Joe Biden Promised to Be Pro-Labor. Why Is He Asking Rail Workers to Cave on Paid Leave?

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer promised on Thursday morning to move “ASAP” on legislation that would avert a costly railroad strike but allow railroad companies to continue exploiting their employees. “The Senate cannot leave until we get the job done,” the New York Democrat said on the Senate floor, a day after the Democrat-led House passed a similar bill undercutting railroad unions at the Biden administration’s direction.

“Time,” Schumer said Thursday, “is of the essence.”

Railroad workers and their employers have been at loggerheads for months over working conditions, raising the prospect of a strike that could cost the United States economy an estimated two billion dollars a day. President Joe Biden in September announced a tentative resolution to the dispute, which included a 24 percent wage increase and stronger health benefits, but failed to address the main sticking points for workers and the railroad unions: chronic understaffing and a lack of paid sick days. September’s deal averted a political and economic crisis in the short-term, and Biden hailed it as “an important win for our economy and the American people,” as well as for “tens of thousands of rail workers who worked tirelessly through the pandemic.” But by November, four railroad unions, including the largest, had rejected the agreement, seeking changes to staffing and sick leave policy. 

With a December 9 deadline for the deal approaching, Biden called for Congress on Monday to intervene in the dispute and enforce the agreement his administration had brokered in September. The president, who often touts his pro-union bonafides, expressed misgivings about undercutting railroad workers’ negotiating power, but suggested he had no other choice, given the economic impact of a strike. “As a proud pro-labor President, I am reluctant to override the ratification procedures and the views of those who voted against the agreement,” he said in a statement. “But in this case—where the economic impact of a shutdown would hurt millions of other working people and families—I believe Congress must use its powers to adopt this deal.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi agreed, and led the House on Wednesday to pass two bills: one to enforce the September agreement and block a strike, and another, pushed by House progressives, that would force railroad companies to allow workers seven paid sick days. (The current agreement only allows for one.) “I don’t like going against the ability of unions to strike,” Pelosi said. “But weighing the equities, we must avoid a strike.”

“The Progressive Caucus will continue to fight to ensure that all workers have paid sick leave guaranteed and that labor rights are upheld,” Pramila Jayapal, chair of the House Progressive Caucus, added in a statement. “I thank Speaker Pelosi and Leadership for their cooperation, and my Progressive Caucus colleagues for their indefatigable advocacy and commitment to workers’ rights.” 

Schumer wasted no time in vowing to move quickly, saying on the Senate floor that it was important the Senate approve a deal ahead of the December 9 deadline. But it’s unclear what will come of the legislation in the upper chamber; as the Washington Post pointed out, lawmakers of both parties have expressed qualms about enforcing a deal and what such a deal would entail. Progressives Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have each vocally opposed an agreement that didn’t include the paid leave policies union workers have fought for—and, as Sanders noted on MSNBC Tuesday, there may be some GOP support for such a measure in the Senate. One such Republican is Josh Hawley, who has said he would “absolutely not support it without some sick leave.” Marco Rubio, another Senate Republican, said this week he would not vote for “any deal that does not have the support of the rail workers.” But even with a few GOP buy-ins, it’s not clear that the deal could ultimately garner 60 votes—especially since such a bill would be “more pro-union than that which the Biden administration brokered,” as New York’s Eric Levitz observed Wednesday. 

The administration is undoubtedly in a difficult position; the economic impact of a freight rail strike would not only be a political problem, but one that would send devastating shockwaves through the economy. But Biden’s efforts to avert that crisis shouldn’t come at the expense of workers, whose demands for fair working conditions—which their employers oppose in the name of efficiency—are hardly unreasonable. Workers and big business are in a standoff—and the Biden administration is essentially forcing the workers to blink first.