rail strike averted ? with no sick days

[BumRushDaShow]

49. The law requires intervention

when it is explicitly declared (as it was here) that a job action will -

“substantially to interrupt interstate commerce to a degree such as to deprive any section of the country of essential transportation service.”

Per this - 45 USC Ch. 8: RAILWAY LABOR

§160. Emergency board

If a dispute between a carrier and its employees be not adjusted under the foregoing provisions of this chapter and should, in the judgment of the Mediation Board, threaten substantially to interrupt interstate commerce to a degree such as to deprive any section of the country of essential transportation service, the Mediation Board shall notify the President, who may thereupon, in his discretion, create a board to investigate and report respecting such dispute. Such board shall be composed of such number of persons as to the President may seem desirable: Provided, however, That no member appointed shall be pecuniarily or otherwise interested in any organization of employees or any carrier. The compensation of the members of any such board shall be fixed by the President. Such board shall be created separately in each instance and it shall investigate promptly the facts as to the dispute and make a report thereon to the President within thirty days from the date of its creation.

There is authorized to be appropriated such sums as may be necessary for the expenses of such board, including the compensation and the necessary traveling expenses and expenses actually incurred for subsistence, of the members of the board. All expenditures of the board shall be allowed and paid on the presentation of itemized vouchers therefor approved by the chairman.

After the creation of such board and for thirty days after such board has made its report to the President, no change, except by agreement, shall be made by the parties to the controversy in the conditions out of which the dispute arose.

(May 20, 1926, ch. 347, §10, 44 Stat. 586; June 21, 1934, ch. 691, §7, 48 Stat. 1197.)

meaning the arbitration by a Presidential Emergency Board as a step prior to the explicit legislation that was done, which is part of the law.

A combined version of the 2 pieces of legislation passed by the House would be guaranteed to be DOA in the Senate had it not arrived as the separate bills.

The sick leave bill was designed to be "a correction" to the main bill once it reached the Senate but was voted on separately as a part of the amendment process, along with another amendment from Dan Sullivan (R-AK) that would have added another 60 day extension to the contracts for further negotiations (and that failed).

That separate bill is this -

H.Con.Res.119 - Providing for a correction in the enrollment of H.J. Res. 100.

and it barely passed the House 221-207, garnering only 3 GOP votes there.

I.e., there is this amnesia about cloture and 60 votes needed for legislation to proceed.

The standalone would have passed in the Senate absent the cloture Rule as it got 52 votes, but with cloture, it needed 8 more GOP votes to reach 60.

So what would have most likely happened once it died in the Senate as a combined bill, would have meant an extra step by the Senate to craft language to remove the provision, vote on that revised version "as a substitute", and then it would have been sent back to the House for another vote before going to the President.