Republicans revel in Democrats’ railroad dilemma

Republicans seem to be enjoying watching Democrats struggle

Congress McCarthy (Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

The potential for a railroad strike has put progressive Democrats and President Joe Biden in a miserable bind. Democrats largely sell themselves as the party of labor unions, the right to a living wage and fair treatment on the job; Republicans are generally – but not always – more skeptical of organized labor, which they consider an obstruction to business and its engine of job creation.

At the same time, American unions have not always gotten along with Democratic White Houses. Many labor unions opposed the North American Free Trade Agreement that took shape under Bill Clinton, while teachers’ unions frequently clashed with the Obama administration on education policy.

Mr Biden sold himself as different. Though he voted for NAFTA as a senator and went on to serve as Barack Obama’s vice president, he has long portrayed himself as more in touch than the average senator with white working-class voters from places like Delaware or his hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania, and as a senator, he voted against legislation to prevent a railroad strike in 1992. And that’s a big part of why the current impasse with railroad workers gives both labor and the White House so much heartburn.

In September, Mr Biden looked like a hero when he announced a tentative agreement between freight railers and unions. But only eight of the 12 unions that needed to approve the deal did so, mostly because workers want paid sick leave. Now, the president has called on Congress to prevent a strike by 9 December. And in doing so, he has put some Senate Democrats on the defensive.

Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who often touts his pro-labor bona fides and is up for re-election in 2024, told reporters that the railroads have been “hard hearted towards their workers” – but when asked about whether he would vote for the tentative agreement without paid sick leave, he was more reserved.

“I haven’t seen it specifically yet, but I’m generally supportive of what the president’s doing,” he said. “I don’t want to start doing what ifs because I don’t know.”

Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts used her comments to reporters to torch the railroad companies, lamenting how they “make money hand over fist” and “have increased their profit margins during the pandemic”. But when asked about whether she would support congressional action, she simply said: “We need to keep pushing the parties to find an agreement.”

Conversely, Bernie Sanders of Vermont said he would demand a floor vote for an amendment providing workers with paid sick leave.

“Workers should not be penalized for coming down with Covid, or for being with their wife when they give birth,” he told reporters.

Incidentally, Republican Senator John Cornyn from Texas told Nancy Vu at Politico that there might be “substantial Republican support” for Mr Sanders’s sick leave measure. And Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, who occasionally likes to talk about how the GOP needs to become more of a worker’s party (and who worked with Mr Sanders to push for stimulus checks in a Covid relief package in December of 2020), told NBC News’s Julie Tsirkin that he would “probably” support Mr Sanders’s sick leave amendment – and he seemed to take a little glee in seeing the White House squirm.

“For an administration that claims to be pro-labor, it seems like a bit of a pickle,” he said.

As of Tuesday evening, Speaker Nancy Pelosi was telling her members that the House will hold two votes: first on the tentative agreement to avoid a strike, and then on giving railroad workers seven days’ paid sick leave.

Of course, some progressives might be concerned that the order of the votes might be a bait-and-switch. Putting the vote on the tentative agreement first could rob them of the leverage they might use to push for sick leave.

Meanwhile, Republicans seem to be enjoying watching Democrats struggle with this. After a meeting at the White House, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who is trying to wrangle votes to become Speaker, blasted the White House for failing to finalize the September deal.

“This is something that was celebrated by this administration that it was fixed,” he told reporters outside the White House. “And now right before a holiday season, right when farmers need to ship their goods and others, we have to rush something to the floor.”

Similarly, Senator Todd Young of Indiana seemed to mock the original deal’s collapse.

“The president led us to believe he had this all worked out before the election,” he told friend of the newsletter John Bresnahan in a gaggle – but of course, he didn’t comment on the specifics of any legislation. “I want to get worked out. So we’re gonna have to look at the particulars of whatever bill might come before us. But, you know, hopefully the administration can extend what we were told was a solution.”