Labor still leaning on ‘Union Joe’
Strikes always hassle someone. Trolley operator strikes in the early 20th century aggravated commuters. Coal miner strikes in the 1920s inconvenienced manufacturers. Auto worker strikes in the 1950s irked new car buyers, car salesmen, and advertisers.
Almost by definition, just about any work stoppage concerns the government. A coal strike in 1919 threatened to worsen inflation. A garment workers strike in 1933 jeopardized recovery from the Great Depression. A steel workers strike in 1959 promised to deepen a slow down of the national economy.
So it was with a possible railroad workers strike in the past several weeks. A railway work stoppage would have had dire consequences for an already snarled product supply chain, so the argument ran. In addition, a rail strike would have cost the economy $2 billion dollars a day in lost wages and productivity.
The White House and President Biden declared a strike by the 12 unions representing the nation 150,000 railroad workers would have menaced farmers, grocery shoppers, automakers and suppliers as well as the nation’s water resources and the disposal of hazardous waste from U.S. oil refiners.
Besides, the politician in the White House and the politicos spread across Capitol Hill had the midterm elections in mind, to say nothing of the Christmas shopping season, which neither side wanted to be blamed for disrupting.
The bipartisanship on display in thwarting a strike by rail workers, first, in September and then later in the fall was, in its way, heartening: Fractured Washington can mend its many disconnects if the circumstances warrant (and if Democratic and Republican interests line up).
But was it the right thing to do? What about the aggrieved rail workers, a majority of whom voted to turn down a contract brokered by the Biden administration and who wanted little more than a week or so of paid sick leave? (They got one day.) Did it serve their interests? Did it serve the interests of workers in general?
On a broader scale, did it serve the interests of a free people striving and restless to better themselves? Did it serve the interests of a robust country, and that country’s robust future?
Of course, it all depends where you stand, your point of view, your grievances, your hopes.
“I think Congress needs to stay out of our business,” a rail worker told the Washington Post on Nov. 29, nine days before a potential nationwide rail shutdown. “I don’t think [Democrats or Republicans] have our interests in mind.”
On Nov. 30, the day the House voted 290 to 137 to head off a strike, the president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, Dennis Pierce, said, “The average American would not know we get fired for going to” a doctor’s appointment. “It’s inhumane.”
(The Senate voted 80-15 a day later to send the legislation to the White House for President Biden’s signature on Dec. 2.)
Rail workers’ allies in academia brought their own concerns to the table. Labor historian Nelson Lichtenstein noted that rail strikes have, on average, been short in duration, a day or two at most. He further noted that the railroads were culpable. In recent years, he said, they have cut payroll in order to enhance company profits to such an extent that they have brought on the abusive and callous conditions workers were rebelling against.
Lichtenstein, who teaches at UC-Santa Barbara, told a Soundcloud podcast that Biden, acting under the authority of 1926 emergency rail legislative, had broad authority to shape a settlement favorable to workers. He called Biden’s failure to act shameful, even criminal.
Kimberly Phillips-Fein, one of 500 labor historians to sign an open letter to Biden about the rail contract, said the president erred in not “explicitly” identifying “the interest of the country with those of the workers.” Instead, he took the side of management. Biden “framed it wrong,” she told Motherboard.
Lichtenstein and Phillips-Fein both said a strike, had it been allowed to happen, would have been a tonic, a morale booster, for the U.S. labor movement.
Touting hefty wage increases and other enhancements, President Biden nevertheless said, “This was a tough vote … for me. But it was the right thing to do.”
Biden, who promised to be the most pro-union president in history, has been knocked down a peg or two. Organized labor is in a position to hope for better from the president.
Richard Robbins is the author, most recently of Troubled Times: The Struggle for Wages, Recognition, and Power in the Age of Coal and Coke. He can be reached at dick.l.robbins@gmail.com.