A political derailment
And how to get back on track
Welcome to a Wednesday morning edition of Progress Report.
Before we get started on a jam-packed newsletter, I want to quickly appeal to your empathetic natures. This summer, I reported and produced a story about a pro-union Amazon worker in Staten Island named Sharon who was fired by the company as soon as she got back from the Labor Notes conference in July. The firing has sent her world into a bit of a spiral, and she called me yesterday asking if I could help her with a very urgent request. We’ve kept in touch, so I know that it’s not some scam.
Essentially, Sharon needs $500 to pay the security deposit on a new apartment after losing her last one. She’s embarrassed and ashamed, having worked her entire life just to see it be thrown into chaos because she stood up for her rights. There’s just a day left before she’d lose the apartment opportunity, so if you can help out in any way, please consider doing so.
OK, now let’s get to today’s newsletter, which is also about organized labor, as well as political strategy, policy, and some hard lessons learned.
Quick quiz: Which member of the US Senate said the following?
“Just because Congress has the authority to impose a heavy-handed solution does not mean we should. It is wrong … to ask Congress to impose a deal the workers themselves have rejected. I will not vote for any deal that does not have the support of the rail workers.”
I’m not going to give you any options, because unless you’ve been following the news from Capitol Hill extremely closely this week, there’s virtually zero chance that you’d know that it was Marco Rubio that gave that full-throated endorsement of unionized railroad workers in their battle against the massive corporate monopolies and billionaire owners that employ them.
On Monday, President Biden reluctantly called on Congress to pass legislation to implement a collective bargaining agreement between the country’s top rail transport companies and the various unions that represent their employees. In doing so, he asked legislators to defy the will of four rail worker unions that voted down the deal, which was imposed on them by a board appointed by Biden himself. The proposal was disappointing in many ways, but the biggest issue by far is its measly sick day per year.
Railroad companies have ruthlessly culled workers over the past two decades, leaving skeleton crews that must work exhausting and physically demanding jobs almost 24 hours a day, seven days a week. For example, Union Pacific has cut 18,000 workers since 2000 while boosting operating revenue by 85%, all the way to more than $21 billion in 2021. It spent more than $7 billion on tax buybacks last year alone, which is a scandal in and of itself.
The Railway Labor Act bars these workers from striking while they’re under contract, so the expiration of their current contract makes this the first and last opportunity for them to hit the picket lines and demand more from their employers. For Democrats, who love to boast about their support for unions and working people, championing the rail workers’ push for sick leave — an essential component of the failed Build Back Better plan — should be a no-brainer, especially with a full 10 days before any strike would take place.
Instead, Biden calculated that the potential cost to the economy would outrage people, especially around the holiday season, when a protracted strike might significantly delay Christmas gift deliveries. Perhaps it was corporate coverage like this that warped the Beltway set’s perceptions:
Progressive lawmakers, led by Bernie Sanders, who has been on this for weeks, spoke out against moving forward with the deal, but Democratic leaders dutifully obeyed Biden and moved toward scheduling the vote. It was only when Rubio and several other Republicans seemed to suddenly find a solidarity with working people that had always eluded them that the floodgates opened and Democrats began reconsidering. The thought of being outflanked by Ted Cruz, who called the rail workers’ demands “quite reasonable,” was just a step too far.
Cruz’s Texas colleague John Cornyn suggested on Tuesday afternoon that there was a strong chance that there’d be ten GOP votes for a version of the contract that includes the seven sick days requested by workers. Given that Republicans would rather throw a railroad worker onto the tracks than set a precedent that hurts corporate profits, this kind of outspoken support is almost undoubtedly an opportunistic ploy to make Democrats — and union leaders who recommended the contract — look bad to rank and file members and working people.
To be clear, many Democrats, spanning the ideological spectrum from AOC to John Hickenlooper, have come out with powerful statements in support of the workers, but Biden is the leader of the Democratic Party and sets the tone and policy. That he called himself a proud pro-labor president in the same letter in the same sentence in which he asked Congress to stomp on union workers only earned him more ridicule from outraged rail workers and supporters.
Republican tactics here are opportunistic and cynical, sure, but also undoubtedly smart, because Republicans have been making significant gains with working people and union members in particular. In 2016, Hillary Clinton, plagued by support for the unpopular TPP trade deal, won union households by just a 51-43% margin, a full ten points lower than Obama’s 2012 victory. Biden won a stronger 57-40% victory, but the pool of union voters continues to shrink, and Democrats’ continued erosion with white working class voters points to a larger problem with the perception of the party’s willingness to take on the bosses that everyone hates.
Working to earn that trust back
After years of suffering under brutal conditions, rail workers are now being used as a political wedge, with seemingly little control of their own fate. They are the victims here, but it’s fair to say Biden’s reputation is suffering some ancillary damage. And it’s something of a shame, because Biden really has been the best president for labor since FDR — that’s somewhat of a backhanded compliment given how bad things have been for union workers since the New Deal, but true nonetheless.
Though handicapped by woefully low funding and 70 years of labor law erosion, Biden’s NLRB, led by general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, has been aggressive in protecting workers’ rights and trying to set new precedents. This summer, Biden invited organizers from Amazon Labor Union, Starbucks Workers United, and other upstart union movements to the White House, giving Chris Smalls an iconic moment and pissing off Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz so much that the company’s PR team sent out a letter that pretty much everyone ignored.
This presidency has also been an effort in creating a new industrial policy and reshoring manufacturing, which should pay off down the line (even if I don’t think the CHIPS law, which gives money to Intel with no strings attached, is all that politically potent. Add in executive orders like the one that raised the minimum wage on federal contracts and it’s a pretty solid CV, at least in the context of what’s come before this administration.
It was good enough to earn the all-out midterm election support from unions such as UNITE Here, which sent workers all across Pennsylvania. Arizona. and Nevada to knock doors and whip up voter enthusiasm. They wound up saving the Senate majority, and with it Biden’s presidency, and so this legislative scab move on the rail strike is not exactly the right way to thank the union movement.
I couldn’t tell you where the rail bill will wind up, though I’d guess that Republicans will find a way to put Democrats through the PR ringer before voting to give workers an extra sick day. Either way, it’s likely to be the final labor-related legislative action to pass during Biden’s first (and only?) term in office. Democrats will once again have failed to etch the PRO Act into law and come up short on expanding government’s role in social services.
There are still several other avenues that Democrats can take to deliver significant material gains with union workers, even if they aren’t as seismic or sexy as passing the PRO Act, universal child care, or a $15 minimum wage.
On the administrative end, Biden’s executive branch will have a lot of room to shape relevant policy. The Labor Department still has a lot of work to do on regulatory rule making, including setting a substantially higher overtime pay threshold, taking it from the current salary threshold of $35k to up to $82,732 by 2026. Marty Walsh’s department should also make some big changes to the “persuader” rule, tightening up the requirements on employers that use union-busters.
Democrats should also go all-in on pressuring the FTC to block the proposed merger between supermarket giants Kroger and Albertsons, which would create a job-cutting, price-inflating monopoly that would be brutal for both workers and consumers. The UFCW, the union that represents Kroger workers, has come out strong in opposition to the merger, descending on Washington with rank and file members to lobby for its defeat.
It’s unlikely that FTC chair Lina Khan needs all that much convincing to block a merger between two giant corporations, so the lobbying is designed in part to convince the public — and Democratic lawmakers — of the dangers that the proposed merger would present. Amy Klobuchar, chair of the antitrust subcommittee, seems equally as skeptical, which portends well for two years of serious anti-monopoly oversight.
In states where Democrats have trifectas or something near it, other pro-worker policies should be on the docket. Michigan Democrats are eager to repeal the state’s tragic “right-to-work” law, while legislators in Maine want are looking at offering up to 16 weeks of paid family medical leave.
None of these policies are popular with donors, which often reduces the motivation that lawmakers have to pass them. After seeing the fallout from the White House’s train strike decision, though, it should be clear that the race for the working class vote will be hard fought from here on forward. In this case, doing what’s right is the same thing as doing what’s popular.
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Maybe I’m naive, but it seems to me that if the corporate bosses would be willing to share the wealth/profits with the people actually doing the work, they wouldn’t have to deal with strikes. I guess greed beats out fair.