comment: >
  
  Worked out a bad deal that got rejected by a union. Used political capital to force rail workers back to work with inhumane conditions and scheduling. 
  Bootlickers in this very thread blaming the rail workers for not supporting the Democratic Party enough by not striking before the midterms. 
  The Republicans being anti-labor doesn’t make the Democrats pro-labor. Biden is not a pro-labor president. He’s at best a neutral-labor president.
context: Biden didnt say he'd be a pro-Union president. He said hed be the MOST pro-union president. The bar is so low, he can crush a strike and still be one of the most pro-Union presidents because, well, they rarely are in the last 80 years. >
  
  Not sure arguing for a technicality is a great move here. If labor doesn’t trust Biden anymore, I doubt you’ll win them back via technicality >
  
  Democrats have lost a lot of labor's support since the 70s, particularly in manufacturing and trade unions, and it's fucking infuriating they don't do more to address this. >
  
  They know who lines their pockets and who does not. And it's not manufacturing and trade unions. >
  
  Yea it's wild to me the amount of republicans that are in unions but hate them for some reason? Something like it makes the products more expensive. >
  
  Labor unions have long ago stopped functioning in the ways that made a real threat to the capitalist world order. This has come to fruition, in part, through a complete breakdown of what little class consciousness the working class in the U.S. has ever had. And you see that with conservative union members of all stripes. >
  
  The handling of the rail strike issue, to put it lightly, greatly irritated many on the left, and will likely remain in the thoughts of many for quite a while.
  Furthermore, and this is just from what I've observed as a member of the Seattle DSA, it reignited debate over whether the DSA should continue to operate within the Democratic Party or break away entirely.
  I've taken the position of believing that a breakaway would just cause us to be spoilers and play into the hands of the GOP, but the anger is, from my perspective, understandable. >
  
  I'm glad you are of the correct view that fracturing the Democratic party would play into the hands of the GOP >
  
  That assumes that DSA and/or the Left = the Democratic party. Cant fracture something that's not already together. >
  
  Yeah truth. The US Democratic Party is actually right of center in a historical and global perspective >
  
  That and if the Democratic Party were actually concerned about "playing into the hands of the GOP" through a split with anyone to their Left, they would function very differently. >
  
  Amen 🙏 >
  
  The workers can still try to strike if they want to. The fact is there's no way Biden could've allowed rails to stop before the holidays. That would've been catastrophic for not just the economy but labor, too. Most likely it would've seriously hurt the union movement by turning a lot of sympathy against it. In the long term, avoiding that crisis was a better decision. >
  
  Strikes are supposed to be disruptive, scab >
  
  Yes, but that doesn't mean they're automatically a good idea. The disruption in this case would not have been productive or helpful to the movement. You have to choose when to use disruption wisely, and this was not the right moment. >
  
  It was for the rail workers. There will never be movement if we wait until it’s convenient for Christmas 😂 >
  
  There won't be a movement if you cancel Christmas for everyone that's for sure. >
  
  Or, you know, we could have all stood with them in a form of working class solidarity. But that would require class consciousness from within the working class in the U.S. so of course that is not going to happen.
  Better to just demand a "better time and/or place" for fellow workers who have no paid sick days because I need to consume, consume, consume at all costs. >
  
  Yeah that isn’t going to happen realistically. It’s always difficult to get middle class voters behind labor causes. They tend to care about their individual lifestyle more. But that’s just how it goes. >
  
  And that's why we cannot have anything nice around here either at all or for long. The day we do the opposite of what you are rhetorically doing which is just shrugging it off we might have a real shot to build a country that is worth a single shit. Until then, we'll just get what we get from the bosses around here. It's a real shame to say the least. >
  
  From the author's twitter thread about this article:
  
  The critique is that, while Biden may have better relationships with labor leaders than Clinton and Obama, and he may push more pro-labor legislation at the margins, the basic model is similar: manage labor's decline rather than seek to reverse it.
  Obviously, there are obviously limits on what a president can do. He can't decree the PRO Act into existence. The argument is that you have a few opportunities in your presidency to really take a risk that could help reverse labor's decline, and that the rail episode was one.
  What's interesting about this debate is that Biden's critics and defenders don't disagree on much. Both say he's the most pro-labor president in a long time. Both struggle to come up w/an example of him taking a big risk on labor's behalf. (~70% of Americans back unions.) >
  
  I mean obviously he can’t be pro labour, that would break the reaganomics that we’ve had for oh so long! >
  
  Considering he fucked over rail workers, I'm not surprised. >
  
  Maybe don't go on strike right before the mid-terms which would have completely fucked over the only party that backs them and they can get everything they wanted instead of most of what they wanted. >
  
  The strike date was December 9th. Congress stepped in December 1st.  Neither of those were before the midterm. From CNBC:
  
  The initial agreement brokered by the Biden administration was accepted by all but four rail unions, who were holding out for guaranteed paid sick leave days. The opposing unions, though, represent the majority of rail workers. The workers and companies had until Dec. 9 to reach an agreement before they vowed to strike, which the industry estimated would cost the U.S. economy $2 billion per day
  
  Unions should also set strike dates when it’ll have the strongest impact, not the lowest. >
  
  They should have engaged in a strategy of rolling strikes where certain lines were shut down but the majority of freight arrived at its destination on a timely basis.  The cost of shutting down key lines would still put pressure on leadership/ownership but it wouldn't have resulted in Congress stepping in and putting the kibosh on it.
  You have to think more strategically than, "hey let's threaten to shut down the mode of transport carrying 1/3rd of all freight" and hope that Congress doesn't weigh all the factors being considered.  It's a stupid move even if you support the cause.
  Congress makes decisions based on what is required to maintain interstate commerce. If they had decided not to kill the strike it would have had severe consequences for millions.  As it is, thousands of rail workers got...well...railed.
  Biden did step in and try to get a deal for the unions but they rejected that negotiated offer and then tried to severely harm the economy.  How can any reasonable person expect anything other than Congress stepping in and shutting it down? >
  
  Maybe stop framing it as the workers trying to hurt the economy and it would make more sense why anyone would ever want to do that. The railroad workers WANT to work. What they dont want is to be treated as machines and not human beings such that if they ever have an unexpected day off they can lose their jobs. Owners decided to treat workers this way, and owners decided that it was worth the risk of strike over letting workers have sick days. >
  
  I'm not trying to get into the theory of mind for the rail workers.  But it is a fact that a general rail workers strike would have been extremely harmful to the economy.  That's not speculation it's facts