“Tanking wasn’t an option bc of GOP votes,” she wrote on Twitter, “we moved to keep sick leave alive.” The Railway Labor Act allows Congress to enforce collective bargaining agreements in order to avert railway strikes. The options available to the unions and to progressives in Congress were extremely limited by the time Biden moved to force the agreement on the workers. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., defended the strategy, saying that unions in her district and nationwide supported the effort to pass additional sick leave in lieu of a viable option to actually sink the proposed tentative agreement. The strategy was criticized by some on the left, who saw it as selling out workers, arguing instead that the contract should have been amended and sent to the Senate as one piece of legislation. The Senate showdown came after progressives in the House successfully demanded a vote on the sick days to accompany approval of the tentative agreement. Over the past three years, railroad executives have taken over $200 million in compensation as workers attempted to force their hand for sick pay during a bargaining process that has stretched on for years. The companies had furiously opposed even a single additional day off, as it runs in conflict with their strategy to keep staffing as minimal as humanly possible. The new agreement, which represents a marginal improvement on the tentative agreement rejected by workers in late October, ensures only one new paid day off for workers. The rejection of the measure means that Biden’s version of the tentative agreement, which passed the Senate 80-15 shortly afterward, will be imposed on workers after Biden signs the bill, averting a looming strike. Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Marco Rubio, Mike Braun, John Kennedy, and Lindsey Graham - voted in favor. Democrat Joe Manchin voted no on the sick days, while a handful of Republicans - Sens. But the measure needed 60 votes to overcome a filibuster. On Thursday, the Senate voted 52-43 in favor of a measure that would have ensured rail workers were granted seven days of sick leave in a tentative agreement brokered and enforced on the workers and their employers by President Joe Biden.
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