• DarkGamer@kbin.social
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    10 months ago

    According to the IBEW, he didn’t:

    “We’re thankful that the Biden administration played the long game on sick days and stuck with us for months after Congress imposed our updated national agreement,” Russo said. “Without making a big show of it, Joe Biden and members of his administration in the Transportation and Labor departments have been working continuously to get guaranteed paid sick days for all railroad workers.
    “We know that many of our members weren’t happy with our original agreement,” Russo said, “but through it all, we had faith that our friends in the White House and Congress would keep up the pressure on our railroad employers to get us the sick day benefits we deserve. Until we negotiated these new individual agreements with these carriers, an IBEW member who called out sick was not compensated.”
    While President Joe Biden was calling on Congress in November to pass legislation to implement the agreement, he stressed that he would continue to encourage the railroads to guarantee paid sick time for their employees.
    “I share workers’ concern about the inability to take leave to recover from illness or care for a sick family member,” Biden said. “I have pressed legislation and proposals to advance the cause of paid leave in my two years in office and will continue to do so.”
    https://www.ibew.org/media-center/Articles/23Daily/2306/230620_IBEWandPaid

    Biden himself explained why he signed the bill:

    “It was tough for me but it was the right thing to do at the moment – save jobs, to protect millions of working families from harm and disruption and to keep supply chains stable around the holidays,” Biden said, adding the deal avoided “an economic catastrophe.”
    Eight of 12 unions had ratified the deal. But some labor leaders have criticized Biden, a self-described friend of labor, for asking Congress to impose a contract that workers in four unions have rejected over its lack of paid sick leave.
    “That fight isn’t over,” Biden said of the push for sick leave.
    https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-signs-bill-block-us-railroad-strike-2022-12-02/

    I imagine if the economy tanked under his watch he would have been blamed for that as well.