Seven lousy days
It’s Joe Manchin’s fault. Again. Charles Pierce explains:
Seven paid sick days. That’s what the U.S. Senate couldn’t cough up for the people who work for the country’s railroads, at considerably more risk and for considerably less money than anyone in the U.S. Senate takes or earns. The Senate—especially Joe “Friend Of The Working Man” Manchin, who couldn’t cough up seven lousy sick days—hung the president out to dry on this one, not to mention all the actual rail workers. Marco Rubio voted for the seven sick days. So did Ted Cruz, for pity’s sake. But Joe Manchin couldn’t be bothered. He was too busy planning another TV interview about how the Democrats have lost touch with their blue-collar base, over whom he keeps a watchful eye by night from the aft deck of his yacht. (Please, Georgia, re-elect the reverend so this clown doesn’t have quite as much juice as he does.)
Isn’t it funny how “blue-collar base” means racism and sexism and xenophobia, as opposed to unions and paid sick days and similar luxurious benefits.
This situation is a result of the diminished power of organized labor, a reality that confronts the most labor-oriented president we’ve had in decades. It’s a long trail back to where that power once was, if it’s even possible to get there at all. The money-power has so locked itself in at this point that generations have grown up to believe that organized labor is somehow a detriment to the modern worker and not a benefit. The people doing the real work of organized labor these days are the people doing the hardest work for society in general: service workers, healthcare workers, and, yes, railroad workers.
And factory workers, and workers in meat-processing plants, which are some of the worst places to work in the country.
This is why defeating Herschel Walker is so important: so that Manchin can’t rule the chamber with his vote like the petty tyrant that he is.
My dad thought unions were just greedy arms of the mobs until he watched Reagan fire and basically destroy Patelco, the air traffic controllers union. Dad was a Republican government employee of the Customs and all of a sudden he understood at a visceral level what it means to not have the ability to use a strike as bargaining power. It’s amazing that this was all it took to turn a Republican into a Democrat who in his later years took any opportunity he could to lampoon whichever Bush happened to be in the White House.
But, the problem is that there were not enough union members who saw this, and instead were happy to buy into Reagan’s “Welfare Queen” narrative, and the Republicans were able to make inroads into a traditional Democratic base, as the unions were weakened by Reagan’s labor policies.
Me? I think that Congress and the President should have played this a bit differently to force some brinkmanship with the railroads and see if they were willing to blink closer to the Dec 9th deadline. The fear of the strike has been taken away from the rail unions.
I’ve got a combination of paid time off and sick days up to 36 days per year to allocate as I need to. I don’t have as physically demanding a job as railroad workers do.
7 lousy days.
Yes, well, I support organized labor because it’s the Right Thing To Do, but for the record, I’m a life-long self-employed person and “paid sick leave” is just nonsense syllables to me. Saving a bit of a cushion for emergencies is part of leading a responsible life. I’m sympathetic to the rail workers but the fact is that having no sick leave is just part of the landscape they live on.
Oh by the way, annual payments in Social Security are double for the self-employed.
[…] a comment by Mike Haubrich on Seven lousy […]
But… it doesn’t have to be. It’s only that way because the railroads get away with treating their employees like shit, and because they know that nearly all the politicians will support them. Their bottom line is not going to be affected one iota if Jane Railroadworker is paid for a few days to stay home and recover from a sickness.
Peter, I don’t think I understand your point. Lots of bad things are part of the landscape, and that’s why we try to change them. Saving for emergencies is very responsible but people can’t do it if their wages are low and they get no benefits. Let’s get our paints out and improve the landscape.
@3 If you’re self-employed and find yourself unable to work for a few days, or more, due to sickness you won’t get paid for those days, so it’s a good idea to have something saved up to tide you over when you have no income. If you’re a rail worker and find yourself unable to work for a few days, or more, due to sickness, you will lose your job (and, I expect, given what a small world the railway sector is, you’ll be unable to find another one).
Why must it be this way? And why this group in particular, when (as far as I know) every other labour force does not have to put up with this?
As an aside…
That’s because employers pay the other half. It’s a benefit of being employed. Complaining about this because you’re self-employed is just silly. This is exactly the sort of case where you have to deal with “the landscape that (you) live on”. Basic and simple rights like sick leave while working for an employer who demands your time are not. If you don’t like paying that tax (and I certainly did not, working as a consultant), then you can get a job working for someone else; but of course you give up your time and your life in the trade.
I just don’t understand a mindset that won’t pay sick leave. It is better for productivity and employee morale to be able to take off when you’re sick.
Most of my adult life, I had paid sick leave. I had seven days, but it would accrue each year so what you don’t use adds up. For a couple of years, I had no sick leave. For several years, I was self employed, and I paid those things. That doesn’t mean it’s right for everyone to do that.
For the record, I now have unlimited sick leave. I didn’t even know that when I took the job. I didn’t find that out until my third contract when the union fought to keep that for us. In spite of having all this sick leave, I rarely take off sick. Why? Because if you have sick leave, you know you can, and you can do the preventative care necessary. It’s just common sense, and for some reason my boss gets that, even though they don’t seem to get a lot of other things.
They pay me for one day sick, I’m more likely to go to the doctor because I can; a person who has to take off sick without pay may not be able to afford to go to the doctor because their pay is reduced. I know; I’ve been there. This may mean they will get sicker, which could lead to serious problems in the future.
When I was unemployed, I interviewed at a place where they were practically drooling to get me because my typing speed and accuracy were better than almost anyone they hired. My education also made me desirable. They did tell me I would have to come in regardless of when they called me, even if it meant dropping out of my master’s program. The exact words they used are “if you work for us, we own you”. I told them nobody owned me for $11 an hour. I eventually found a job (about three days later) that wasn’t great, but at least it gave me the flexible hours I needed.
Another reason for not working when sick is safety, especially for jobs involving working with hazardous materials. When people are sick they are tired, or distracted by pain. They are not able to pay as much attention to what they are doing. And then things are more likely to go BOOM….sometimes literally.