The 2022 Railroad Contract Struggle: An Organized Betrayal of the Working Class

(AP Photo/LM Otero)

For months now, there has been speculation in the media regarding the possibility of a rail strike. The rail workers are under a multi-employer bargaining contract and the leadership of 12 unions negotiated for months to come to an agreement that a majority of union workers rejected. However, because railroad workers are governed by the Railway Labor Act, they were unable to strike and are rather subject to the arbitrary intervention of Congress and the President, a problem that would persist and intensify if the railways were nationalized, as some have proposed. This Act was designed to strip unions of their chief weapon – the strike – and to subject the organizations of the working class to the tyranny of the capitalist state. Here are the results of that: the so-called leaders of the railroad unions collaborated with the railroad bosses to cobble together a bad deal that workers rejected, the state under the leadership of Biden decided to use their power to shove that bad deal down the workers throats, and then all of the so-called “progressives” and so-called “socialists” in Congress decided to back the bosses, too.

Let’s be very clear here because extreme clarity is required. Joe “the most pro-union president ever” Biden, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and so on – all self-declared friends of the working class – used their positions in the state to force workers to take a deal that the bosses wanted and stripped their right to strike. That is, these enemies of the working class voted to use state power to oppress workers for the benefit of big monopoly capitalists. In the class struggle, everyone has to pick a side: do you stand with the working class or do you stand with the bosses and their bought-and-paid-for politicians? As the program of Restaurant Worker Union states, “The interests of workers are antagonistic to the interests of the bosses.” If you don’t stand on the side of the workers in the class struggle, you are an enemy of the whole working class. Period. 

The Democratic Party, the leadership of the bureaucratic unions, and the fake “progressives” all stood with the bosses. The leadership of the bureaucratic unions forced a deal that left out the one thing that workers demanded above all else: paid sick time. These union “leaders” supported the Democrats and Biden who rammed this bad deal down their throats. These “progressives” and “socialists” played political games and sent a paid sick day bill to the Senate that they knew would get rejected just because it would look “pro-worker” in the press. We all know that no Democratic politician and no union bureaucrat will ever really take the side of the workers when it counts.

Restaurant Workers Union stands in solidarity with all railroad workers who want to struggle against their billionaire bosses. Restaurant workers and railroad workers are exploited and oppressed by the same forces – capitalists and their political servants. All workers in the US are part of the same working class and have, no matter their apparent differences, the same fundamental interests and the same fundamental enemies. Unions are supposed to gather workers together and train us for this common struggle against this common enemy. When unions do not serve this function, they become a tool in the hands of the bosses, as this situation has concretely proved to everyone who has eyes to see. And when workers in one industry are atomized into 12 craft unions, it hinders unity and action of railroad workers. The time has come for railroad workers to organize on an industrial basis, to break down craft lines and form a single union, to prepare for the next battle and to deliver a single blow to the railroad bosses. 

We have to build independent, democratic unions dedicated to the class struggle and class solidarity. We have to use these unions to take the lead in all of the social struggles of our society and organize our revolt so we can finally do away with this system of exploitation and oppression. Workers have their own class interests and their own class politics and so we need our own fighting class organizations!

Strength through struggle!