69 comments

  1. They literally refusing to pay them for sick leave for 4 days in a year? Meanwhile lawmakers give themselves months of paid leave with your tax dollars.

    1. Well it’s the Senators. The house voted for paid sick leave. Probably the same republicans that blocked the burn pit bill at the beginning

    2. Well, they settled on a WHOPPING 24% retroactive (!) pay increase. If they wanted 7 days paid sick leave, maybe they shouldn’t have agreed to the deal?

  2. It is unconscionable that these rail workers have no paid sick leave. It is also inhumane that every employee in America doesn’t have paid sick leave & decent health insurance.

    1. @My Man’s Passion Poop Says the guy who will never get sick in his life and just watch his children struggle to pay their mortgages if they are are placed in unpaid sick leave

    2. @SFnativeone 1964 Poops obviously sits on the board of one of these mega rich companies so his attitude is I’M OK SO WHO GIVE AF ABOUT THE PEASANT

    3. @Unconventional Ideas Do you work out here? The “paid leave” you’re referring to is a few PL days and vacation depending on your seniority. And when you go to take those days when you get sick last minute?I “DENIED. MANPOWER doesn’t permit”

  3. I stand with the workers. The corporate goons got what they wanted. “Not a perfect deal” shut down the country.

  4. I am UAW and we only get 5 per year. Only two of them can be used Monday and Friday. Either 2 Mondays or two Fridays. If you are sick 3 mondays in a year you will be written up. Get ready for Ford to strike next September. We go first in negotiations and we already told them to get F

    1. What happens if you get cancer or something?? They just fire you while you’re getting medical care? Because these diseases/illnesses can take awhile sometimes.

  5. Jesus , i get18 paid sick days a year
    And they are accumulated until I retire . I receive up to a max of 125 days paid out when I retire as well . I use a average of 1 a year . Some colleagues have had heart trouble , car crash injuries , metal health issues etc and it saved them .

    1. So I did a little more reading, and the problem is the railroads have cut staffing so thin that if someone calls in sick on short notice they can’t find someone to replace them.

    2. @Jonathan Smuck During the Pandi a lot of workers quit/retired, and the companies weren’t hiring because of extended lockdowns and covid restrictions. It was the same reason for the backed-up ports and early supply chain issues.
      Then they tried to force nation-wide vax mandates on workers, and pushing for more restrictions, which caused another wave of firings/early retirements.
      But I guess people voted for this train wreck, so they got what they voted for!

    3. @Jonathan Smuck / Same as the post office. I get mail three maybe four days a week. Then when I do get mail it’s post marked three days prior. There’s a different person delivering my mail every time.

    4. @Unconventional Ideas TEN DAYS???? And that has to cover vacation and sick leave??? It’s like living in the Victorian era

    5. @JoeyJoJoJr0 It started long before the pandemic. In the last 10 years the companies instituted a system called Precision Scheduled Railroading which eliminated 40,000 jobs in the industry, partly by making up longer trains- up to 3 miles long now.

  6. How inhumane can any company be to not offer decent sick leave? People will get sick! They should be punished for getting sick??? Unbelievable!!! Give them a MINIMUM of 10 days sick leave.

    1. They are required to have paid time off that is in excess of ten days per year. But that is not currently distinguished between vacation and sick leave. This is a weird quirk of US labor law.

    2. They have Paid Time Off, which isn’t as restrictive as “sick leave” because you don’t need a reason/excuse to use PTO.

    3. Well they already get 20-30 days of paid time off which is more than most other industries offer. Average PTO in the US is 10-14 days.

  7. It is estimated that nearly three in five bankruptcies are filed due to medical debt. An unnerving one in five Americans are struggling with crippling medical debts, and of those, nearly 2 million will be forced to file for bankruptcy as a result.

  8. “It would be hard for me to understand how you can be talking about a Republican working-class party if you’re not going to vote to support paid guaranteed sick leave for railroad workers who today have none.”

    1. @Jill Featherman That’s false only one Democrat voted against the sick leave, Manchin. All the rest who voted against the sick leave were Republicans. You can Google the list.

  9. Many union workers bargained away benefits for a wage increases meant to cover the cost of those benefits.

    1. Bingo! This is a mute discussion. They got a giant 24% (!) pay increase. That’s more than TRIPPLE the amount of inflation.

  10. An agreement wasn’t reached Mr disappear from your job for months, that’s why we were going to strike! Now congress has taken our ability to strike away, and still no sick time. Unbelievable. Watch how many of us quit when we get our backpay checks!

  11. I want the same health care insurance, sick leave and vacation time as congress allocates for them selves but not the rest of us peasants !

    1. @John Brattan you’re staying the obvious.. the question is why?? Considering they get their benefits from tax payers.. the folk’s representing the workers should not be getting vastly better benefits… but hey, maybe you’re all for having a big bloated over payed government????

  12. The truckers and the rail workers need to come together and execute a general strike on the same day. I’ve been talking to people and American’s don’t even know what a general strike is. In the long run it will benefit the economy because the current state of affairs has resulted in a shortage of workers in these industries.

    Thank you Mr. Tapper for being a good reporter and pushing on this.

  13. This is the best uniting thing I’ve seen congress do. It really takes a a near disaster to get them together.

  14. Every job I have worked has had PTO not separate vacation and sick days. I have worked in healthcare at both hospital and retail stores (pharmacy) for about 20 years. It does have positives if you can rollover days not used or cash them out. You may end up not needing sick days separated from vacation days. The really big question is, does the company offer short or long term disability insurance as one of the benefits. If the illness is very serious and you know there will be long term recovery, knowing that short term disability can be used instead of however much PTO you’ve accumulated is greater peace of mind. Yes, I do know disability insurance will not pay the full salary, but even employees who have been with the company 20 or 30 yrs won’t have enough PTO to take off more than 6 weeks.

  15. They earn $100,000 and do have paid personal days. The problem is that personal days have to be requested in advance. Guess they have to schedule their illnesses in advance.

    1. I guess they shouldn’t have agreed to a giant 24% retroactive (!) pay increase if what they really wanted is paid sick leave… ?

  16. However, over 32 million workers still don’t have paid sick days and, in many cases, have to choose between a day’s pay and looking after their health or the health of a loved one. 

    While campaigns for paid sick days laws continue to grow, with more states and cities adopting these critical policies, many workers continue to struggle—specifically workers in low-wage jobs

  17. Wow this is unbelievable, thank goodness I am an Australian. We definitely are The Lucky Country.🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺

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