• DreamerOfImprobableDreams@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Except that the Biden Administration kept working with the railroad unions for months after the strike to pressure the railroad companies to give them sick leave, resulting in the railroad companies caving and giving the unions everything they wanted this spring. Union leaders are on record saying they couldn’t have gotten it done without the Administration’s help.

    But progress doesn’t sell as well in the papers as doom and despair, so almost no one knows about it.

    • meat_popsicle@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      So…in other words…justice delayed is not justice denied? The workers just need to shut up and live with bad contracts - we just need to trust they’ll do the right thing?

      The result was:

      • Labor got crushed - effectively the government did their negotiating for them. Why pay dues to a union that can’t even strike and can’t even negotiate by itself?

      • Railroads made absolute fortunes

      • A pittance was doled out since they had so much bad PR due to all the train derailments

      Personally, I think it’s hypocritical the government tells two groups with the same criticality to supply chains two different things. For one group, it’s a threat to the nation and our financial survival, so they can’t go on strike. For the other group, silence.

      • Zana@startrek.website
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        1 year ago

        But is it as critical if FedEx, USPS, and the others exist? Railroads to on strike, there is no one else. UPS goes on strike, Amazon just ships with FedEx.

        • CoffeeJunkie@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          It is quite critical, but as you suggested, somewhat able to be mitigated. Nobody cares about Amazon & their crapola. UPS ships a lot of high value, high priority medical shipments. Other shipments of high value or importance. Heavy shipments just below freight, more often UPS than FedEx. Amazon & their Prime shipping service is a joke, but they have deep pockets so they can do what they want for as long as they want.

          UPS does a lot of the across country shipping for USPS; most people don’t know that. Look at that bubble sleeve in your mailbox. There’s a good chance it says UPS SurePost. So those shipments will be impacted as well.

          UPS is king, UPS tends to be the best. Yes, alternatives & workarounds exist. But they’re far from ideal & are no substitute.

    • Lumun@lemmy.zip
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      1 year ago

      Thanks for the additional context. I never heard anything about this. You can’t say the Biden Labor department has been idle. They have also been very present with the Longshoremen negotiations on the west coast recently. I wish they were even more pro-worker but this just goes to show that elections matter.