More Than 70 Lawmakers Urge Biden To Guarantee Rail Workers’ Sick Leave

Rail workers might yet prevail in finally attaining paid sick days.

On Friday, 72 members of Congress, led by Senator Bernie Sanders and Representatives Jamaal Bowman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Rashida Tlaib, published a letter demanding President Biden “to do everything within your authority to guarantee rail workers the seven sick days that they desperately need through executive action.”

The letter lays out three pathways for Biden to achieve this.

Biden could expand upon President Obama’s 2015 order that established paid sick leave for all federal contractors. Obama’s order did not cover rail workers after the industry lobbied heavily for their exclusion. Biden can remedy this, following through where his predecessor fell short.

Secondly, the authors point out the labor secretary’s ability, under the Occupational Safety and Health Act, to establish mandatory safety and health standards for businesses involved in interstate commerce. “We can think of few industries more quintessential to interstate commerce than freight rail,” the letter notes.

Finally, the transportation secretary “has a duty to promote safety in all areas of railroad operations,” the authors explain. “Guaranteeing that workers are not operating trains or inspecting rail signals while sick or tired would fundamentally improve the safety of our national rail operations.”

With the exception of Sanders, an independent, all the other signatories to the letter were Democrats.

For weeks, Biden has appeared feeble in the face of railway company interests—and criticism from Republicans cosplaying as pro-worker advocates—as he helped impose a contract onto workers.

The authors write that giving 115,000 workers seven days of paid sick leave would cost less than two percent of the industry’s annual profits. “If the rail industry can afford to spend $25.5 billion in stock buybacks and dividends to enrich their wealthy shareholders, they can afford to treat their workers with the respect and the dignity that they deserve.”

Besides how little the basic policy would cost, the fact is that a dignified, respected worker should never have to risk their—or others’—health to go to work. The coming days will show whether Biden agrees with that basic idea.

Progressives made clear Friday they are not happy with Kyrsten Sinema and her decision to switch party affiliation.

Several of her colleagues issued scathing rebukes of the Arizona senator and her legislative history.

“With Senator Warnock’s re-election, Kyrsten Sinema’s ability to be the center of the political universe has ended within the Democratic Party,” said Representative Raul Grijalva, a fellow Arizonan and former head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, referring to Raphael Warnock’s victory in the Georgia runoff election.

“This is a predictable outcome for Senator Sinema as she has entirely separated herself from any semblance of representing hardworking and struggling Arizonans.”

Since coming to Capitol Hill, Sinema has undergone an ideological 180, seemingly jettisoning the progressive beliefs she previously espoused. This was one of progressives’ top critiques of her Friday.

She is also deeply unpopular across the board, but particularly among Democratic and independent voters.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, never one to hold back, also laid into Sinema, taking to Twitter to critique the senator’s video message announcing she was registering as an independent.

“Not once in this long soliloquy does Sinema offer a single concrete value or policy she believes in. She lays out no goals for Arizonans, no vision, no commitments,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “People deserve more.”

Representative Jamaal Bowman, another New York progressive, took a slightly different approach.

He posted a video of Sinema’s notorious flippant thumbs-down vote against raising the minimum wage, with a clip of himself giving a thumbs down superimposed on top.

“Bye Felicia!” he captioned the video.

After Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema announced her departure from the Democratic Party to become an independent, Arizona Representative Ruben Gallego pounced to criticize her.

“Last month, the voters of Arizona made their voices heard loud and clear — they want leaders who put the people of Arizona first. We need Senators who will put Arizonans ahead of big drug companies and Wall Street bankers,” Gallego said in a statement Friday. “Unfortunately, Senator Sinema is once again putting her own interests ahead of getting things done for Arizonans.”

Shortly after, the Gallego campaign team sent out a fundraising text message. “What if you knew that Ruben was strongly considering running for Senate but needed to know he’d have the grassroots support to run?” the text read.

This comes after Gallego blasted Sinema last month for being “nowhere to be found” leading up to the midterm elections.

“You did not see [Sinema] at one public event for anybody,” Gallego said on MSNBC. “And when we have these races that are really in the mix right now, she could have been a very good surrogate to help out a lot of our candidates. And she did nothing, because she only cares about herself.”

The Arizona representative’s targeting of Sinema—and hinting at running for her seat—is nothing new. Last July, after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Gallego tweeted at Sinema, asking her to have a town hall and explain her opposition to forgoing the filibuster in order to codify the right to abortion. Later that month, Gallego’s campaign fundraised on Facebook, teasing a potential challenge against Sinema using similar language to Friday’s messaging.

At this point, it seems not a matter of if, but when Gallego announces his run for Sinema’s seat. Though Sinema is massively unpopular amongst pretty much all Arizonans, the growing enthusiasm for Gallego’s run will have to confront the very real possibility Sinema chooses to run as an independent.

On Friday morning, Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema bravely announced she is now a registered independent, rejecting the “partisan process” in favor of “solving problems and getting things done.”

Already, pundits are arguing that this is a situation where “progressives chase a moderate out of the party.” In the coming days, there will be even more arguments about how the Democratic Party is so radical it pushed out a key senator.

But this notion infantilizes one of the most powerful people in America and downplays Sinema’s own track record.

In reality, Sinema has a long history of obstructing the Democratic agenda. And whenever Sinema has blocked legislation, she has typically served the interests of the few.

Yes, there’s her stubborn support for the filibuster in lieu of pushing forward democratic reform. But there’s also the time Sinema stopped Congress from eliminating a tax loophole that served rich financiers. Or her opposition to raising taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations, reining in drug prescription prices, and spending even a fraction of what’s necessary to support the climate—ultimately sinking the Build Back Better agenda. And lest we forget Sinema’s infamous let-them-eat-cake thumbs down to giving working people a $15 minimum wage.

All this while Sinema has enjoyed massive hauls of cash from the pharma industry, payday lenders, and the financial sector. Doesn’t sound so “independent,” does it?

Progressive did not direct any “ire” at Sinema for no reason. Her own actions prompted it. When “solving problems” and “getting things done” is just in favor of the few, it’s only natural that she’ll alienate voters from her own party.

Let’s not conflate “free thinking” with an unaccountable one.

Senator Kyrsten Sinema may have thought that switching political affiliation Friday would help her get reelected, but in fact, she is deeply unpopular in Arizona across party lines—which is unlikely to change anytime soon.

FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver tweeted a graphic from an AARP poll conducted in September showing low support for Sinema among Arizona voters.

Only 37 percent of all likely voters viewed her favorably. Among Democrats, 57 percent viewed her unfavorably. Even among independents, her new team, 51 percent said they viewed her unfavorably.

In a reply to someone else’s comment, Silver estimated that Sinema would have had a 40 percent chance of winning her primary as a Democrat, and then about a 60 percent chance of winning the general election.

But now that she’s an independent, he put her chances of winning at only 25 percent.

Another poll, conducted in July by Data for Progress and the local Arizona news outlet The Copper Courier, found that Sinema had only a 42 percent approval rating among state residents. Only 34 percent of Arizona Democrats viewed her favorably.

Sinema’s abysmal approval levels should come as no surprise. Since being elected to Congress, she seems to have undergone a massive ideological transformation.

A former Green Party activist, Sinema had protested the Iraq War with the left-wing social justice group Code Pink and warned against the dangers of capitalism. But once she reached Capitol Hill, she swung much more moderate.

Most notably, she voted with a flippant thumbs-down against increasing the minimum wage—despite previously being vocal in support of raising it.

The Arizona state Democratic Party had censured Sinema in January for opposing the removal of the filibuster. The group similarly did not hold back in response to Sinema’s party change, charging that she had failed to stand up for her constituents in key areas such as voting rights and holding major corporations accountable.

“Senator Sinema may now be registered as an Independent, but she has shown she answers to corporations and billionaires, not Arizonans,” the party said in a statement. “Senator Sinema’s party registration means nothing if she continues to not listen to her constituents.”