Jacobin:
"Under current railroad attendance policies, many workers must be either at work or available to work within ninety minutes upward of 90 percent of all hours of the day and night, whether awake or asleep. Taking time off results in 'points' getting deducted, which can result in termination. Not only does this make it difficult to see a doctor, but it makes any life outside of work virtually impossible. Soccer games, birthdays, weddings, funerals, holidays, and hobbies remain out of reach for most railworkers.
The policies even make something as basic as getting enough sleep a challenge, since workers can be summoned at any hour of the day and night. The predictable result is endemic fatigue among railworkers, with many reporting falling asleep at the switch. Given the toxic and flammable materials that trains carry, the danger to workers and the public is dire. ...
And here lies a deeper implication of Biden’s imposed deal. By flagrantly trampling railworkers’ collective bargaining rights, the self-described 'most pro-union president ever' is engaging in another variant of the norm-violating attacks on democracy for which he and other Democrats often criticize their Republican counterparts."
"Under current railroad attendance policies, many workers must be either at work or available to work within ninety minutes upward of 90 percent of all hours of the day and night, whether awake or asleep. Taking time off results in 'points' getting deducted, which can result in termination. Not only does this make it difficult to see a doctor, but it makes any life outside of work virtually impossible. Soccer games, birthdays, weddings, funerals, holidays, and hobbies remain out of reach for most railworkers.
The policies even make something as basic as getting enough sleep a challenge, since workers can be summoned at any hour of the day and night. The predictable result is endemic fatigue among railworkers, with many reporting falling asleep at the switch. Given the toxic and flammable materials that trains carry, the danger to workers and the public is dire. ...
And here lies a deeper implication of Biden’s imposed deal. By flagrantly trampling railworkers’ collective bargaining rights, the self-described 'most pro-union president ever' is engaging in another variant of the norm-violating attacks on democracy for which he and other Democrats often criticize their Republican counterparts."
https://jacobin.com/2022/12/railworkers-basic-control-sick-days-leave-pay-raise-strike-biden-contract
-->This article was written in mid-December, well before the toxic rail catastrophe that just happened. If a small, leftist publication can get it so right, where was the major media on this story? The NYT was sitting with President Biden, twiddling its thumbs on domestic labor and environmental issues while preparing the nation for war with Russia and China.
-->This article was written in mid-December, well before the toxic rail catastrophe that just happened. If a small, leftist publication can get it so right, where was the major media on this story? The NYT was sitting with President Biden, twiddling its thumbs on domestic labor and environmental issues while preparing the nation for war with Russia and China.
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The New York Times:
"The 27-nation European Union was built over decades with the core idea of extending peace across the continent. The notion that economic exchanges, trade and interdependence were the best guarantees against war lay deep in the postwar European psyche, even in dealings with an increasingly hostile Moscow.
That Mr. Putin’s Russia had become aggressive, imperialist, revanchist and brutal — as well as impervious to European peace politics — was almost impossible to digest in Paris or Berlin, even after the annexation of Crimea in 2014. An increasingly militaristic Russia might swim, quack and look like a duck, but that did not mean it was one." https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/26/world/europe/ukraine-russia-war.html
-->The NYT may swim, quack and look like a US propaganda machine, but is it one? Articles like this unfortunately show the intentions of Biden's foreign policy: preparing the American people for war. That should make us all fearful for our children and for all life on earth. And our newspaper of record? An unabashed proponent of US wars abroad, as it has always been.
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FAIR:
"A crucial function of a free press is to present perspectives that critically examine government actions. In major articles from the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal discussing the escalation of the war in Ukraine, however, such perspectives have been hard to come by—even as the stakes have reached as high as nuclear war.
In September, Russian President Vladimir Putin escalated the war by announcing a mobilization of up to 300,000 extra troops (CNBC, 9/21/22) and threatened to use 'all the means at our disposal' to ensure 'the territorial integrity of our motherland' (CNBC, 9/23/22). A month later, a letter endorsed by 30 members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus was sent to the White House (and quickly retracted), urging a 'proactive diplomatic push' to reach a ceasefire in the war.
Both of these major incidents could have been an opportunity for the media to ask important questions about US policy in Ukraine, which is—according to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin (Wall Street Journal, 4/25/22)—to 'weaken' Russia. Instead, elite newspapers continue to offer a very narrow range of expert opinion on a US strategy that favors endless war." https://fair.org/home/nyt-wsj-look-to-hawks-for-ukraine-expertise/
-->FAIR does a nice job exposing the constant parade of pro-war "military analysts" that appear in our major media. It is times like these that cry out for a real news reporting system not dominated by the empire and its toadies. We have seen it all before; each run-up to our nation's decades of wars abroad gets this type of crude propaganda. We must demand more from our media, as well as from our leaders who are addicted to invasions and occupations.
