Wednesday 30th of November 2022

Good.

Social Media Says

The rail unions went as low as 4 and the companies wouldnt even give them one. 7 is more than they were willing to settle for before this.
Right! I get 5 weeks of sick time.
From what I've heard, they aren't even asking for as many as 7, that's Bernie's stipulation. I think what I read earlier said the Union was fighting for 4.


What You Really Think

They were asking for 13 days and dropped it to 4. They even dropped the paid part. Warren Buffet and the rest of these oligarchs can shove it. Let them strike, it will suck for the rest of it but they will lose an enormous amount of money. This isn't even close to right, Biden has the Senate they could easily just pass giving them 20 days paid sick leave or w/E number they want. It would cost the railway pennies, the point is not to budge an inch or else you actually prove you have leverage and the system isn't for the ppl. That's what they are trying to prove here. They are pushing us closer and closer to a general strike.

We asked for 3 unpaid sick days that we dont lose points for. Abridged version of the points system is we get 30 points for our career, one sick day takes away 7 points, we can stay on call for 14 days to earn 4 points back or work on a weekend to earn 1 point back. Bernie is being a homie and trying to get us something better.

Thats a whole week of no working!! S/ seriously though, this shit is just so pathetic. How can our govt be so fucking dense?

That's like, the lowest fuckin bar to hop over ever.

They are asking for UNPAID sick days!!

One of the union leaders is only asking for 4 days, and the rail companies and Congress have still said no.

Last I heard they were only asking for sick days in general whether they were paid or not. I'm not certain on the validity of the paid vs unpaid but if it's that latter that makes this whole situation even worse.

Because I don't take sick days, I could literally make every week a three day weekend if I wanted next school year. I that's not including all the other breaks I get. I mean, teaching is tough, but these dudes also work their asses way more physically than I do.

And they said theyd settle for 4 UN paid days.

My friend works for the RR. He said if he doesn't get the deal he may strike, if that doesn't work he will find a new job.

I load trucks for a major shipping company, often working around 12 hours a day. We don't get any paid sick leave, just up to two weeks of PTO that has to be used for vacation, sick, and anything else if you want to actually still get paid. I say "up to" two weeks of PTO because we only earn it an hour at a time, and it's only an hour of PTO for every 40 hours we work. It's absurd.

All I wanted was 7 days sick leave, and they wouldnt give it to me. Institutionalized by Suicidal Tendencies.

This is an injustice! Send in Jon Stewart so the media covers it!

I work at a nuclear power plant and only get 5 days sick time. Yeah they squashed our union vote. I hope the rail workers get a proper amount of sick leave.

If 1 guy getting sick grinds everything to a halt, why not require every position be acheduled for at least three people. Seems important.

And thats up from their current zero days.

>SEVEN DAYS SICK LEAVE IS ALL THEY ARE ASKING FOR?!! And they won't give ot to them?!!! They're not even asking for it to be PAID sicktime either.

If they're shift workers that's 84 hours or 2 weeks of schedule time. I don't know whether they are or not just pointing out that context changes things pretty dramatically. I'm a shift worker and we get 7 days paid sick time. On top of our 140 hours PTO holiday comp (usually another 24 hours PTO comp) it's a good deal. This is one of those things where you kind of need the full context. Edit: Bernie can get this done if anyone can, he's known for bipartisan roll call amendments. Edit2: from the NRLC, so there will be spin but the statement is truthful: " **A**:Rail employees receive up to five weeks of vacation in addition to up to 14 paid holidays and/or paid leave days (all depending on craft and seniority). " Nine of the thirteen unions involved in bargaining ratified the agreement. The disagreement with the remaining four is either about some minimum for junior operators or a separate category of uncompensated leave; would have to read the full contract to get a better idea.

I dont even get 7 days and I immediately thought thats not enough for these guys.

America really needs to fix this crap. I am from Italy, a country which I would consider far from an example of proper and organized governance. Certain categories get up to 180 days a year. It's insane how much they are squeezing those poor americans, it's straight up premeditated murder.

Biden: "Lol fuck railroad workers.".

I heard about this a while back. Who is they? I dont understand this one and why its such a problem to not give these people sick days. Is it shitty politics being shitty politics again?

They have 0 now.

And they are asking for them unpaid.

They dont even want paid sick days. Just unpaid. Its fucked.

Thats not how many they want, thats how many they hope they can get with all the pushback going on :/.

They are asking for UNPAID time off.

No, all they want is 4.

Theyre even okay with them being unpaid and I dont even think they were asking for 7.

It is horribly depressing that we are still struggling to meet this bare minimum.

Lots of workplaces have 0 PTO and 0 sick days.

Bloody hell, let's give them 14!

They aren't even arguing for paid sick days. They just want regular unpaid sick days.

They initially asked for 15, when they where told no they tried getting 4 instead.

I thought they wanted 15, but the house is basically saying that'll they vote to force them to work, but later vote to maybe give them 7 days. Aka telling them to get fucked, and giving them scraps, and making sure the workers know who the boss is.

From what I hear, they only have 3 days, can only be in the middle of the week, and they have to call it in advance. Oh, and thats not _paid_ sick leave, thats just sick leave.

Rail employees are provided with significant time off. Generally, train crew employees have over three to four weeks of paid vacation and over 10 personal leave days. Depending on craft and seniority, these numbers can extend to five weeks of vacation in addition to 14 paid holidays and/or paid leave days, BNSF told CNBC. The number of Personal Leave Days was increased by 25% this year which makes it easier for employees to take time off. &x200B; am i missing something? It looks like this is a semantics thing. So say 15 days of PTO and 10 personal days. I would suspect railroads don't really get things like Christmas off, maybe im wrong on that. So subtract major holidays from personal days. * Memorial Day. * Independence Day. * Labor Day. * Thanksgiving Day. * Christmas Day. * New Year's Day. that puts them at, as a new hire, 19 days off a year. With no sick time. Personal days are used as sick days. My company did away with sick days years ago, they just made them PTO days. 19 days off a year isn't awesome, but as a new hire, its also not terrible. This, like everything, needs a lot more context to it.

I heard it was 15 (although this comment thread tells me otherwise), but even then these guys more or less keep our economic logistics alive. 15 days paid leave is absurdly reasonable.

If we have to fight so hard for so little, if they threaten to bring the ducking army in for what doesn't even amount to table scraps, we need to demand more. They need to 'pay our legal fees', as it were, so they lose something for drawing this shit out. Edit: not a rail worker, just a member of the non-owner classes.

Craziest thing is I was in a thread earlier where they were saying all theyre actually asking for is UNPAID sick days. They were saying as it is now, they use a point system where any day called out counts as a number of points lost and they can use that to fire. One example was Christmas and thanksgiving being 10 points each.

Goddamn, that's terrible. it's not like those folks make a lot of money.

That would be crazy... I mean, you've seen how they treat our veterans, right? To treat a citizen like a human being? Pure insanity.

I often wonder why they hate us so much, tbh.

That's already the minimum in my 3rd world country America needs more days than that.

If you could get sick on your days off that would be great.

What are you some kind of communist?! PTO is stealing and shouldn't be a thing at all because it cuts into corporate profits. Go to work sick and make things less safe for everyone like a good little slave. Next thing people will be saying we should give people healthcare and that food, water, and shelter should be human rights. Disgusting. /s.

I do. I also remember when Trump called his wife ugly and implied his dad helped kill Kennedy. I ALSO remember when Cruz simped for Trump like crazy in the years following that. What an amazing individual!

Thankfully it was the biggest book he could read.

Back when we still had a speaking filibuster... You could almost say the good ol days on that note... Almost.

Yeah Ted is great at theater. He would have made a much better wrestler or stage lead than statesman(wannabe statesman?) but nope, he chose to be the greedy,dgaf asshole always seizing more and more power over other humans.

Now this is a filibuster!

In many industrialized countries? In *every* industrialized country besides America. Every. Single. One.

*Unpaid, apparently.

Canada recently legislated 10 paid sick days for federally regulated employees, which includes rail workers.

They can absolutely afford to hire more staff. They just dont want to. They were profitable several years ago and have since laid off more than 1/3 of rail workers and pocketed the increased profits. The rail companies are all monopolies so they dont have to worry about service disruptions interfering with profits. Although there are several different rail companies, each one services a different geographical area so each functions as a monopoly.

Thats really what it all comes down to, for all of us. Investors make a considerable amount less and the working people make quite a bit more. Every ecosystem needs a balance and the predators are wiping everything out.

These rail companies have sliced their workforces in half over the last couple of decades in order to extract more profit and pump up their stock prices with buybacks. The shortage of rail workers isnt a bug for these billionaire ghouls its a feature.

> I get that trains run on tight schedules and having someone critical not at work can mess stuff up; but the train companies have posted a ton of profits, they can afford to hire some more people to be on-call should the need arise. Everyone should keep in mind that this applies to every business every single time they are insufficiently staffed.It is a money grubbing executive choosing profits for himself over paying enough workers or providing quality service to you, the customer. Insufficient staffing is class warfare "Higher than normal call volumes" fuck you pay for enough workers.

Take sick days when you are sick? What is this? Fairy tale liberal wonderland? Not in my USA! - some asshat probably.

Youre statement about not being penalized literally is just another way of saying paid sick days. I understand what youre saying, however by stating its not about paid sick days is a bit confusing/misleading.

I mean, even companies that have paid sick days have a reasonable policy of letting them know 2-24 hours before your shift. 24 maybe way too hard to fulfill, because you wont always feel sick the day before, but 2-4 hours should be plenty of time for management to offer OT to someone.

How about 21. And if you don't use them by the end of the year they become vacation days, aka preventative sick days. Until we remove a couple of heads, the corporate oligarchs are going to keep treating us like disposable bags of meat.

Hes not a Democrat, he just caucuses with them. Technically hes an independent.

Bernie is independent, though he caucuses with the Democrats, since they're the closer-to-reasonable party.

He's the homie.

Hes one of the only true left members of government we have. Most Dems are center at best.

The workers were asking for 4 UNPAID sick days. Thats the sticking point.

*unpaid sick days Edit: this is misinformation. It is paid sick leave Edit2: I dont know any more. Difficult to find a good source. One source says 1 paid sick day, and the rest the ability to go to doctors appointments etc without getting demerits.

Bernie has supported the working class since his first day in office. He walks the walk.

They're all beholden to corporations. Our gov has been captured by special interests. Just look how every billionaire hates Bernie.

Several Democratic senators have come out and support of Bernies plan. I Know My senator, John Hickenlooper has.

Fetterman hasn't been sworn in yet.

I hate that even biden isn't behind it.

Even the president is pushing for this to go through without sick time.

The unions were originally asking for 15 and have come all the way down to 4. And even then the companies are refusing to give any.

So whats Bernies plan to get 10 Republican Senate votes to break any filibuster of either guaranteeing 7 paid days of leave or enforcing a pro-union contract? I think the difference you are talking about might be that Biden has to actually govern, which includes dealing with the fact that half of all senators are Republicans.

>Biden wants the economy to keep going. Youi say that like it's a bad thing. If the economy falls into a depression it's bad for a lot of people.

He'd never get anything done without support. The president isn't god. He'd be fighting constantly to do anything at all. Biden's gotten a surprising amount done because he's *not* as left as Bernie. Not as much as I'd want, but a lot for who they are and who he is. You want Bernie (or more likely, his successor) to be President? Step one is local elections. Every single one. Local activism to push the country bit by bit more left. Unionization. Organization. All that shit. And you've gotta do that while also working on defending higher offices from those who would end democracy.

We dont get any. Actually we are penalized through a points system for taking them.

From zero days seven would feel huge to us. The tentative agreement allows for 3, that are not sick days rather scheduled dr visits. We have to schedule them on tu/we/th only and give a months or more notice.

Right now they have 0. Biden is trying to force them to take 1.

Look for a refresher of how the railroads were funded and subsidized from the beginning in the United States.

Look up the Railway labor act. It was created in 1926, after the large railroad strike in 1922. It governs railway and air commerce, and has a structured process for rail carrier and labor contract negotiations. Interstate commerce being regulated by the federal government, gives them the final say in railway disputes.

Because the world literally will stop if rail stops in the US. Not even exaggerating.

Damn who hurt you? Sheesh.

Right now I don't think they have any.

PTO is not sick time and people should not have to use it for sick time. Youve been bamboozled by capitalism if you think employees dont deserve sick time. Look at union jobs and European jobs and their sick time available. Capitalism is killing people and lack of sick time is part of that.

The workers are looking for sick pay, meaning days that are not scheduled ahead of time as vacation. So, if they call in sick, that is a different pool of time from any pto they might or might not have. It's something most, if not all, non-US developed nations guarantee to all workers.

We have a points based attendance system. We start with 30 points. M-Th is 2, F/S 4, Su 3. Holidays, days next to a holiday, and special events like the Super Bowl are 7. We have to work 14 days straight to earn back 4. You could easily be sick and lose a substantial amount of points. Remember, we are on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and most of us are away from home for 36 hours at a time. To be off on a Wednesday for a dr appointment I have to call in sick Monday and Tuesday or Ill be at a hotel 250 miles away.

>Biden cares about working class Americans. Lmao. Yesterday ]he said]() he doesn't support paid sick leave for rail workers because the holiday season is approaching and he needs them to work.

Yeah he tells everyone to go fuck themselves. Granted Trump would've done the same anyways, and probably encouraged mobbing them.

What the fuck are you on about?