When Railworkers Moved Towards a Strike, the Unions and Biden Administration Colluded to Crush Worker's Power

The First in a Two-Part Series Discussing Recent Emergence of Worker's Power and the Aggressive Push-back from the Ruling Class

In the last five years, especially since the onset of the worldwide COVID pandemic, workers’ actions to take power, achieve vastly better working conditions, and even seize control of their own production, have been rapidly accelerating. But with every move towards power taken by the workers, the capitalist ruling class aggressively, and sometimes brutally, push back. While these struggles churn through the system of laws, regulations, and arbitrary policies intended solely to benefit the capitalist class, these legalistic structures are very transparently based on wet sand, and as workers continue to push back yet again, they are becoming more conscious of their ability to topple these structures and take the reins. This article will focus specifically on workers’ actions in the railroad industry regarding this dynamic. Rail workers control the means of transport of the vast majority of natural and value-added resources and they are well positioned to halt industrial production if their material needs are subverted by the rail corporations, the corrupt unions, and the government that buttresses the capitalist institutions.

For the last 2-1/2 years, rail unions were in the process of negotiating the amendments of union contracts for the various trades and crafts in the rail industry with all major rail companies, but no agreement was reached by the Summer of 2022. Rail workers overwhelmingly rejected the dismal terms of the various contract offers, which the corporate unions* supported. Under the provisions of the Railway Labor Act (RLA), Biden formed a Presidential Emergency Board (PEB) in July 2022, which makes non-binding recommendations after a 30-day investigative period, in the struggle of workers against the railroads and the 12 labor unions representing around 145,000 unionized rail workers.**

By the end of this 30-day investigative period, the PEB issued non-binding recommendations intended to settle the opposition of workers to the ghoulish contract terms.