In a concession for workers, the House passed a resolution on Wednesday to force the adoption of a railroad labor contract with, crucially, the inclusion of a hard-fought amendment for seven days of paid sick leave for rail workers.
The resolution advanced with a 290 to 137 vote, while the amendment providing sick leave passed largely on party lines, with only three Republicans joining all Democrats in voting to grant rail workers sick days.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) had originally planned to bring the resolution, sans sick leave, to a vote as is, but the Congressional Progressive Caucus said that it was able to negotiate a deal with House leadership on Tuesday night to have the sick leave proposal included. The seven days of sick leave in the proposal is less than the 15 days that workers had sought, but is still an improvement over current conditions.
Representatives Jamaal Bowman (D-New York) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota), who submitted the amendment, celebrated its passage.
“Railroad corporations are raking in record profits — over $20 billion last year alone,” Omar said in a statement following the vote. “Meanwhile, their workers do not even have the basic protections of a single day of paid or unpaid sick time. In the face of these record profits, railroad workers have made a simple, dignified request for the basic protections of paid leave. And we in Congress need to listen to them.”
The legislation now goes to the Senate, where Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) has pledged to block consideration of the resolution without first holding a roll call vote on the paid sick leave proposal, calling the current policy of rail workers being given zero paid sick days “unacceptable.”
“The bottom line is that the American people and workers throughout the country are profoundly disgusted by the kind of corporate greed that we are seeing,” Sanders said in an interview on MSNBC on Tuesday. “In the last three quarters of this year alone, the railroad industry made $21 billion in profits, provided $25 billion in stock buybacks and dividends…. Meanwhile, for workers on the railroads, they have zero, underlined, zero guaranteed sick leave.”
Sanders said there is a good chance that the sick leave proposal could pass with support from lawmakers from both sides of the aisle. Pointing out that Republicans claim to support the working class — however false those claims may prove in practice — he said, “Put up or shut up. If you can’t vote for this to give workers today, who really have hard jobs, dangerous jobs — if you can’t guarantee them paid sick leave, don’t tell anybody that you stand with working families.”
Paid sick leave became a major sticking point for Democrats and progressives after President Joe Biden urged Congress on Monday to force the adoption of the agreement, negotiated with Biden administration representatives in September, circumventing unions to prevent workers from striking in December. Several major unions involved in the contract negotiations — representing over half of the rail workers affected — had voted down that agreement.
Currently, strict attendance policies cause major fatigue and health issues for many rail workers. The contract offer had included some provisions for workers, including pay raises and three days off each year for routine health appointments, if scheduled 30 days in advance. This was insufficient to assuage many workers’ concerns, and still didn’t address the issue of paid sick leave that workers have been fighting for.
Unions and union workers had expressed frustration over Biden’s announcement, saying that it went against his supposed pro-union stances.
The AFL-CIO called on Congress to pass the sick leave provision in a statement on Wednesday. “To be clear, rail companies could do the right thing today and grant workers paid sick leave,” AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler said. “But they’ve refused, putting profits over people. That’s how we got here.”
Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes (BMWED), one of the unions that voted against the agreement, called on workers and supporters to contact their congressional representatives to tell them to support the proposal after putting out a scathing statement about the original resolution on Tuesday, saying that, as negotiated, it would only make the situation worse for workers.
“[T]he big corporations, the monopolies that control America — the robber baron railroads — have again profiteered from the problem they created and shifted the consequences of it onto the Railroad Workers, the customers, and the general public,” the union said. “This cannot continue. There must be a change.”
Help us Prepare for Trump’s Day One
Trump is busy getting ready for Day One of his presidency – but so is Truthout.
Trump has made it no secret that he is planning a demolition-style attack on both specific communities and democracy as a whole, beginning on his first day in office. With over 25 executive orders and directives queued up for January 20, he’s promised to “launch the largest deportation program in American history,” roll back anti-discrimination protections for transgender students, and implement a “drill, drill, drill” approach to ramp up oil and gas extraction.
Organizations like Truthout are also being threatened by legislation like HR 9495, the “nonprofit killer bill” that would allow the Treasury Secretary to declare any nonprofit a “terrorist-supporting organization” and strip its tax-exempt status without due process. Progressive media like Truthout that has courageously focused on reporting on Israel’s genocide in Gaza are in the bill’s crosshairs.
As journalists, we have a responsibility to look at hard realities and communicate them to you. We hope that you, like us, can use this information to prepare for what’s to come.
And if you feel uncertain about what to do in the face of a second Trump administration, we invite you to be an indispensable part of Truthout’s preparations.
In addition to covering the widespread onslaught of draconian policy, we’re shoring up our resources for what might come next for progressive media: bad-faith lawsuits from far-right ghouls, legislation that seeks to strip us of our ability to receive tax-deductible donations, and further throttling of our reach on social media platforms owned by Trump’s sycophants.
We’re preparing right now for Trump’s Day One: building a brave coalition of movement media; reaching out to the activists, academics, and thinkers we trust to shine a light on the inner workings of authoritarianism; and planning to use journalism as a tool to equip movements to protect the people, lands, and principles most vulnerable to Trump’s destruction.
We urgently need your help to prepare. As you know, our December fundraiser is our most important of the year and will determine the scale of work we’ll be able to do in 2025. We’ve set two goals: to raise $104,000 in one-time donations and to add 1340 new monthly donors by midnight on December 31.
Today, we’re asking all of our readers to start a monthly donation or make a one-time donation – as a commitment to stand with us on day one of Trump’s presidency, and every day after that, as we produce journalism that combats authoritarianism, censorship, injustice, and misinformation. You’re an essential part of our future – please join the movement by making a tax-deductible donation today.
If you have the means to make a substantial gift, please dig deep during this critical time!
With gratitude and resolve,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy