Progressives move to add 7 sick days to railway deal

Sen. Bernie Sanders said late Tuesday night that it was time to “put up or shut up” for any U.S. lawmaker who claims to fight for the working class as he and other progressives in Congress vowed to insert paid sick leave into a labor agreement between railway workers and the nation’s rail companies.

With a vote in the U.S. House as early as Wednesday morning, MSNBC host Chris Hayes asked Sen. Sanders whether Congress has the authority to mandate the addition of sick leave—the final key demand of railway workers’ unions who have battled the carriers for months—to the deal that congressional lawmakers have been asked by President Joe Biden to force through as a way to avert a strike by the workers that would have huge impacts on the national economy.

“Congress has the power to come up with an agreement in order to protect the economy,” said Sanders. While he said that he doesn’t know anybody who wants a strike—and acknowledged that such a work stoppage would hurt the broader economy—Sanders said the “bottom line” in this fight is quite clear.

“The bottom line,” said Sanders, “is that the American people and workers throughout this country feel profound disgust at the kind of corporate greed that we are seeing. Everybody knows that billionaires are getting richer, working people are struggling, corporate profits are at an all-time high, and their making goods unaffordable for ordinary Americans—that’s the overall reality. And what you’re seeing in the rail industry is that phenomenon in spades.”

Citing statistics that show the major rail carriers have made an estimated $21 billion in profits over the last three quarters, another $25 billion in stock buybacks to enrich their wealthy investors, and multi-million dollar salaries to top executives, Sanders slammed the fact that the railway workers themselves “have zero—underline zero—guaranteed sick leave.”

On Tuesday night, Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) introduced an amendment in the House that would add seven paid sick days to the labor contract proposal that was negotiated with the assistance of the White House earlier this year, but subsequently rejected by a number of the railway unions for lack of sick leave.

While House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Monday backed Biden’s call to push through a vote on the contract “with no poison pills or changes to the negotiated terms,” but in a Dear Colleague letter issued Tuesday evening she adjusted that course by indicating that two votes would be held, explaining to members:

First, we will consider the strike-averting legislation to adopt the Tentative Agreement, as the railroad companies and labor leaders have negotiated.
Next, we will have a separate, up-or-down vote to add seven days of paid sick leave for railroaders to the Tentative Agreement.
Then, we will send this package to the Senate, which will then go directly to President Biden for signature.

With Sanders vowing to fight for the same kind of inclusion in the Senate, reporting from Capitol Hill indicated that there may be Republican enough support for adding the paid sick leave to overcome the 60-vote threshold to overcome a filibuster in the upper chamber.

Originally published at Commondreams.org.

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