The next day, December 1, the Senate voted to prevent rail workers from striking. Biden immediately signed the new law.

This unusual direct government intervention was organized by President Biden and his Democratic allies. When it comes to the working class, rhetoric about “defense of democracy” is meaningless.

 Why now

Biden and both parties claimed the national economy would collapse if rail workers shut down the railway. Instead of telling the bosses to seriously negotiate with the unions, Biden told the workers to stand down.

Two large rail unions had rejected TA. The Brotherhood of Trainmen (BLET) Locomotive Engineers and the Order of Railway Conductors (ORC) unions, and two smaller unions, had voted ‘No’ . They represented some 55 percent of the voting workers.

In response, President Biden pushed Congress on November 29 to put the force of law behind that rejected agreement, which would raise wages but provide only a single paid sick day. Rail workers work under a system where most are on permanent “call” at ay hour when off of work. They can be penalized for missing work for failure to answer a call-in, being sick, or because of a family emergency.

The Carriers business group, the Association of American Railroads, praised Biden’s and the Congressional action.

The truth is the threat of a rail strike was provoked by railroad owners who absolutely refused to give in on a central goal of the rail unions: the provision of paid sick leave and more personal time off.

The railroads are absolutely swimming in profits — more than enough to have satisfied the unions’ demand and have tens of billions of dollars left over. The unions demanded 15 paid sick days; the managements offered zero. The TA negotiated by Biden’s team included one paid sick day.

 White House betrayal

The sense of betrayal by rail workers is especially acute because Biden has long portrayed himself as friendly to organized labor, and many union officials regard him as the most labor-friendly president of their lifetimes.

The rank and file now see him differently.

Daniel Kindlon, an electrician who works at a rail yard near Albany, N.Y., and is the head of his local union, said he was impressed when Biden spoke at the electrician union’s convention in Chicago earlier in the year.

“It was the best 45 minutes I’ve heard him talk,” Kindlon said. Yet he said he struggled to understand why Biden couldn’t have pushed Congress to go further.

“You would think he would just try to get them to throw in a couple days of sick time; that’s really all the guys were asking for,” he said.

It would not harm their operations to treat employees like humans and let them take care of medical issues,” Dennis Pierce, president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, said in an interview on November 28, “It’s the primary outstanding issue, one we won’t budge on — the request that they stop firing people who get sick.”

The cross crafts rank and file organization, Railroad Workers United (railroad-workersunited.org) said in a press release after Biden’s decision to deny the right to strike, urged workers to speak up and push back,

RWU General Secretary Jason Doering, said, “Despite making record profits year after year, downsizing the workforce by furloughing 30 percent of the employees and becoming some of the most profitable corporations on Wall Street, the Class One carriers somehow cannot afford to provide sick time for their hard working and dedicated employees.”

RWU co-chair and conductor Gabe Christenson added, “The ‘most labor-friendly’ President in history has proven that he and the Democratic Party are not the friends of labor they have touted themselves to be. These wolves in sheep’s clothing have for decades been in bed with corporate America and have allowed them to continue chipping away at the American middle class and organized labor.”

 Railway Labor Act

Under the terms of the Railway Labor Act (PLA), Congress has the option to take a wide variety of actions. It includes keeping both parties at the bargaining table be-fore imposing a Tentative Agreement.

RWU Treasurer Hugh Sawyer explained that “Joe Biden blew it. He had the opportunity to prove his labor-friendly pedigree to millions of workers by simply asking Congress for legislation to end the threat of a national strike on terms more favorable to workers. Sadly, he could not bring himself to advocate for a lousy handful of sick days. The Democrats ad Republicans are both parties of big business and the corporations.”

Amy Goodman of Democracy Now on November 30 interviewed RWU organizer and Locomotive Engineer, Ron Kaminkow:

“So, unfortunately, the “most labor-friendly president,” we’ve ever had basically has opted to side with Class One carriers, Class One rail carriers, because he had the opportunity — and he’s had that opportunity since this whole debacle began — to basically urge, coax, cajole and otherwise badger and bully the rail carriers into meeting what are very, very modest demands of rank-and-file railroad workers. And in his latest request here to Congress to legislate us basically back to work, before we’ve even had a chance to strike, under the terms and conditions of the tentative agreement, which is not very popular with the rank and file. We have — unions that represent 55% of rail labor have voted this contract down.

“And so, we could have seen Biden actually opt for telling Congress he would like to see Congress pass legislation that mediates an end to the conflict under which more favorable terms to the workers, which is to say a handful of sick days. And that’s what this has come down to. Railroad workers traditionally have had no sick time. And now with the very, very harsh attendance policies that we’re faced with, railroad workers get very, very little time off work.

“And it has come to a crunch point. We’re seeing workers leaving the industry in droves, in numbers never, ever believed possible. People with 15- and 20-years’ seniority are leaving the industry. And there’s a crisis out there. And I don’t believe the Biden administration quite understands the depth of this crisis. . .

“Since I entered the industry more than a quarter-century ago, I have watched as the rail industry has made record profits. The operating ratio when I hired in, I believe, was somewhere in the mid-80s. It dropped into the 70s, 60s. The rail indus-try is hell-bent on achieving a 0.50 operating ratio. And who knows where they might even want to go from there? Stock buybacks has reached record proportion. The dividends that have been paid out to stockholders are enormous. Warren Buffett, for one, who bought BNSF outright a decade ago, will state unequivocally that his investment has paid off to him way more than he even expected it to. The wealth that has been accumulated by these rail carriers over the last quarter-century, while they have moved less freight than they did 16 years ago.”}

The disillusions expressed by rail organizers and militants goes beyond Biden and the Democrats. The main labor federation, the AFL-CIO, has not said a word about Biden’s betrayal of the rail workers. It has expressed support for more paid sick days but is quiet about the Congressional intervention.

The Federation stands with Democrats and Biden. Solidarity with the rail workers to victory is not in its vocabulary or actions.

The right to strike is the key issue. Without that threat, the employers rarely make major concessions to workers’ demands.

The right to strike has always been limited for rail labor. In 1926 the carriers got Congress to adopt the very restrictive antilabor law. It occurred in the context of the anticommunist, anti-immigrant Red Scare response to the Russian Revolution. Organized labor was at a very weak point.

The RLA was later amended in 1934 and 1936 to include airline workers. The aim was clear: prevent national strikes by transposition workers.

The RLA allows a long-drawn-out process, including mediation and arbitration, before workers are allowed to strike. But even at the end of the process, Congress and the president can intervene and impose an agreement even if the workforce seeks to strike. Wildcat strikes are illegal.

The last time rail workers went on strike was in 1992. Within days of the shutdown (June24-26) President George W. Bush and Congress imposed a mandatory arbitration system and forced striking workers back to work.

Without broad labor solidarity for rail unions’ right to strike, it will be a big setback not only for rail labor but for all workers seeking fair wages, sick and personal leave, and improved working conditions.

Malik Miah

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