In September 2022, U.S. Senators Richard Burr and Roger Wicker introduced a bill that would have required labor unions to agree to the terms proposed by the Presidential Emergency Board, to prevent a strike.[18] It was blocked by Senator Bernie Sanders, who noted that freight rail workers receive a "grand total of zero sick days" while railroad companies made significant profits.[19] In the House of Representatives, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, "We’d rather see negotiations prevail so there’s no need for any actions from Congress."[16]

In late November, after some unions had rejected the agreement, Biden asked Congress to pass the agreement into law. On November 30, the House of Representatives passed the existing tentative agreement along with an amended version that would require railroad employers to ensure 7 days paid sick leave.[20] On December 1, the Senate passed the tentative agreement with only 1 day of sick leave.[21] President Joe Biden signed the legislation into law on December 2.[4] Writing for Jacobin, Barry Eidlin, associate professor of sociology at McGill University, said the message sent to the rail workers by the president and Congress was "shut up and get back to work."[22] The Biden administration's intervention in the dispute was condemned by over 500 labor historians in an open letter to Joe Biden and Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh.[23]

Sounds like Bernie went to bat for them, and then Biden forced a compromise the industry wanted but most unions disagreed with...

I mean, Biden got them a single sick day when they were only asking for 7 days.

That's not a great win for unions, that's a middle finger.

It's literally the smallest amount of sick days they could have so they could stop saying "we do t get sick days".

And a cynic would say the only reason they got the one is "we don't have enough sick days" doesn't Garner as much sympathy in a headline.

But I'm just going off what you linked, do you want to try and find one that does back up your version of events?

Thanks for posting and explaining some of this. I also had the mistaken impression that he just had forced them all back to work. It never sat right with me. I wasn’t aware that a lot of things happened after that.

The unions wanted 15 sick days, Biden forced them to accept the company's offer of 1 day unpaid sickleave. Later it was increased to 7, plus a wage increase of 14%+4.5% per year for 5 years. That doesn't even keep up with inflation.

Biden could have simply ordered the railroad to accept the union's demands, hell he could have nationalized the rail companies in question, but his job is to represent capital, not labor.

To put into perspective how much of a pittance this is, BNSF is so profitable, they could afford to give every worker a raise of 100,000 and still afford to give Warren Buffet a billion dollars every year. This is the equivalent of Trump giving the .1% billions in tax breaks and telling workers they should support him because they get an extra 12 bucks in their tax returns.

Is your assertion here that United Steelworkers just fucked up and endorsed a rabidly anti-union candidate because they’re not as up to speed on labor issues as you are?

I really appreciate the “you really think you’re smarter than the people whose job it is to do this?” Energy being exuded here. Spot on.

I had no idea he negotiated to get them the things they wanted afterwards, thank you for sharing that. I was completely unaware