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Why America’s Railroads Refuse to Give Their Workers Paid Leave

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Re: Why America’s Railroads Refuse to Give Their Workers Paid Leave

#381

Post by FateOfNations »

willyt wrote: post #209
forgetfreeman wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet you'd have a really tough time finding a white collar gig where paid leave wasn't a bog-standard part of the package. So nah, rail companies are getting caught out because they are absolutely fucking around with this.

Yes but now they can't change because the first one to do this becomes uncompetitive, the only way to introduce this in a fair way that otherwise maintains market competition is to introduce a rule that applies to all the companies in the market that says you must offer paid sick leave. Edit: A more extreme example; there is a rule that says airlines mustn't make pilots work more than a certain number of hours withou…

All of the Class 1 railroads are involved in the same bargaining process with the unions. Whatever change to sick day practices happens will apply to all of them.

Re: Why America’s Railroads Refuse to Give Their Workers Paid Leave

#382

Post by Workaccount2 »

naasking wrote: post #338
Workaccount2 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Corporate profits In the social media circle-jerk, yeah. In economist circles that include the advisors consulting on policy, no. Corporations are/have always tried to maximise cost and profits. They didn't suddenly decide to get greedy 18 months ago. "Blaming inflation on corporate profits is like blaming gravity for a plane crash, technically right but totally misguided." Remember, gravity is always trying to cras…

> Corporations are/have always tried to maximise cost and profits. They didn't suddenly decide to get greedy 18 months ago. Actually they did: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ai6B8e-C8k8#t=10m46s They exploited the supply chain disruptions to justified price increases that weren't warranted. The data is pretty clear on this point so I don't know what "experts" you're listening to.

Nothing you stated or linked contradicts what I said. Corporations have always been greedy and will always capitalise on anything that can be used to increase profits. Blaming corporations is a miss because they are acting exactly the way they have always acted, they way they are expected to act, and the way they will act.

Hence the example "It's like blaming gravity for a plane crash". Gravity's behavior is a constant, its something else on the plane that failed.

Re: Why America’s Railroads Refuse to Give Their Workers Paid Leave

#383

Post by bumby »

notch656a wrote: post #378
bumby wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe you are conflating their point. They aren't advocating fining for ethical violations, but fining on the basis of realized damages. If you think both the company and workers are responsible for those damages, it is unethical to disproportionately fine only one side. If you tax the company, both sides will be affected. The company directly through the fines, but also the workers indirectly as the company pay…

>>should we not be preferring the side that has the better ethical claim? >They aren't advocating fining for ethical violations, Your statement is a contradiction of GP's statement. Preferring the side with better 'ethical claim' is in effect a redistribution in the form of discount to the more 'ethical' with a fine to the less 'ethical'.

Again, you are conflating the two points.

1) Fines are appraised for damages

2) When there are competing claims, one should favor the side with a stronger ethical foundation

These are not equivalent. Just because #1 is true does not mean fines are appraised for ethics violations. They also don't have to be mutually exclusive. Not sure if you're trying to misdirect or just misunderstanding the distinction.

Re: Why America’s Railroads Refuse to Give Their Workers Paid Leave

#384

Post by bumby »

notch656a wrote: post #377
chii wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i dont understand the proposal to tax the employee. Taxing an activity makes it happen less. If the gov't want fewer railroad workers (or in your hypothetical example, mining equipment operators), they'd tax them like this! there'd be fewer operators as a result, and any shortage of them will cause problems. These operators aren't slaves - they can quit the industry. The gov't would instead tax those employees _less_…

Except the premise given by bumbly above was that the employee's labor is inelastic as they are locked into the industry, and thus the labor would shoulder all of the tax without change in supply. Your comment is directly calling bumbly a liar.

Just stop with the hyperbolic statements and strawmanning. It's against HN guidelines.[1]

Also, I did not say their labor is inelastic (at least not at the collective level). The employees have a right to strike. However, the govt has said their labor is a necessity for the public good and has reserved the right to regulate it. Therefore, there is not a free market to set the price for labor as long as that regulatory mechanism exists.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Why America’s Railroads Refuse to Give Their Workers Paid Leave

#385

Post by naasking »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #382
naasking wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Corporations are/have always tried to maximise cost and profits. They didn't suddenly decide to get greedy 18 months ago. Actually they did: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ai6B8e-C8k8#t=10m46s They exploited the supply chain disruptions to justified price increases that weren't warranted. The data is pretty clear on this point so I don't know what "experts" you're listening to.

Nothing you stated or linked contradicts what I said. Corporations have always been greedy and will always capitalise on anything that can be used to increase profits. Blaming corporations is a miss because they are acting exactly the way they have always acted, they way they are expected to act, and the way they will act. Hence the example "It's like blaming gravity for a plane crash". Gravity's behavior is a consta…

> Nothing you stated or linked contradicts what I said. Corporations have always been greedy and will always capitalise on anything that can be used to increase profits.

My original point was that corporate greed was behind much of the recent inflation and that Biden should tackle recent corporate greed directly if he actually wanted to reduce inflation.

You disagreed because corporations didn't suddenly become greedy and so couldn't be behind recent inflation, and I provided evidence that yes, they are in fact the main cause.

I don't really care whether corporations "suddenly" became greedy or were always greedy, that's entirely beside the point.

Re: Why America’s Railroads Refuse to Give Their Workers Paid Leave

#386

Post by theironhammer »

ab123456789 wrote: post #220
mikewarot wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding of the FIRST big problem with PSR is that it creates trains longer than the system is designed to handle, thus all the sidings that used to allow trains to pass in single tracked areas are unavailable, which increases fragility of the system in general. This makes precision scheduling impossible... what this really is, is let's make all the workers wait (for free!) while we figure out how we can fina…

The reason why labor received more rights in Europe after WWII is that the rulers were worried about labor following the example of the Soviets. Carrot pre-empting geopolitical problems. As soon as the Soviet Union went away, the negotiating power of labor started to weaken. The statements above are not to be taken as an endorsement of the various kinds of genocide and horrors Communism created in the places where it…

[dead]

Re: Why America’s Railroads Refuse to Give Their Workers Paid Leave

#387

Post by mikewarot »

semiquaver wrote: post #273
mikewarot wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding of the FIRST big problem with PSR is that it creates trains longer than the system is designed to handle, thus all the sidings that used to allow trains to pass in single tracked areas are unavailable, which increases fragility of the system in general. This makes precision scheduling impossible... what this really is, is let's make all the workers wait (for free!) while we figure out how we can fina…

> The SECOND problem is that slashing the labor pool, and thus reducing the labor cost Just to clarify, did you mean slashing a given company’s jobs? The labor pool is the group of people in the job market available to perform a function. Slashing _that_ would drive salaries and thus labor costs up, not down.

>Just to clarify, did you mean slashing a given company’s jobs?

I meant the labor pool in existence at the company at that moment in time... the current employees and those that could be contracted in, pulled down from management, etc. The supply of labor physically available to run the trains in that instance, not market wide.

Re: Why America’s Railroads Refuse to Give Their Workers Paid Leave

#388

Post by sillystuff »

dpkirchner wrote: post #288
sillystuff wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A general strike is illegal in the United States. The US government, under the control of wealthy capitalists, has ensured that capital's interests are protected in law to the detriment of the workers who actually create value. > Among the practices prohibited by the Taft–Hartley act are jurisdictional strikes, wildcat strikes, solidarity or political strikes, secondary boycotts, secondary and mass picketing, closed…

> A general strike is illegal in the United States. What're they going to do, imprison the masses? Illegal doesn't mean much without realistic consequences.

There are a lot of potential consequences. A look at US labor history shows that mass arrests are possible (one of the first uses of aerial bombing was used to put down a miners' strike at Blair Mountain in the US. So, much worse than mass arrests are possible).

But, usually the ruling class + capitalist class targeted those they identified as labor leaders (often with bogus charges-- even without evidence, these often ended in convictions. With some of these convictions resulting in the executions of innocent people).

But, just firing all workers who participate as was done in the 1980s when air traffic controllers attempted a strike would likely be sufficient to scare the working class back into compliance.

Or, for a larger action, you could punish the entire working class by sharply raising interest rates and inducing a recession. With the resulting large supply of unemployed/underemployed workers, labor will be too weak to make demands.

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