O’Brien acknowledges Biden has been a “great” president for organized labor. But he told the Globe that Biden hasn’t delivered on all his promises and the Teamsters are worried their backing is being taken for granted.
Hm… I think you might be right. The White House sort of took credit for it, and I thought I remembered that they were in on some of the negotiations and I’ve been saying they were, but everything I can find now seems to indicate that it was just the unions pressuring the railroads. I can’t find anything to indicate that Biden’s people were involved.
Moreover, saying unions can’t strike when it’s economically or politically inconvenient is tantamount to saying that can’t strike at all. There’s a reason hundreds of labor historians wrote Biden and his labor secretary an open letter condemning them for what they did with this strike.
100%. I agree. Like I say, my personal feeling is that, if the workers want to strike, then fuck the economy. If the economy tanks and we get some level of “oh god I’m really struggling with the price of hot dogs / with how my stocks are doing,” then maybe all of those people who are unhappy about that happening should live for a year in the railroad workers’ shoes.
I’m just saying, it’s extremely relevant what all other actions Biden did for unions when it wasn’t the whole economy at stake, and that I kind of get why he did it. I’m not saying I think that’s the right way for the US government to react to a big rail strike or that the Biden administration is a good ending point for progress.
acting like he didn’t or it’s no big deal is extremely unhelpful to Biden’s reelection efforts.
Fair enough. Acting like the other 95% of his union actions didn’t happen is also unhelpful to Biden’s reelection efforts, though.
Regarding Biden and his administration’s involvement, I’ve had to explain this to people before so I keep the info saved:
Biden deserves a lot of the credit for achieving this goal for us,” Russo said. “He and his team continued to work behind the scenes to get all of rail labor a fair agreement for paid sick leave
Hm… I think you might be right. The White House sort of took credit for it, and I thought I remembered that they were in on some of the negotiations and I’ve been saying they were, but everything I can find now seems to indicate that it was just the unions pressuring the railroads. I can’t find anything to indicate that Biden’s people were involved.
100%. I agree. Like I say, my personal feeling is that, if the workers want to strike, then fuck the economy. If the economy tanks and we get some level of “oh god I’m really struggling with the price of hot dogs / with how my stocks are doing,” then maybe all of those people who are unhappy about that happening should live for a year in the railroad workers’ shoes.
I’m just saying, it’s extremely relevant what all other actions Biden did for unions when it wasn’t the whole economy at stake, and that I kind of get why he did it. I’m not saying I think that’s the right way for the US government to react to a big rail strike or that the Biden administration is a good ending point for progress.
Fair enough. Acting like the other 95% of his union actions didn’t happen is also unhelpful to Biden’s reelection efforts, though.
Regarding Biden and his administration’s involvement, I’ve had to explain this to people before so I keep the info saved:
https://web.archive.org/web/20230620220325/https://www.ibew.org/media-center/Articles/23Daily/2306/230620_IBEWandPaid
Got it. Yeah. I thought I had seen something like that. I just couldn’t find it on the spot just now when looking for it.