Interesting comments by David Brooks on the railroad settlement

[TiberiusB]

9. I can't stand David Brooks, but like a broken watch...

He is sometimes right, and this is one of those times. The decision to intervene on the side of corporations here sends a disastrous message to the working class and unions in particular. It was the anti-labor Chamber of Commerce that called for Congress to intervene and force a resolution.

Let's be clear, Pelosi and Schumer could have ignored Biden's request to pass the bill without modification and advanced a single bill to the Senate, rather than splitting it so the sick leave could be voted down separately. Convenient. They could have forced the rail companies to accept an agreement just as easily as they can force the unions. Odd how that seems to never come up.

And Jonathan Capehart's assertions that the unions didn't have any leverage? Ridiculous. A strike at the busiest retail period of the year is massive leverage. It's the kind of leverage that should have been able to effectively hold the rail executives feet to the negotiating fire. Except they weren't budging, were they. That's the benefit of being an oligarch with market dominance and virtually guaranteed government backing.

I get the fear that the economic impact could have been immense, but coming down on workers and letting the massively wealthy skate has 2024 election trouble written all over it.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/12/02/betrayal-railway-workers-ignites-working-class-fury-toward-biden-and-democrats