Should railworkers do a wildcat strike following the Senate's rejection of expanded paid leave?

[WV222]

Should railworkers do a wildcat strike following the Senate's rejection of expanded paid leave?

[Mr. Reactionary]

No since that would be illegal.

[GP270watch]

 They have the option to show their displeasure with a number of labor organizing tactics. Biden upheld their right to a good faith and fair negotiation, which is the crux of all labor laws. This however does not guarantee them a result.

[PSOL]

Yes, it is within their rights to be treated as human

[7,052,770]

If it would be bad for Republicans to intentionally crash the economy over not getting their way on the debt ceiling, surely it must also be bad if a union does it.

I do think Biden should use December to pass a national paid leave law, but if the votes aren't there, I guess we'll have to elect more pro-labor candidates to Congress.

[PSOL]

If it would be bad for Republicans to intentionally crash the economy over not getting their way on the debt ceiling, surely it must also be bad if a union does it.

I do think Biden should use December to pass a national paid leave law, but if the votes aren't there, I guess we'll have to elect more pro-labor candidates to Congress.

The unions involved helped the Democratic party have a better showing by waiting until after the midterms, and voted straight ticket D, and yet they get f•••ed because the pro-labor caucus is less than ten votes.

[7,052,770]

If it would be bad for Republicans to intentionally crash the economy over not getting their way on the debt ceiling, surely it must also be bad if a union does it.

I do think Biden should use December to pass a national paid leave law, but if the votes aren't there, I guess we'll have to elect more pro-labor candidates to Congress.

The unions involved helped the Democratic party have a better showing by waiting until after the midterms, and voted straight ticket D, and yet they get f•••ed because the pro-labor caucus is less than ten votes.

Union voters aren't anywhere close to "straight ticket D," not that that's really relevant to whether or not they should get sick leave. (They should, even if they vote 100% R.)

[GeneralMacArthur]

Needless to say, threatening to crash the entire U.S. economy over not getting sufficient paid sick leave is not a strategy that will win people over to your side.  In particular, the President of the United States is not going to be on board with you crashing his nation's economy over a labor dispute, regardless of how pro-union and pro-labor he generally is, that is pretty clearly well past the threshold.

I swear, self-proclaimed labor experts on the internet only know about strikes and nothing else.  There are other things labor can do other than a strike to try and get what they want, you know.  People are just obsessed with strikes because strikes hurt the company the most, and also because they're the most visible and broadly painful action that labor can take, similar to how much a certain crowd just loves riots.

[nicholas.slaydon]

Needless to say, threatening to crash the entire U.S. economy over not getting sufficient paid sick leave is not a strategy that will win people over to your side.  In particular, the President of the United States is not going to be on board with you crashing his nation's economy over a labor dispute, regardless of how pro-union and pro-labor he generally is, that is pretty clearly well past the threshold.

I swear, self-proclaimed labor experts on the internet only know about strikes and nothing else.  There are other things labor can do other than a strike to try and get what they want, you know.  People are just obsessed with strikes because strikes hurt the company the most, and also because they're the most visible and broadly painful action that labor can take, similar to how much a certain crowd just loves riots.

Isn't the very threat of crashing the economy the thing that will earn workers their due? If their jobs are so important as to uphold the entire US economy, then maybe they should be treated like it, and given the benefits they demand.

[PSOL]

All this nonsense that the strike will “crash the economy” is just Karen nonsense we’ve seen during the pandemic and during the Starbucks unionization of people being momentarily displeased they couldn’t get their s••• coffee or their workers wouldn’t act like cattle and continue working. Quite honestly the same Karens are whining then and now.

People have no right to be treated like cattle, and if a strike is what will get these billionaires to give a few crumbs, then that is what must happen.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Needless to say, threatening to crash the entire U.S. economy over not getting sufficient paid sick leave is not a strategy that will win people over to your side.  In particular, the President of the United States is not going to be on board with you crashing his nation's economy over a labor dispute, regardless of how pro-union and pro-labor he generally is, that is pretty clearly well past the threshold.

I swear, self-proclaimed labor experts on the internet only know about strikes and nothing else.  There are other things labor can do other than a strike to try and get what they want, you know.  People are just obsessed with strikes because strikes hurt the company the most, and also because they're the most visible and broadly painful action that labor can take, similar to how much a certain crowd just loves riots.

Isn't the very threat of crashing the economy the thing that will earn workers their due? If their jobs are so important as to uphold the entire US economy, then maybe they should be treated like it, and given the benefits they demand.

No.  If you want to do a hardball negotiation with a company, you strike because the threat is to crash that company.  If your threat is to crash the entire United States, then you are now engaged in a hardball negotiation with the United States, and shouldn't be surprised when they use their power to prevent said strike.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

No, they’d be morally in the right, but it’d backfire horribly and ultimately lead to a worse outcome for the railroad workers.  Folks saying they should do a wildcat strike are being at best wildly shortsighted and at worst engaging in Intercept style self-indulgent virtue signaling while not giving a rat’s a** about the actual impact on the workers themselves.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

No, they’d be morally in the right, but it’d backfire horribly and ultimately lead to a worse outcome for the railroad workers.  Folks saying they should do a wildcat strike are being at best wildly shortsighted and at worst engaging in Intercept style self-indulgent virtue signaling while not giving a rat’s a** about the actual impact on the workers themselves.

I saw Boots Riley taking it even further by saying they should sabotage rail lines and attack replacement workers, which...I'm pretty sure even a labor-sympathetic Democratic government would send in the troops.

[nicholas.slaydon]

Needless to say, threatening to crash the entire U.S. economy over not getting sufficient paid sick leave is not a strategy that will win people over to your side.  In particular, the President of the United States is not going to be on board with you crashing his nation's economy over a labor dispute, regardless of how pro-union and pro-labor he generally is, that is pretty clearly well past the threshold.

I swear, self-proclaimed labor experts on the internet only know about strikes and nothing else.  There are other things labor can do other than a strike to try and get what they want, you know.  People are just obsessed with strikes because strikes hurt the company the most, and also because they're the most visible and broadly painful action that labor can take, similar to how much a certain crowd just loves riots.

Isn't the very threat of crashing the economy the thing that will earn workers their due? If their jobs are so important as to uphold the entire US economy, then maybe they should be treated like it, and given the benefits they demand.

No.  If you want to do a hardball negotiation with a company, you strike because the threat is to crash that company.  If your threat is to crash the entire United States, then you are now engaged in a hardball negotiation with the United States, and shouldn't be surprised when they use their power to prevent said strike.

Nothing can stop the workers from walking off the job and not showing up to work. If there was worker solidarity in this country, no worker in the rail industry would show up for work in a show of solidarity. Their labor is what holds up this country, just like the labor of all workers, and if the US government wants to play hardball with them, then workers of every industry (not just rail workers) should join the rail workers and refuse to work until the demands of the workers are met.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Needless to say, threatening to crash the entire U.S. economy over not getting sufficient paid sick leave is not a strategy that will win people over to your side.  In particular, the President of the United States is not going to be on board with you crashing his nation's economy over a labor dispute, regardless of how pro-union and pro-labor he generally is, that is pretty clearly well past the threshold.

I swear, self-proclaimed labor experts on the internet only know about strikes and nothing else.  There are other things labor can do other than a strike to try and get what they want, you know.  People are just obsessed with strikes because strikes hurt the company the most, and also because they're the most visible and broadly painful action that labor can take, similar to how much a certain crowd just loves riots.

Isn't the very threat of crashing the economy the thing that will earn workers their due? If their jobs are so important as to uphold the entire US economy, then maybe they should be treated like it, and given the benefits they demand.

No.  If you want to do a hardball negotiation with a company, you strike because the threat is to crash that company.  If your threat is to crash the entire United States, then you are now engaged in a hardball negotiation with the United States, and shouldn't be surprised when they use their power to prevent said strike.

Nothing can stop the workers from walking off the job and not showing up to work. If there was worker solidarity in this country, no worker in the rail industry would show up for work in a show of solidarity. Their labor is what holds up this country, just like the labor of all workers, and if the US government wants to play hardball with them, then workers of every industry (not just rail workers) should join the rail workers and refuse to work until the demands of the workers are met.

No offense or anything, but this is a naive fantasy you’d see on some third rate liberal wish fulfillment tv show like West Wing.  I don’t mean that meanly or as an insult to you, but what you’re talking about simply will never happen.  People need to be able to put food on the table and a roof over the heads of their families and most people will always quite understandably prioritize that over solidarity with random strangers in some other industry.  

Also, nuking the economy will not help working class families.  I’m sorry, but that’s just the simple objective reality.  At a certain point, ideology has to conform to reality; it’s just a question of how many times folks insist on hitting themselves in the head with a baseball bat before they realize that it hurts.

[nicholas.slaydon]

Needless to say, threatening to crash the entire U.S. economy over not getting sufficient paid sick leave is not a strategy that will win people over to your side.  In particular, the President of the United States is not going to be on board with you crashing his nation's economy over a labor dispute, regardless of how pro-union and pro-labor he generally is, that is pretty clearly well past the threshold.

I swear, self-proclaimed labor experts on the internet only know about strikes and nothing else.  There are other things labor can do other than a strike to try and get what they want, you know.  People are just obsessed with strikes because strikes hurt the company the most, and also because they're the most visible and broadly painful action that labor can take, similar to how much a certain crowd just loves riots.

Isn't the very threat of crashing the economy the thing that will earn workers their due? If their jobs are so important as to uphold the entire US economy, then maybe they should be treated like it, and given the benefits they demand.

No.  If you want to do a hardball negotiation with a company, you strike because the threat is to crash that company.  If your threat is to crash the entire United States, then you are now engaged in a hardball negotiation with the United States, and shouldn't be surprised when they use their power to prevent said strike.

Nothing can stop the workers from walking off the job and not showing up to work. If there was worker solidarity in this country, no worker in the rail industry would show up for work in a show of solidarity. Their labor is what holds up this country, just like the labor of all workers, and if the US government wants to play hardball with them, then workers of every industry (not just rail workers) should join the rail workers and refuse to work until the demands of the workers are met.

No offense or anything, but this is a naive fantasy you’d see on some third rate liberal wish fulfillment tv show like West Wing.  I don’t mean that meanly or as an insult to you, but what you’re talking about simply will never happen.  People need to be able to put food on the table and a roof over the heads of their families and most people will always quite understandably prioritize that over solidarity with random strangers in some other industry.  

Also, nuking the economy will not help working class families.  I’m sorry, but that’s just the simple objective reality.  At a certain point, ideology has to conform to reality; it’s just a question of how many times folks insist on hitting themselves in the head with a baseball bat before they realize that it hurts.

Is it really wish fulfillment fantasy to want in the US what happened in Finland when Antti Rinne wanted to lower the pay of just 700 postal workers, and unions all across the country went on strike in solidarity which forced the resignation of a newly elected prime minister and his whole cabinet? The fact is that workers need to realize that the government needs them and their labor far more that the reverse, and if workers acted in solidarity, with the proper resilience there is no demand that they could make that the government could refuse, because without the workers there would be no government or economy at all. This whole country (and indeed every country in the world) runs on the labor of workers, all the power lies in their hands (or more accurately on the backs), and if they learn to use the influence they have together, united in solidarity, everything in this country would be much better off.

[I Will Not Be Wrong]

Ask me on December 7th.

[PSOL]

The 1877 railroad strike did not destroy the economy, and its legacy is forcing the hand of the bosses and politicians in ushering in the progressive era and improving living standards to be much higher then that of Western Europe for decades. This won’t accomplish a 1/10th of that.

People see through the lies cooked up by the PR and HR Departcrats, it’s either uphold basic human rights or have accountability become more direct, at one point you got to pay the toll.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Needless to say, threatening to crash the entire U.S. economy over not getting sufficient paid sick leave is not a strategy that will win people over to your side.  In particular, the President of the United States is not going to be on board with you crashing his nation's economy over a labor dispute, regardless of how pro-union and pro-labor he generally is, that is pretty clearly well past the threshold.

I swear, self-proclaimed labor experts on the internet only know about strikes and nothing else.  There are other things labor can do other than a strike to try and get what they want, you know.  People are just obsessed with strikes because strikes hurt the company the most, and also because they're the most visible and broadly painful action that labor can take, similar to how much a certain crowd just loves riots.

Isn't the very threat of crashing the economy the thing that will earn workers their due? If their jobs are so important as to uphold the entire US economy, then maybe they should be treated like it, and given the benefits they demand.

No.  If you want to do a hardball negotiation with a company, you strike because the threat is to crash that company.  If your threat is to crash the entire United States, then you are now engaged in a hardball negotiation with the United States, and shouldn't be surprised when they use their power to prevent said strike.

The implication here is that nobody in a key infrastructure position should be allowed to use hardball negotiating tactics, which is absurd and, if you extend it far enough into realm of people with guns, how you get Nicholas II situations.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I'm not going to tell workers what to do when they're at risk of being fired or worse, but if they choose to do it, they have my full support.

The fundamental point here is that these people were openly and unambiguously sold out by the supposedly "pro-labor" president, and this should live on as a mark of infamy on Biden and any Democrats who went along with this.

[beaver2.0]

I'm not going to tell workers what to do when they're at risk of being fired or worse, but if they choose to do it, they have my full support.

The fundamental point here is that these people were openly and unambiguously sold out by the supposedly "pro-labor" president, and this should live on as a mark of infamy on Biden and any Democrats who went along with this.

Pretty much this in my mind.  It's easy for us to suggest they strike because we don't have to face the personal consequences.  However, if they do choose to strike, I'd understand.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

The 1877 railroad strike did not destroy the economy, and its legacy is forcing the hand of the bosses and politicians in ushering in the progressive era and improving living standards to be much higher then that of Western Europe for decades. This won’t accomplish a 1/10th of that.

People see through the lies cooked up by the PR and HR Departcrats, it’s either uphold basic human rights or have accountability become more direct, at one point you got to pay the toll.

I admit to not being an expert on that particular strike, but even accounting for that, it’s pretty clear that this is simply revisionist history.  The government stepped in and broke the strike with the national guard.  While there were a few scattered victories, ultimately the strike failed iirc. 

And what progressive era is it that was supposedly ushered in by this?  The Gilded Age didn’t really start to show any signs of slowing down Re: political influence until the progressive populist movement  of the 1890s got underway culminating with Bryan temporarily wrestling control of the national Democratic Party from the pro-Gold Standard corporatist vultures like Grover Cleveland and Senator Hill (D-NY) in 1896.  Even that was more of a hiccup that failed to break the small government, anti-regulatory corporate stranglehold on American politics, but at least walked so future (and more successful) progressive movements could run.

It’s certainly more emotionally satisfying to say “f*** the bastards, who cares what the consequences are,” but the railroad workers would have to live with the consequences of a wildcat strike in a way neither of us would.  It’d be a disaster for them more than anyone else.  These are people with families to support and you’re treating them like props in your personal beef with the Democratic Party.  Everyone agrees (I’d hope) that the railroad workers would be 100% morally in the right if they went on strike.  That’s not what matters here.  What matters at this point is what will lead to the least bad outcome for the greatest number of railroad workers (or more broadly, the greatest number of people).  And they’d end up significantly worse off if they tried a wildcat strike right now. 

Needless to say, threatening to crash the entire U.S. economy over not getting sufficient paid sick leave is not a strategy that will win people over to your side.  In particular, the President of the United States is not going to be on board with you crashing his nation's economy over a labor dispute, regardless of how pro-union and pro-labor he generally is, that is pretty clearly well past the threshold.

I swear, self-proclaimed labor experts on the internet only know about strikes and nothing else.  There are other things labor can do other than a strike to try and get what they want, you know.  People are just obsessed with strikes because strikes hurt the company the most, and also because they're the most visible and broadly painful action that labor can take, similar to how much a certain crowd just loves riots.

Isn't the very threat of crashing the economy the thing that will earn workers their due? If their jobs are so important as to uphold the entire US economy, then maybe they should be treated like it, and given the benefits they demand.

No.  If you want to do a hardball negotiation with a company, you strike because the threat is to crash that company.  If your threat is to crash the entire United States, then you are now engaged in a hardball negotiation with the United States, and shouldn't be surprised when they use their power to prevent said strike.

The implication here is that nobody in a key infrastructure position should be allowed to use hardball negotiating tactics, which is absurd and, if you extend it far enough into realm of people with guns, how you get Nicholas II situations.

I can’t speak for GMac (who is light years to my right on more than a few issues), but that wasn’t my interpretation of his post.  I thought what he was saying is that this was a case where a wildcat strike would be shifting the union’s primary adversary from the railroad companies to a relatively sympathetic Presidential administration and that doing so would be a significant mistake.  This would be also a miscalculation regarding the most likely effects of their actions.  It’d backfire, they’d lose even the support they already have (which is not insignificant, note how the week of PTO only failed b/c of the filibuster threshold, something that will likely be gone before the decade is through), and it’d ultimately lead to a worse outcome, but I digress. 

If there was a realistic possibility that a wildcat strike would accomplish the intended goal, that’d be one thing, but there is no reason to think that’s the case.  It’s like how another poster said all workers in other industries should join in going on strike in solidarity.  That’s all well and good in theory, but if we’re being honest, we all know it’s never going to happen.  Certainly not anytime soon.  So that’s not really an argument in favor of a strike b/c there’s no reason to think it might happen.  Similarly, there’s no reason in this particular instance to think a Wildcat strike will actually result in a week of PTO which is what this is ostensibly all about.

[Ferguson97]

If their jobs are so important as to uphold the entire US economy, then maybe they should be treated like it, and given the benefits they demand.

[jojoju1998]

The 1877 railroad strike did not destroy the economy, and its legacy is forcing the hand of the bosses and politicians in ushering in the progressive era and improving living standards to be much higher then that of Western Europe for decades. This won’t accomplish a 1/10th of that.

People see through the lies cooked up by the PR and HR Departcrats, it’s either uphold basic human rights or have accountability become more direct, at one point you got to pay the toll.

This is historically inaccurate.

The 1877 Railroad Strike and the strikes after in the late 19th century actually slowed down any RADICAL change. Because the legitimacy of these strikes and the unions  were kind of destroyed because of their association with violent action.

And the US pushback from large companies was far more stronger than in Europe.

There was reform in the Progressive Era and later on in the New Deal, but that was pushed mostly by middle class activists ( especially in the progressive era ), who wanted to reform the system, not necessarily overturn it.

And even then, the US never got to the point of nationalizing industries, or implementing full scale socialism as in Europe.

[jojoju1998]

If their jobs are so important as to uphold the entire US economy, then maybe they should be treated like it, and given the benefits they demand.

The best and only solution is to pass a Universal paid sick leave program that covers all workers.


Looking at you Manchin and Sinema.