Without either a whimper or a wail, the Democratic Party leadership easily, slyly, quietly, and quickly blocked a strike of railroad workers demanding the dignity of caring for themselves and their families.

Bargaining between the freight railroads and the workers’ unions had dragged on with difficulty with workers fighting for decent working conditions and human conditions of life.

Squeezing dignity and respect from the workers is what has enabled the railroad corporations to add billions to their profits. A Presidential Emergency Board (PEB) meeting in September resolved all the issues except sick leave. The railroad companies offered just one day of sick leave per year – up from zero.  The workers continued to push for one day of sick leave every two months, a total of seven days a year. Seven days a year was the number Democrats had promised to legislate for all American workers, whether union or not.

But when workers voted down the PEB settlement and began preparing to strike for a contract that included sick leave, the President and Democratic congressional leadership moved, passed, and signed legislation making such a strike illegal.

Of course, they did the obligatory obfuscation.  The House passed the legislation with seven days of sick leave in it.  Sen. Bernie Sanders did all he could to include sick leave with an amendment to the Senate bill. But it failed with West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin voting with Republicans to kill it, continuing his long record of anti-worker votes.

So, legislation stopping the strike without seven days of sick leave passed both Democratic-led Houses and was signed by a Democratic President.

IT’S NEVER RIGHT TO BREAK A STRIKE.  NOT WITH BASEBALL BATS, TIRE IRONS OR GUNS, AND CERTAINLY NOT WITH LEGISLATION AND GOVERNMENT ACTION.

Of course, Democrats didn’t want a rail strike right before Christmas with freight containers of toys made in Asia and demand forcing up costs even more.

BUT WHAT IS WRONG, TROUBLING, AND DISAPPOINTING, IS THE SPEED, RAPIDITY, EASE AND GREASED PROCESS OF THE DEMOCRATIC LEADERSHIP IN VIOLATING THEIR PROMISES AND CURTAILING THE HUMAN RIGHT TO WITHHOLD ONE’S LABOR. ALL DONE WITHOUT ANY RESISTANCE TO THE FREIGHT RAIL CORPORATIONS.

Railroad profits have increased by billions in this past year.  Third quarter profits were up as much as 13% to 15%.  The only reason for them to deny sick leave is to make billions on the everyday family struggles of railroad workers.  THAT IS OBSCENE!

The least we should be able to expect from a truly labor friendly Democratic leadership would be to publicly challenge the railroads on their dangerous and inhumane demands of workers and families.  There are Democratic mayors across America who’ve prevented such strikes by putting the responsibility where it belongs…on the Boss.

I do not believe we should leave the party, but we should demand more than empty rhetoric and dusty policy on a shelf.

I was at the bargaining table when the Mayor of Santa Fe, N.M. prevented a hospital strike by challenging the boss to bargain with us in his conference room in City Hall at all hours till we reached a contract.

When we elected a mayor in Atlanta, GA, during our fight for worker justice in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, he appointed me to the Atlanta Olympics Executive Council.  Our fight went from the streets to the suites and the work was done union, with union wages and working conditions.

What if President Biden had said he wouldn’t sign any bill on the strike without seven days of sick leave?  Or, until the railroads guaranteed sick leave? 

What if the administration had challenged the parties to bargain at the Department of Labor with Secretary Walsh at the table?

What if Senate Majority Leader Schumer had refused to put the legislation on the floor for a vote without seven days of sick leave?

Instead, I watched Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on CNN debating Jake Tapper, with Tapper demonstrating more good sense and understanding than the Secretary robotically insisting seven days of sick leave is the position of the administration, even as he dismissed working families’ needs.

WHAT IF THE PRESIDENT, HIS CABINET AND DEMOCRATIC LEGISLATORS HAD MADE THE LACK OF SICK LEAVE FOR RAILROAD WORKERS THE HEALTH AND PUBLIC SAFETY CRISIS IT IS?

The railroad corporations can run trains remotely without workers.  They think they don’t need human beings. And they have no use for anything that keeps them from maximizing shareholder wealth and stock values at all costs, including human costs.

The response of leaders of a pro-worker political party is not rolling over, tail between their legs, but to fight for workers and the safety of the American people.

It’s painful to see Democratic leaders so remote and removed from our everyday lives that they can’t express empathy, much less strategize with unions to get workers what they need.

All this is exactly why it is time for workers and their unions to re-negotiate the relationship with the Democratic Party.  I do not believe we should leave the party, but we should demand more than empty rhetoric and dusty policy on a shelf.

Since Ronald Reagan over 40 years ago and the government/corporate assault on labor, worker wages, benefits, and conditions have flattened out, or stagnated, shrinking buying power, our security, and forcing more workers into poverty. More and more families face the stresses of life with multiple bad, exploitative jobs, and exploding inequality.

Organized labor has struggled to respond with more militancy, national strikes, and much more organizing in the non-manufacturing economic sectors. But the ravages of late-stage capitalism have continued to reduce union density across the economy.

Just as tragedy in World War Two changed the labor market in the 40’s and 50’s, so has the Covid pandemic re-calibrated the American labor market today.  

We now find ourselves with more jobs than workers – giving us real, fundamental, organic leverage.  It’s past time to use that leverage to rebuild, grow, and win a greater share of the wealth we produce.

Organized labor needs a new strategy that includes a new relationship with the Democratic Party.  The party continues to shed white working class folks and they ain’t coming back without unions and a powerful enough economic reason to overpower a history of racism, militarism, misogyny, and the opiate of casual hate.

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