“I am union guy”, US President Joe Biden has said repeatedly.
Earlier this week the White House described him as the “most pro-union president in history”.
So how did he end up in the scenario of having to press the US Congress to pass special legislation to force through a new deal on pay and conditions for rail workers which had been rejected by many in a ballot?
In Ireland it would be unheard of for the Government to legislate to override the vote of union members in private sector companies to turn down any workplace agreement.
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However, also in the Irish labour market, not being allowed time off for medical appointments would also be virtually unthinkable.
Biden found himself this week with the clock running down to a potentially calamitous strike or lockout which would essentially have brought much of the US economy to a standstill at an estimated cost of $2 billion per day.
Ultimately the president chose to act to avoid economic chaos over his pro-union principles.
He took the decision to override the vote of the rail workers “reluctantly”, the White House said.
Biden is now expected to sign the new legislation quickly.
He said this week that Congress had to act swiftly as “without the certainty of a final vote to avoid a shutdown this week, railroads will begin to halt the movement of critical materials like chemicals to clean our drinking water as soon as this weekend”.
He added: “Let me say that again: without action this week, disruptions to our auto supply chains, our ability to move food to tables, and our ability to remove hazardous waste from gasoline refineries will begin.”
Railways in the United States carry the second largest volume of freight, from oil to timber to foodstuff.
In addition, freight companies own much of the track outside the northeast, over which passenger services run.
Friday, December 9th was the deadline for unions and management of the freight rail companies to reach a new agreement on pay and conditions.
However, given the vast distances involved and the time it takes to bring goods from one part of the country to another, the freight operators would have started scaling back advance bookings from this weekend.
The deal which is now being forced through is identical to that brokered by the Biden administration in September (with help from the president himself).
This proposed agreement was rejected by four of the 12 unions representing rail freight staff when it went to ballot.
The agreement itself provides for pay increases of 24 per cent over the five years, 2020 to 2024.
However, some workers argued it did not sufficiently address what they see as crippling work rosters imposed by employers.
Industry analysts maintained that the freight companies – which are highly profitable – had put in place a business model that cut back significantly on labour costs over recent years which left them exposed by the staff shortages that emerged during and after the pandemic.
Unions argued that, as a result of the labour shortage, rail companies had mandated that employees work for long periods – running into weeks at a time – by enforcing strict attendance policies that penalised absences.
The deal brokered in September provided for workers to receive one additional paid day off and an ability to attend medical appointments without penalty. But it did not include paid sick leave, and it effectively required that employees use unpaid time off to visit the doctor.
Rail companies resisted the demand for paid sick leave and argued employees should use their holidays for medical appointments and to deal with personal matters.
Democrats in the Senate on Thursday who were under pressure from some in their party who wanted the measure to include additional compensated time off for workers, tried and failed to push through legislation adopted earlier by the House of Representatives which would have added seven days of paid medical leave to the agreement.
The president was permitted to ask Congress to force through the rail deal rejected by some unions as it has the power under the US constitution to regulate interstate commerce. The supreme court has ruled this includes the authority to intervene in railway labour disputes that threaten trade across state lines.
Legislation passed in 1926 allows the president to intervene in disputes that “threaten substantially to interrupt interstate commerce to a degree such as to deprive any section of the country of essential transportation service.”