Off the Rails

Democrats Will Pay forAbandoning Rail Workers

Workers walking off the job in 1922. The rail strike lasted several months. (Public domain)

In the end, only four Democrats in the U.S Senate joined Bernie Sanders to support rail workers’ demand for paid sick leave. Only four.

Kristen Gillibrand of N.Y., John Hickenlooper of Colorado, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and Jeff Merkley of Oregon. Four Democrats in the Senate were able to cut through the rhetoric from the Biden administration and see that sacrificing hundreds of thousands of rail workers to keep the economy afloat was a Faustian deal — a trade off that would allow the rest of us to go along in our lives without discomfort while leaving rail workers at the mercy of their very profitable employers.