The Biden administration has called on Congress to intervene and
stop a possible rail strike from occurring because it would hurt the economy and
hurt his chances at reelection.
Why do I say that?
Well, Biden had a very different take on a rail strike that took place in 1992.
But before we get to that, here's what Biden said.
I'm calling on Congress to pass legislation immediately to adopt
the tentative agreement between railroad workers and
operators without any modifications or
delay to avert a potentially crippling national rail shutdown.
Now, that national rail shutdown would cost the economy $2 billion a day and
it would obviously hurt Biden's chances of getting re-elected.
I now take you to a tweet by more perfect union that shows
you where Biden stood back when he didn't have re-election looming.
In 1992, Senator Joe Biden voted against ending a major rail strike.
He argued that by intervening Congress would be rewarding
the railroad companies for years of bad faith negotiation.
Yesterday, President Biden asked Congress to intervene to prevent a rail strike.
And of course, Nancy Pelosi has already raised her hand and said, yes sir,
I will serve you and more importantly, the corporate donors.
[LAUGH] And it's not just the rail employers here, honestly,
a monopolized industry to say the least.
You have two companies on each coast,
essentially in control of the entire market.
But you have all of these other industries that are concerned about a rail strike,
leading to supply chain issues, which would of course hurt their bottom line.
And so, I'll give you more details on what Pelosi said in just a moment, but
Cenk what are your thoughts?
>> Yeah.
So first, let's do the establishment democratic response to all of this.
You progressives don't understand any.
Did you know that will cost the economy $2 billion a day if this happens?
Yeah, we know.
The nuanced position is to immediately give the corporations what they want.
Is it?
Is that the nuanced position?
Let me flip it back on you.
Did you know that Biden can force and
Congress can force the companies to take the union position?
>> That's right, yeah.
>> They can force it either way yet.
No one in mainstream media talks about that.
They don't say, hey, why isn't Biden forcing the companies to take the position
instead of forcing the unions, no Democrat other than Bernie Sanders.
And of course, progressives in the House are bringing, making it an issue at all.
Establishment Democrats are like, of course you crushed the unions and
you helped the corporations, what do you mean?
They take it as such a given that their zombie followers have no idea to
be fair to them, to be fair to the zombies.
They have never heard that in their entire lives.
>> But they also don't care.
Those who provide cover for corporate Democrats who screw over workers
in this country, while campaigning as warriors for workers,
don't actually care about issues like this.
They don't, they don't.
They just don't, they're not impact.
They think they're not impacted by it.
In fact, if anything, they're probably concerned that a rail strike would lead to
empty shelves during the holidays.
>> Of course, and I'm sure that's true.
But I guarantee you that both things are true, that the people who
are establishment Democrats, they're brainwashed by corporate media.
They have no idea what the alternatives are.
So right now, if there's an establishment Democrat watching,
they are in the middle of Googling right now go, there's no way that's true.
These progressives or radicals, there's no way.
And then, by the way, when you're done Googling come back and
find out that we're the ones that are actually telling you the truth, okay?
Okay, so why does Biden choose the companies?
Because it's not a choice between do you put $2 billion dollars holding
the economy every day or do you come out against the workers?
No, there's a third choice, could come out against the company.
And by the way, their position is not that far.
All the workers are saying is just give us three.
>> They want four paid days off, that's all they want.
>> They've been negotiating between three and
four days off and the companies that one.
So we're talking about a three day difference basically, right?
So, that's so easy to make the company do that.
But no one in Washington would dare to even think of making a company
do something.
Whereas, crushing the workers, that's Tuesday.
That's literally every day in Washington.
>> Cenk real quick.
Look, the reason why I say that those who provide cover for the bad behavior
of corporate Democrats, don't actually care about the workers here.
Is because look at the demographics and
how they have shifted in the voting base of the Democratic Party.
Who do they represent, right?
Who do they mostly consist of?
And they're highly educated, mostly like upper middle class individuals, right?
And these are people who are more concerned about ensuring that Republicans
don't have any power, which I share that concern, right?
But at the same time,
they're also concerned with ensuring that they provide the cover for Democrats.
Their holidays are nice and comfortable, they get access to whatever it is
that they need to buy for gifts, for friends and family.
That's what they're concerned about.
These are people who are so
far removed from what the average worker has to deal with.
They don't know what it's like to not get three or
four days off for a medical emergency, a family emergency.
I mean, it is insane.
Some of these workers don't get a single day off, paid day off if they get sick.
I'll give you examples Tony Caldwell, president of the brotherhood
of Maintenance of Way Employees, one of the unions that voted down the agree that
had been agreed upon between the White House and the employers here.
Said, his members will not ratify a deal unless it includes more expansive sick
leave benefits.
The union is asking for four paid sick days and has not been offered any, any.
We're talking about four freaking days out of the year.
In the latest negotiations last week, the rail carriers stated that
they were unwilling to negotiate over sick days, Caldwell said.
Okay, this country treats its workers,
treats its people as if it is an undeveloped
third world authoritarian country.
That's how workers are treated in certain industries.
And that is certainly the case when it comes to rail workers.
Okay, again, it is a monopolized industry where on both coasts,
there are only two companies, two rail companies that control everything.
And so, if their service sucks, what are people supposed to do,?
What are companies supposed to do when they need to move
product across the country?
What are they supposed to do?
They have no choice.
And over the last few years,
these companies have already been cutting their workforce significantly.
Because hey, labor, they might need them, but labor also happen to be expensive and
they really need to cut costs to maximize profits, right?
They gotta pay dividends.
They gotta do corporate stock buybacks.
And if having a tiny workforce is not enough to ensure
that services smooth, who cares?
It's not like you've got any other options.
And that's why these workers are being overworked and that's why these
workers are not being given the minimal time off that they're asking for.
Because they're expected to work overtime.
They're expected to make up for
the fact that these companies intentionally cut their workforce
because they wanted to save on money that they were paying on salaries.
Cuz instead of paying salaries, they could use that money to do the dividends and
to do the corporate stock buybacks.
That is how the sausage is made in this country.
And people like Joe Biden, goons like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi who
love that corporate cash flowing into their coffers.
They will always provide cover for these corporations, for
these greedy disgusting companies that treat their workers like garbage.
That's who Nancy Pelosi is, that's who Nancy Pelosi is.
She'll go up there,
she'll talk on podium talking about how she cares about the children.
I care about the children, I care about these people and
you don't care about anyone other than yourself, okay?
The mansion you live in in northern California, I mean, the insider trading
you engage in on a regular basis, that's where Nancy Pelosi is.
The Democratic Party,
mainstream Democratic Party does not represent workers in this country.
They used to in times past, they don't anymore and
then they wonder why young progressives don't like them.
>> Yeah.
And of course, again,
if you listen to mainstream media, you wouldn't have heard none of that.
When Pelosi announced that she was stepping down from leadership,
every article was master legislator, one of the greatest legislators of all time.
What an incredible working class democratic hero, absurd.
She took over a billion dollars in large money donations.
She serves large money, 0kay?
That's 100 [INAUDIBLE].
Okay, now, in this case, last two things here, number one, the union should do
something very simple, just as bad over at a minimum as rhetorical framing.
Hey, you know what?
The companies are making some interesting points.
Why don't we just take the same number of sick days as the executives have?
What? What?
What? Why did the executives get two weeks,
four weeks and were allowed zero days?
Now, look, if you're asking me, in reality, is that little apples and
oranges?
Yeah, it's a little apples and oranges, right?
But rhetorically, it's fantastic.
And it sets up this incredible contrast.
Wait, why does the executive get 3.5 weeks off and then worker gets zero days off?
That doesn't make any sense at all, right?
And it starts to focus the frustration on the executives as opposed to the workers,
right?
But that's why you'll never see it in mainstream media cuz the executives
are the oligarchs.
And so, everything is structured around serving corporate executives.
By the way, they can do that on other issues too.
Hey, look, you know what?
I know profits are way up for the railroad companies,
they make 20 billion in profits recently.
So that's great news for everybody.
So, you know what?
Workers are gonna be reasonable.
We'll take the same percentage increase that the executives are getting.
What? What?
What, you guys have a problem with that?
Why do you have a problem with that?
That puts the onus on the executives to justify it, right?
But you'll never see that anywhere in media and by the way that leads to
the last point, you also oftentimes will not see that from union leadership.
What do you see from union leadership?
Surrender, after surrender, after surrender?
When Biden says, no, let's go force the workers instead of the executives to take
the deal, all union leadership should be up in arms and they should be furious.
Have you seen fury?
I haven't seen fury.
What I see all the time from union leadership is, no.
So we gotta take take whatever the executives offer us and the corporations
offer us and the Democratic Party, you can't ask for anything.
You just have to do whatever they tell you, why, why?
Why are you giving them, corporations give them millions of dollars and
they get everything they want.
Union leadership gives them millions of dollars and
get the door slammed in their face and go, just such a great job.
Did you?
There's tons of discontent from people that are in unions with union leadership.
>> Final thing I'll say, and I'm skeptical about this.
And I wanna be clear, but if this were to happen,
it would certainly help the Republican party outflank Democrats
in terms of being further to the left on protecting workers.
Senator John Cornyn tells reporters that he thinks there could be
substantial Republican support for
Bernie Sanders amendment to give rail workers more paid sick leave.
He's also suggesting, it could possibly pass.
Schumer responded to this by saying,
we're working with McConnell to try to get something done and avoid a shutdown.
So look, I don't know if there really is Republican support
in stepping in to protect the workers here.
I'm skeptical considering the history that we've seen with
Republicans looking out for corporations, certainly far more than Democrats had.
But we'll see what happens.
>> So, two things about that and cuz that's late breaking.
So number one,
Josh Holly is trying to make an populist Enron around the Democrats.
He on issues like this is going more pro workers.
By the way,
all politicians should be pro workers if we lived in an actual democracy.
Cuz workers are where all the votes are, right?
But they serve the rich because of our legalized bribery in this system.
But 10 Republicans from time to time, even if they don't mean it, score giant
rhetorical wins at the last second by going, hey, where were the workers?
The Democrats sold you out.
Now, the republic's gonna sell you out anyway, right?
But at least they're smart enough to play that rhetorical trick.
And then corrupt idiot Democrats, get left holding the bag going,
we're the elitist party that is anti worker.
Oops!
But that's okay, we'll just get the mainstream media.
Hey, CNN New York times go out there and tell people how great we are.
That act is wearing thin man.
I know you guys don't get it.
You live in your bubble in New York and DC and you think you have this whole thing
figured out, polls have mainstream media pulling at 7%.
The country despises you and thinks you're lives are full of crap and
you have to read 24 articles before you find out one that says, by the way,
they can force the companies to take a deal just as much as they can
force the workers to take a deal.
>> Yeah. And when it comes to anything having to
do with labor, do not rely on corporate press.
>> They will lie to you.
They will. >> [INAUDIBLE] lie to you.
>> They'll either lie to you or they'll withhold information from you.
>> It's lying by omission.
100%, it's on the framing.
If you're watching somebody on cable news, they are almost certainly lying to you.