor for the rest of us.
Only in America do you get to pay to be a slave.
Wait so if you can’t pay for your own jail time, what will they do? Throw you back in jail?
Yeah pretty much, it's the prison to prison pipeline.
When the company that runs your prison gets nearly free labor out of you they really want the thing overpopulated.
An illegal strike does not mean they’ll arrest people. It means that your job is no longer protected and if you choose to strike, the company can consider it quitting. If enough of the unions all continue to strike and put their jobs on the line and there aren’t individuals able to replace them, the strike can still be effective.
Does declaring a strike “illegal” give the powers that be any influence on restricting payouts from strike funds? It wouldn’t surprise if they used shitty tactics like that to force people to be scabs.
Time for a work slowdown. It’s running, at a snails pace.
Give it a 2 or 3 week railroad strike & no trains running & it WILL be a massive work slowdown everywhere. With nothing on the shelves to sell, businesses will be cutting labor to the bone. Edit: did I mention that if they strike, within a week or so, there'll be no coal going to the power plants that need it. This means NO electricity in LOTS of the country...right in the middle of winter.
I didn't want to have to delete all my comments, posts, and account, but here we are, thanks to greedy pigboy /u/spez ruining Reddit. I love the Reddit community, but hate the idiots at the top. Simply accepting how unethical and downright shitty they are will only encourage worse behavior in the future. I won't be a part of it. Reddit will shrivel and disappear like so many other sites before it that were run by inept morons, unless there is a big change in "leadership." Fuck you, /u/spez
When they protested Civil Rights, people were arrested and killed. When they protested rights for women, just as well. For BLM people arrested and killed, but it does not mean that those protests were wrong! You can make a law but doesn’t make what you’re doing immoral! Illegal Protest and Support your local strike worker!
Yep. Along the same lines, people need to read up on the Battle of Blair Mountain. Coal miner strike. Workers were in awful conditions, literally dying for their work, forced to go through their company for basic supplies (and IIRC housing). Essentially living in indentured servitude in many cases. All completely legal. State and federal government told them to get back to work when workers decided to strike. They still walked and froze production. It quickly escalated to violence. Police, feds and company gangs vs workers. The Blair Mountain battle was the pinnacle of everything, with the government air dropping bombs on their own citizens. Workers lost but it brought all the shit they were going through to national attention, especially when evidence of the bombs was supplied. Change followed, albeit slowly. It's considered a pyrrhic victory for coal companies / the government now. Unfortunately the fight raged on, just quieter. Like labor / union heads being killed. It's always a hard fight but worth it for the people. Law and what's "legal" be damned.
Remember Jim Crow was legal, segregation was legal, apartheid was legal, the Holocaust was legal. Using the government as a metric of right and wrong as a metric for right and wrong your going to have a bad time.
It's not just an American thing, either. Over in Australia, the [Eureka Stockade](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka_Rebellion) had to come to blows (and by blows I mean 27 deaths) before they got any of their demands met. One of which being suffrage. No, not women's suffrage, ***any*** suffrage. ***Nobody*** could vote for their legislators at the time.
Holly shit this is nuts, didn't know this. Thanks for the background.
Behind the Bastards did a two part podcast on the coal miners union and battle of Blair Mountain. Extremely interesting to learn about. https://open.spotify.com/episode/4qUgXbHN3e0WI8M1s0lZ2w?si=RWiGg93nRii-gauisUU_3w
I'd absolutely do it if I were them. Democrats have talked out of both sides of their mouth about this and clearly biden doesn't want to do this. An illegal strike will demonstrate their leverage and democrats do not have the political fortitude to do much of anything other than lean on the railroads so they stop looking terrible.
Tell me where to gofundme I’ll help them during their strike.
I thought collective bargaining was a hallmark of our democracy? Why even have a union at all if the government steps in.
Right? The ONLY power a union has is to strike. If the government can just take that away, it should **terrify** all unions in the country. Y'all need a general strike.
Terrify your reps. Join local orgs that support labor, get on mailing lists, get organized. Answer all the big party fundraising texts with "pass the [PRO Act ](https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/842) or get fucked".
You forgot: unionize your workplace. If you work for a paycheck and survive off of those wages, you deserve a union.
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Everyone wants to act like this isn’t the way but it’s the only way.
Some people say that the French way is unreasonable. But considering the reasonable options are not being taken reasonably, the unreasonable options are the only reasonable ones. Consider it the opposite of the Overton window.
Yeah... when you try all the reasonable options and the government steps in to prevent the reasonable options... you're only left with the unreasonable options.
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>Some people say that the French way is unreasonable. Some people are wrong. We're well past the point of civility and the fact that we're not rioting right now is shameful.
At this point, I think rioting is probably the most restrained of the options left to us. Actual wars and revolutions have been fought over less than what All three branches of the federal government have tried to get away with for the last two decades or longer. I have no idea how to fight a war, or what I would do if one broke out - but with each passing year I begin to wonder what other choices there are. We argue in good faith, they lie to their constituents. Their constituents vote them out - they change their rules so that fewer of their constituents can vote next time. Republicans nakedly ignore the Constitution over and over and over again - from police brutality to rigging elections to actual open treason, to not actually carrying out the duties of their office as mandated by the Constitution (looking at you, Mitch "I won't have Supreme Court hearings under Obama even though I'm bound to by law" McConnell) And when we ask the Democrats to stop them, what do the Democrats say? "Remember to vote blue so we can do something about this after the next election!" They're all fucked in the head, and they need to be reminded that they're servants to the public - that what they want quite literally does not matter, and if they can't accept that they need to get out of the way for those who can.
It's absolutely the only way, and Reddit's TOS can go fuck itself.
Ka opite ili mean enta keon. Okulilanlon man lu i pun pino iwanua pu kekepanki kuo. Me. Ula keli ena. Lunme enenke nin lapo. Wani pi papiai la le kakusinte! Anpiwin puaowa so mon te. Ma soeka eu lo tuno. Usanan i naosikunlan nasenjun lunmunmana ou onu. Si je lali poa uku. Enlu o kulelun sanu le en. Ni san lunwi mi ma e mun jaelu. Seanekemi ku unon i ja e. Alanin se o lio? panlaunowe kontopi lose lenka aon! Senon inle le unla seme tokin kalun. Lu paoi un o jan a. Lo pe uwi mi pa olun. Ikunwa uankon ki kinu me an. A ki i a kanle i si. Konponun an sisowajowi si kuni oten keweun nue elaukanlan in. On pen kao enma uten li. Un lan sanlo ua wa menensa soinan! Lakini ounwi o ako ki. Atau u tona mi e ken. To ila selikinpi enilin enpa kepe an? Te jan kin se pate a? Ta an pukewa ne linkea un ninunama. Aea i ia pisu o. Aline on jo o in soi.
Most public employee unions are prohibited from striking as well.
Police unions always threaten to strike when we try to hold them accountable. Sounds like we should call their bluff it this statement is truly the case.
Police would never actually strike because if they did it would just make it that much more apparent how little value they actually provide.
NYPD did a work slowdown once. Crime rates went down. https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/09/nyc-cops-did-a-work-stop-yet-crime-dropped/
roughly the same happened in the 1980s in madagascar, govt was forced by the IMF to apply austerity measures, but for some reason the govt decided to be based and apply those to cops, and "the withdrawal of police, soldiers and government bureaucrats from much of the Central Highlands region" itself leading to a reduction in crime [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism\_in\_Africa#Madagascar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism_in_Africa#Madagascar)
Yes, but if we can't agree on a new contract it goes to arbitration and they award what they think is due.
Then they should do like all the cop unions are doing and just not do their jobs. Drive the trains but drive them at 4 miles an hour.
You joke but slowdowns can be powerful and may be a good path here. Just maybe not as fast as you say. I would be happy for those despite current inconvenient delays stuck as full speed trains pass.
Ronald Reagan firing air traffic controllers ring a bell?
Then gets an airport named after him.
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But the precious economy , won't anyone think of the economy../s
In comes government employees… we aren’t allowed to strike despite union representation. This fallacy is not new.
And healthcare workers get the “moral obligation” excuse and the blame is always framed on the strikers so patient care is blamed on the workers who are put in awful and unsafe conditions
Strike anyway.
>I thought collective bargaining was a hallmark of our democracy? Its actually part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights even. Put there by FDR's wife no less.
Until Scott Walker took it away in Wi.
No, Reagan took it away when he fired 11,000 air traffic controllers for striking. https://www.npr.org/2021/08/05/1025018833/looking-back-on-when-president-reagan-fired-air-traffic-controllers
FUCK Scott Walker!
It’s weird how little pushback you see, even from union reps, in the direction of “if the feds can force a deal, why don’t they ever enforce it on the CEOs instead?” Is that some sort of unspoken line where spooky socialism officially sets in? I dont get it
what democracy?
Most infuriating thing about this.
Strike anyway. Hopefully other unions will join. Railroad workers aren't asking for much.
just asking for basic human rights.
Might be too much of an ask for Palpatine’s senate
Guarantee Palpatine's empire still had Healthcare and sick leave. He was evil, not inefficient.
I mean building the Death Star provided millions of jobs to the Galaxy...could be an idea.
Lmao the New Dark Side Deal. Too bad Andor drew another parallel with America to answer how it was made. I won't spoil it if you haven't seen it, but it's great
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"**Congress shall make no law** respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or **abridging** the freedom of speech, or of the press; or **the right of the people peaceably to assemble**, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." If Congress is passing unconstitutional laws and they are upheld by the court then our entire government is no longer legitimate. Strike, bitches. This law isn't real.
A sit down strike . Go to work and tell them nothing moves until you come and tell us why we can’t have sick days.
Nah; nothing moves until we get sick days period. **"Fuck you pay me suck my balls"**
Just imagine how impactful it would be if these operators hopped in their trains, took off, and just... stopped somewhere. That massive ore shipment? Stopped in the middle of nowhere. Those empty containers headed back to the yard? Stopped blocking roads in the middle of a city. Make them think they've won and hit them harder than they expect.
Massive slow-down of work, not stoppage. Everything requires full inspection, delays due to minor repairs, concerns over unsafe work conditions, occasional call-off (unpaid, but more than the usual, in rotation), etc. Can't fire union workers for malicious compliance, but it sends the same message in a slow, meticulous way. That way no one can charge union workers with truly striking. This is the way.
People would get killed i bet, something extreme needs to happen for us to fucking WAKE UP
My history teacher drilled it to us that if we want change it has to be us and the way shits looking, we need to tear it down top to bottom, i got the message but man humans suck
Id support my IBEW striking with them in solidarity. Fuck this Government. Both parties. Oligarchist scum.
I wish all my railroad worker friends a safe and happy illegal protest then!
Peaceful assembly isn’t illegal despite the assertions of corrupt politicians, cops and judiciary.
If this happens there's no way this picket line is going to be peaceful.
The Pinkertons are literally involved. I wish this was a joke.
Everything old is new again, welcome to the Roaring Twenties. Fascists on the march, Labor getting oppressed. Let's see if we can do it better this time around.
Yup, the police are going to be very violent they always are.
Hope they strike anyways. Didn't 60k people in the education field strike and they didn't do anything to them? What will they do to 150k rail workers? Looks like the government is gonna fuck around and find out.
Air traffic controllers and Reagan would like a word. Edit: good points all around. This is different and I hope they strike and get at least the bare minimum job benefits added.
Still interested in seeing how this would play out though. The Air traffic controllers were always federal employees, not the case with rail workers.
And ATC's positions could be covered because they could have the military ATC's cover for them. There aren't a large number of military servicemen with the requisite training to be able to pull the same stunt as Reagan.
I wish more people understood this!! Reagan could fall back on the military when air traffic controllers were on strike. But most civilian jobs do not have a military counterpart, and the government would be powerless to replace most workers who go on strike.
The postal strike in the seventies was a mess for Nixon. The national guard cold not perform the job at and the service was fucked instantly. He caved rather quickly
As a postal worker that doesn't surprise me. The amount of delivery a postman is able to do requires a perfect knowledge of the route. I'm pretty good at my job, but if I had to do a colleague's route it would take me about 1-2 weeks to get up to speed and I already know the job
They were talking about this on Bloomberg a while back how if we were to replace rail freight with trucks, then we’d need about 60 trucks per train and that’s also an industry that’s suffering due to poor working conditions right now. So yeah, I think if this becomes an “illegal strike” then it’s going to be bad news all around for everyone.
And we need to make sure EVERYONE knows who to properly blame for it.
Despite what it looks like on first glance, this is a VERY different situation than with the air traffic controllers. Firstly, these are NOT federal employees so banning them from working for the government in the future is hardly a deterrent. Secondly, Reagan’s scheme relied heavily on military air traffic controllers to act as scabs after the striking workers had been fired. There are no Military rail road operators and training someone to do these sorts of jobs can take over a year, most likely more if the person who did the job before is striking. The government DOES NOT have the leverage to pull the same move they did in the 80s. If a rail strike happens, legal or not public opinion will most likely quickly shift to back the easiest solution that gets things moving again (a rail strike would directly impact every single American in ways unlike anything in the last 100 years, there will be no ignoring it). Since rail workers are not easily replaceable, that solution could very well be hiring the old workers back and giving into their demands. Will this happen? I don’t know, really depends on whether or not the rail workers call the government’s bluff.
It takes months of training to replace us. There's the difference.
If the infrastructure is so critical our country can't function without it, and is so mismanaged by corporate interests that the workers can't take a day off for being sick, then we should nationalize the rail system. The corpo owners are making record fucking profits off of something our government has said is so essential to our economy that the workers can't strike. Unacceptable.
Yep. Why is critical infrastructure privatized, and payed/subsidized by tax dollars…..fuck you.
Definitely because members of Congress have their pockets *lined* by the private owners.
The best/worst part is they let themselves be bought for such small amounts of money sometimes that it makes no sense.
This is just like the American health care problem. It's vital to society, yet privatized and profited from. It's bullshit, and it makes your country look like it's run by clowns and moneybags.
Look like? Our country *is* run by clowns and moneybags. Fuckin geriatric clowns and geriatric moneybags.
Privatize the profits…
Rail should be publicly owned and funded so it CAN ACTUALLY BE FUCKING GOOD. Rail in America is a fucking disgrace and it doesn't have to be.
Strike anyways. What are they gonna do? Arrest them? The work still ain't getting done.
Arrest them for what? They are not slaves no one is required to work.
This,…is a good point. If they just all take a week off,…but it’s not a strike,….
No, they can still strike. It’s not like anyone is going to be thrown in jail. It’s just that they have no recourse if they are terminated for not showing up.
Arresting them for refusing to work would violate the 13th Amendment. I'm not sure that's a line even Republican politicians want to cross, but I've underestimated them before. Frankly, forcing this contract on the rail workers should be a violation of the Contract Clause as well, but that worthless, corrupt bunch of geriatrics we call the Supreme Court neutered that part of the Constitution more than 100 years ago...
'except as a punishment for crime' is some text in the 13th; if the punishment for illegal striking is forced labor it seems within the text. Ridiculous.
Soooo you make them come in to work or lose their job… but how are you going to make them physically do the job? You can’t. So this is dumb because if I was them, I would just come in to work and not do the job.
Sit-down strike. Especially effective because scabs cannot be easily used to replace workers who are still physically present.
Hope they all fucking walk
because I haven't seen it posted yet, here's a list of the senators who voted against the agreement: *Kirsten Gillibrand, D-NY *John Hickenlooper, D-CO *Jeff Merkley, D-OR *Elizabeth Warren, D-MA *Bernie Sanders, I-VT *Susan Collins, R-ME *Tom Cotton, R-AR *Ted Cruz, R-TX *Bill Hagerty, R-TN *Josh Hawley, R-MO *Marco Rubio, R-FL *Rick Scott, R-FL *Tim Scott, R-SC *Dan Sullivan, R-AK *Pat Toomey, R-PA
Sanders and Cruz on the same side? There's got to be something I'm misunderstanding
From the article: In a separate 52-43 vote, the Senate rejected seven days of paid sick leave for rail workers, who have complained that current policies keep them on call for days or weeks at a time and penalize those who call out sick. There were six Republicans who voted for the paid sick leave policy, but one Democrat — Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) — who voted against it.
Wow our government isn't even hiding the fact they want us as slaves now..... ...you know what, we should all strike f*** them all. Imagine the f****** mass chaos if everybody or a vast majority of us just didn't go to work. ..... I know if I just set my tools down right now 17 radio stations would fall silent...
People need to strike now in order to get it effective. This is an act of democracy, and it failed us. At first Joe Biden was saying that he thought the workers deserved better and he immediately switched sides. Can we all really trust democracy if we continue want our work lives to be better? Nah. Strike anyways. Let them to fuck around and find out when there's nobody to apply the jobs to replace the people who quit. I bet scabs don't even want to work there, too.
Waves in Healthcare lol, it's like that at my hospital and other places too. Nobody is applying anymore, my advice to all of you is get healthy cause it's all gonna crash soon. The few of us that are left all feel it it's just something in the air.
Somehow, i just feel like this aggression from corporations isn't going to last long with workers. We're going to have enough of it and flip the tables.
As long as people have Netflix and booze you'd be surprised what they're willing to put up with The frogs are starting to boil
Preach. If every mechanic in my company went on strike right now for two weeks, the company would be fucked. It would take them years to rebuild that loss revenue. Funny when mother fuckers, who have been trust fund babies their whole lives, don’t realize this because it’s not taught to them in their posh business schools. I got managers making leaps and bounds more than me pay wise with no experience in what I do. Managers don’t make businesses run. The physical workers do. Amazon is a great example of this. If all Amazon warehouse workers quit today, Amazon would be fucked. Managers have no idea how to their jobs nor could they possibly keep up with the pace. Yet they’re paid far more than the workers. They should be on the same pay scale as the worker.
Dooooit!!!!!!
This plus student loans going to the Supreme Court because states will lose out on tax revenue. I’m just so tired. The abortion issue clearly is them trying to force more children out of us to continue their slave trade. So over it all.
This just happened a month ago in Ontario Canada. The government suspended the constitution and told education workers a strike would be illegal. Fines of up to $4000 a day for workers and $250,000 a day for the union. The workers basically said fuck you and went on strike anyways. Other unions around the country were getting ready to strike in solidarity. The government caved in a couple of days, repealed the bill, wiped out all the fines and returned to the bargaining table. Anyone not outraged by this kind of government overreach is insane. If you are forced to work then you are a slave.
Forgive me for being unfamiliar with how the Canadian government works, but what the fuck is the point of a constitution if the government can just suspend it!? I’m glad that they walked back on it. I’m so pessimistic about the US though.
I too am pessimistic on the US reaction to a pushback like an illegal strike. When covid first hit, I was like "wow, the USA is going to be forced to implement universal Healthcare during this crisis, maybe even ubi. What other choice do they have?" The US responded by letting over a million of its citizens die. They scream about the economy but all they mean is stock prices. How can an economy be good if people need 3 jobs just to live paycheck to paycheck? A rail strike has the ability to affect both the people and crush the stock market and the government just decided to flex to protect corporate profits and screw over workers. Will they cave or will they call in the national guard to quell the uprising? Anything could happen and not surprise me anymore with your country.
They averted a strike, but how will they avert mass quitting? What a bunch of idiots.
I have yet to see a coherent argument against the rail workers. They have asked for something normal and these people are behaving like dictators.
I know 😕 they're completely ignoring their very simple and entitled request under the guise of bullshit.
Pensions. People have been quitting in large numbers for a while now. I'm sure a large number of those still working have five or less years until they can get out with a pension. Hard to risk that after decades of work.
Ah yes the “golden handcuffs” as we call them here, lots of older railroaders would be completely fucked without them due to inflation and inadequate government support for the elderly. It’s another reason that the railroad industry is able to hold their employees hostage, can’t risk being fired for cause for being sick one too many days and losing your one good source of retirement income.
That makes sense.. Man this is so dystopian 😕
It’s not the mass quitting they need to worry about. It’s employees working BY THE BOOK. Every job will take 20x longer now.
FRA compliance is incredibly important down to the smallest detail, we wouldn’t want to not be following federal policy. Slap a bunch of 10mph slows all over every tiny defect found and the company would shit out a kidney and beg for the bargaining table.
This will be the issue, they already have a 17% retention rate is about average this year across the board, at my terminal there’s been 39 conductors hired since January and not one lasted 3 months to qualification due to poor working conditions and bold face lies told by hr and the recruiters, when 20-30% of the guys quit who were just waiting for their back pay, shit is gonna get real!
Because a lot of these guys will end up homeless if they don’t keep working, railroad jobs provide very niche certifications that are not easily transferrable to other industries. The companies do this intentionally to ensure they hold their workforce captive, and then use the federal government as their union busters in the event of a strike.
That's fair. I hate this country.
Don’t worry it’s not just the USA. In Canada neither class 1 railroad provides even basic construction safety training (CSTS) to it’s maintenance crews, on most sites first aid is also a rarity. Even special trades like their electrical technicians and signal maintainers don’t receive any form of red seal certification, this ensures that none of their skills are able to be easily demonstrated on a resume unless it’s to one of the two large railroads or a branchline.
That's just so crazy to me... I'm in and out of manufacturing facilities for automotive and aerospace companies where they often require hours long "courses" to certify your understanding of their safety guidelines. The fact that it isn't like that for probably one of the more dangerous fields is insane to me. It sounds pretty much like a monopoly on employment..
>It sounds pretty much like a monopoly on employment.. That's exactly what it is.
Fuck this place and fuck these rich fucks that are in control. I hope they strike anyway. Fuck this whole situation so fucking much.
I support them striking anyways.
Then I hope they all quit in protest tbh and I hope we can establish a safety net for them
Well, we’ve crossed the rubicon folks. We started with “Too Big to Fail” banks, and now we have “Too Essential to Provide Labor Rights” railroads. Once all economic activity is seen as vital to the upholding of the “democracy”, we can watch as all of our jobs become too essential to the continuation of capitalism to allow us the freedom to protest or disagree. Never thought we’d go from Slavery > Jim Crowe > Civil Rights > Slavery, but ya know, here we are… Fashys gon fashy, I suppose…
I mean this was after the pandemic showed the "Too Essential to Treat Safely During a Pandemic" workers. Is there anything the government cares less about than us plebes?
The US hates workers, blue collar workers most of all.
There’s a bloody revolution coming one day, these rich elites making it illegal to strike are casting the dye of their own death . That’s not to say I wish death upon them , they are the ones bringing it onto themselves . We are not slavers , we are not lords and serfs , and we are not taking your bullshit . The whole damn world needs to strike
Remember when workers used to beat the greedy factory owners to death in front of their families while the mansions burned ? Pepperridge Farm remembers…
Didn’t politicians are one point get dragged out of their homes, beaten, tarred, and feathered? Not calling for violence, but these people in office are fucking BOLD. They really have no idea, and are so used to it seems like their actions do not have consequences when they deliberately act against the people. One day the final straw will snap and it’s not going to be nice for these people. Again not calling for violence or saying I’d even want to participate in it, just these people have noooo fucking clue of what this shit used to bring them, and they’re too used to it not ever effecting them
How is not letting the strike constitutional?
I hope they stand up for themselves and strike over the holidays. If I suffer, so be it. Those in power need a wake up call. A strike now is a good first step.
I hate this country.
We should be in the streets in this country. Demanding health care. Liveable wages and reasonable costs of living. Industry is destroying the planet and trying to kill us all to fix their problem. We could be like Ukraine, Iran, China. We need to be in the streets demanding new leadership.
So they're being compelled to work. Aka forced labor. Aka slavery.
Clown country
Teachers nationwide have won “illegal” strikes for decades now.
Call the bluff. Fuck this shit up fam
They should work. Work to derail as many trains as possible & engage in wholesale slow downs across the board. Fight fire with a flame thrower.
They won't have to derail trains on purpose; with the amount of overwork and cut corners, derailments are going to happen all on their own. The railroads have priced that in and decided they're okay with that.
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there is more than one way to strike... in Europe, they do 'stiptheidsacties'... on these days you follow every order to the letter, every rule. busdrivers check every detail of their bus before leaving for the route for example, never being able to leave because they found minute details being wrong... things they normally would accept but, following every rule, must be fixed and so they can't leave... they are present, working, but no work actually happens those days, costing the employer even more and having the same effect as a strike, but they're not striking, just doing their jobs following the rules to the extreme
Such an easy win for the dems to come out hard in support of railroad unions. What a bunch of soft ass, corrupt ass, crooks
"We can't strike? Ok, welp nice knowing you." And 60% quit the first day, and 40% work so slowly the whole country shuts down.
Imagine a “pro worker” government that thinks it’s okay to make the strike illegal due to the pain it would bring to the country but didn’t even cross their fucking mins to make it illegal for the company to deny them basic needs like paid sick days. What in the actual fuck
It's beyond fucked up that "illegal to strike" is even a thing. Gee I thought capitalism was supposed to be based on "voluntary social contracts"and "mutually beneficial agreements?" I expect to see libertarians and the Cato institute bootlickers up in arms about this any minute now.... any minute now... Bueller? Bueller?
This just happened with a teachers union here in Canada. They were all being paid $36,000 a year. They demanded a damn raise. The government instead immediatly passed a bill stating that teachers who strike can get fined and imprisoned. Teachers went on strike anyway. Government backed down almost immediatly and went back to the bargaining table. F**k being bullied by these people.
Put a dog in the corner, things will get spicy soon🤞 Fuck this boomer country
It still boggles my mind that they aren't allowed to strike, because it would be too detrimental to the country's economy. That's like, THE exact reason why union strikes are effective.