this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2023
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Democrats and Republicans came together in a super rare and bipartisan endeavour to shut down the rights of hard working railroad workers trying to strike for sick days and time off in December 2022. The final senate vote was 85 vs 15.
That should be a pretty clear indication that at least when it comes to helping working class people where it counts (money and basic human rights), both parties are identical.
Did you know the Biden administration continued working behind the scenes to get those workers their sick days without the major financial impacts the strike would've had on Americans already struggling with high inflation, and that they ultimately got them? Do you think a Republican president would've done that?
Straight from the union:
https://www.ibew.org/media-center/Articles/23Daily/2306/230620_IBEWandPaid
I actually did know that, but it doesn't invalidate my point whatsoever.
If Democrats were truly supportive of working class people they wouldn't be voting to remove their collective bargaining rights via an act of Congress. Think about that for a second -- they would rather vote to send those workers to jail than allow them to exercise a core right of workers everywhere.
Doesn't matter that Biden stepped in months later, Biden is the president and I'm talking about the general party in Congress, e.g. Democrats en masse.
My point is that strikes are predicated on the bet that the striking workers have a higher pain tolerance than the capitalists and their investors for the pain caused by a strike.
If UAW workers strike, GM makes fewer cars, people buy from competitors, and the capitalist suffers. If Kellogg's workers strike, the same thing happens: capitalist suffers, competitors benefit.
Rail strikes spread that pain to everyone. It's not the rail workers' fault, but a strike would've led to millions of layoffs, a likely recession, and severe food and medicine insecurity. The wealthy would be perfectly happy with this outcome, while millions of Americans suddenly have no income with high inflation. There is some line where the needs of those millions outweigh the needs of the thousands of rail workers. I don't know where that line is, but it exists, and I'm glad I'm not the one who has to decide where it is.
So a small group of workers should suffer because the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few?
Those rail workers weren't striking for higher pay, they wanted the basic human dignity of having paid time off and paid sick days.
Reminder that while Sleepy Joe was out strikebreaking, Xi Jinping's government was unionizing gig workers and slapping restrictions on their employers
The stick to beat the billionaires with, trick and? If anything, this would've mobilized a MASS of people who otherwise never would've had skin in the game. Quite possibly the greatest movement of labor this century would have ever seen-- until the Honorary Pinkerton scrawled his Hancock to ratfuck the strike. You hide "fuck 'em, they should slave rather than get their needs as laborers met" behind fake concern for "the millions"; get fucked.
That’s the point. They should have the right to remind the capitalists how essential they are and how much pain they could cause, so that the capitalists would be forced to provide basic things like paid medical leave.
Even if that was true, dems (and you) just said that it's ok for haute bourgeoisie to hold entire society hostage instead of doing something with this. Obligatory reminder that nothing of sorts would happen if the workers basic demands were fulfilled, but it seems that again the entire US political establishment coming from the stance of no compromise with the workers.
It's a class war. All workers are implicated. All capitalists are implicated. It's not neat. It's messy. That doesn't mean the organised workers should wait for the unorganised workers to catch up before doing anything. They would have to wait forever. Those other workers should organise with the rail workers to fix things, not complain that the rail workers are having an effective strike.
The line is between the workers and the capitalists. It's not within the working class.
Visible strike breaking does far more to harm the actions of labor. I’ll believe joe brandon’s administration is siding with the working class when they work towards something meaningful like making sympathy strikes legal again