Jesus Among the Rail Worker's Union

If Biden won't stand with the labor movement, the Church should.

I think Joe Biden is unfortunately the best President of my lifetime. This isn’t so much praise of Biden’s politics as it is an indictment of Trump, Obama, Bush and Clinton, but it’s worth saying. Biden started out dead last in my list of 2020 contenders for the White House, but that water is under the bridge and after a herky jerky start, the guy has done some real good for the country. The Inflation Reduction Act was a big deal. His pragmatic attitude towards the progressive voices in his party has led to some real results. And although his administration refuses to campaign on it, Biden practically ended the drone war. 

That’s why I was so discouraged by Biden’s betrayal of the rail workers’ union. His move to force rail workers into a bad contract is both a moral and political miscalculation, and it’s the sort of space where the Church can should throw its weight around. I want to talk about why I think this is a Christian issue but, first, a little background on the labor dispute and a brief bit of history on American railroads. Wait! Come back! It’s important! You’ll see!

Okay. For those who need a little catching up, here’s the general gist. Over the last six months or so, rail workers have been fighting for better pay and working conditions, all while being ignored by their bosses. The White House brought both sides to the table in October and helped negotiate a Tentative Agreement, that had a lot of good stuff in it (a 25 percent pay raise, an additional day of paid personal leave) but the agreement was voted down by four of the 12 rail unions, representing a majority of the nation’s unionized freight labor employees. 

There are a few reasons these unions did not agree to the Tentative Agreement, but the big one is paid sick leave. Workers are asking for four sick days. They currently have zero. Zero! The rail workers rightly see a request for a measly four days as very reasonable, and are balking until it’s added to the contract. This set the nation on a collision course for a rail strike next week.

Biden has spent much of his presidency and, in fact, much of his political career, burnishing his reputation as a pro-labor guy. This is to say nothing of his love of trains, which has become part of his mythology. So it seemed almost a given that he’d take the side of the rail workers or, at least, stay out of the way. But instead, he urged Congress to use the Railway Labor Act to force the deal through. 

In a statement, Biden said that he is “reluctant” to get involved since he is a “proud pro-labor President” but the strike’s potential impact on the economy ahead of Christmas was just too great. The idea is that rail workers are just too important to allow them to strike. One might suggest that if rail workers are so important then maybe they should be treated proportionately well by their employers, but I’m no “proud pro-labor President.”