Wearing a UAW hat and a sweatshirt with the presidential seal, Biden triggered broad applause when he told the crowd of about 200 people that they “deserve a significant raise.”
“Let’s keep going,” he said later, before walking among the picketers to give out fist bumps and pose for selfies. “You deserve what you’ve earned. And you deserve a whole hell of a lot more than you’re getting paid now.”
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This is an interesting point. Optimisticly the administration may have learned from that experience it would be more politically advantagous to support unions rather than oppose them. More cynically and probably more realistically in my opinion, making a stand here is doing a great job whitewashing the administration’s track record by going from the next in a long line of union busters to unprecedented PR moves like this along with some real policy strengthening unions. Either way I’m thankful for the development.
No it’s just that the rail shutdown would have a far to big impact on US economy. Bidens administration did manage to get them their sick days in the end but they deserved so much more than that. It’s rough when you’re a truly essential worker.
Making a stand in favor of Unions at that time could have expedited negotiations without disrupting the economy with a prolonged shutdown, but the status quo for the last few decades has been to to force workers to work in favor of shareholders. They figured it wouldn’t be as big of a deal since it hasn’t been until recently, and they learned their political calculus was off.