Page 136 - Rail Workers News Today

But, first, breaking tonight, president biden is insisting his economic plan is working following the november jobs report. he is also trying to soften the blow to his core union constituency over his pushing through a deal to prevent a nationwide rarely strike. white house correspondent peter doocy has details tonight live from the north lawn. >> good evening, bret. the last 24 hours have been a lot of pomp and circumstance for the president. he shook hands with the duke of cambridge today he b...

Gas by christmas. mary bruce at the white house. >> reporter: president biden today signing a bill to avert what could have been a catastrophic rail strike. >> rail shutdown would have devastated our economy. without freight rail, many of the u.s. industries would literally shut down. >> reporter: but the president acknowledging it falls short of what many rail workers are demanding, paid sick leave. >> i know this bill doesnt have paid sick leave, that these rail workers, and frankly every work...

Together in a show of strength, some of the biggest unions involved in industrial action, representing rail workers, 25,000 ambulance workers who are members of the gmb and unison have voted to strike across england and wales in all of these ten areas. have increased by only 7%. those figures are just unsustainable, and the pressure on ambulance workers and health workers has been building and building and building. the royal college of nursing is also walking out over two days in december.

In 1946 250,000 rail workers walked off the job bringing much of the united states to a screeching halt after negotiations for a pay increase stalled. >> weeks of negotiation proved fruitless, cutting off shipments of vital supplies and leaving thousands stranded in every part of the country. >> the strike suddenly ended when president harry truman, a democrat who despised strikes, made a shocking request of congress -- to grant him the authority to draft the striking workers into the armed forc...

Bills that we have, passing to the upper turn -- that this bill should not pass without 60 days of sick days for rail workers? >> the position of the administration is that we will enact this tentative agreement and avoid the possibility of a rail shutdown. i want to make sure that its understood from a transportation perspective that a rail shutdown would not just shut down trains, it would effectively shut down the country. there is no [inaudible] within a matter of days, you could see for exa...

>> the men themselves dont like to lose the time or wages either, but theres a time when you have to make a stand. >> president ronald reagan, no friend of the unions, ended that costly four-day rail strike after legislation was rushed through congress to bring the strike to an end. today we might be on the precipice of yet another major strike. roughly 115,000 rail workers are threatening to walk off the job after four of their 12 unions rejected a white house brokered deal because it failed to...

We were considered essential, and now it seems like were expendable. >> were coming to work sick and exhausted, we return the work 14 hours and longer every day. >> we have lost two members in the past few weeks, and they might have been here today with us if they were able to rest and reset. >> today, the house of representatives passed a bill to force an end to the strike, but also passed a subsequent bill to provide railroad workers with seven days of sick days. they need 60 votes to pass, bu...

We see the department very much wanting to get a hold of the transcript of their interviews, and so they want to get their hands on some of that evidence. i think that will see serious investigations grow out of the committees work. i think that much of the investigation that the department is doing into the former presidents involvement in january 6th, and whether he has criminal liability directly flows from the evidence that the january 6th committee turned up. and they made public in those i...

Think 18 times in the past, with congress. just using its authority, we have to make sure there is a solution that does not risk ending the economic growth that were seeing in america, and sending us in the other direction. >> secretary pete buttigieg, weve talked a lot about the rail workers, but what about the rail companies? part of the reason were in this predicament is because in the 1990s, they instituted these reforms that dramatically trimmed workforces and increase profits. is there som...

Millions and millions of americans. >> there you have, it republican sticking up for other people. democrats have become the democrat -- out of touch coastal elites, and today, the working peoples party, the republicans had an incredible opportunity to make good on the re-brand. the biden administration has asked congress to pass legislation to prevent a rail strike, and what it would do is fairly controversial. this is a lot of folks in the may believe, meant because it would force real workers...