U.S. House votes to adopt railroad labor agreement plus provide workers sick leave

The Unit­ed States House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives passed two key labor-relat­ed res­o­lu­tions today: one aimed at avert­ing a crip­pling strike and one that would pro­vide rail­road work­ers with paid sick leave, address­ing work­er unhap­pi­ness with the deals reached at the bar­gain­ing table with big, prof­itable com­pa­nies like BNSF.

House Joint Res­o­lu­tion 100, pro­vid­ing for a res­o­lu­tion with respect to unre­solved dis­putes between rail­roads rep­re­sent­ed by the Nation­al Car­ri­ers’ Con­fer­ence Com­mit­tee of the Nation­al Rail­way Labor Con­fer­ence and a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of their employ­ees, passed with 290 yea votes and 137 nay votes.

House Con­cur­rent Res­o­lu­tion 119, intro­duced by the Pacif­ic North­west­’s own Peter DeFazio of Ore­gon, would amend H.J. Res 100 to pro­vide for paid sick leave for rail­road work­ers. It was approved by a vote of 221–207.

If the Sen­ate signs off on the pro­posed mod­i­fi­ca­tion to the labor agree­ment, Pres­i­dent Biden could sign the new terms into law and oblig­ate rail­roads to pro­vide sick leave to their work­ers, which they should have sim­ply agreed to do in the first place in nego­ti­a­tions, obvi­at­ing the need for con­gres­sion­al intervention.

“Time is of the essence,” said Speak­er Nan­cy Pelosi before the vote.

“We must act now. I urge a strong bipar­ti­san ‘yes’ vote on both adopt­ing the Ten­ta­tive Agree­ment and secur­ing addi­tion­al paid sick leave.”

“In doing so, we will give our fam­i­lies and busi­ness­es con­fi­dence that the Amer­i­can econ­o­my will remain resilient and strong.  And we’ll move to enhance the dig­ni­ty and eco­nom­ic secu­ri­ty of many hard­work­ing Amer­i­cans who keep our nation on the move. Our nation’s hopes, real­ly, are rid­ing on this vote.”

The roll call from the greater Pacif­ic North­west on the under­ly­ing res­o­lu­tion (H.J. Res 100, regard­ing the adop­tion of con­tract terms) was as fol­lows:

Vot­ing Yea for the Res­o­lu­tion: Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzan Del­Bene, Rick Larsen, Derek Kilmer, Prami­la Jaya­pal, Kim Schri­er, Adam Smith, and Mar­i­lyn Strick­land (WA), Suzanne Bonam­i­ci, Earl Blu­me­nauer, Peter DeFazio, and Kurt Schrad­er (OR); Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Jaime Her­rera Beut­ler and Dan New­house (WA), Russ Fulcher and Mike Simp­son (ID)

Vot­ing Nay Against the Res­o­lu­tion: Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mary Pel­to­la (AK); Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers (WA), Cliff Bentz (OR), Matthew Rosendale (MT)

The roll call from the greater Pacif­ic North­west on the res­o­lu­tion to pro­vide for paid sick leave (H.Con.Res.119) was along par­ty lines:

Vot­ing Yea for the Res­o­lu­tion: Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzan Del­Bene, Rick Larsen, Derek Kilmer, Prami­la Jaya­pal, Kim Schri­er, Adam Smith, and Mar­i­lyn Strick­land (WA), Suzanne Bonam­i­ci, Earl Blu­me­nauer, Peter DeFazio, and Kurt Schrad­er (OR), Mary Pel­to­la (AK)

Vot­ing Nay Against the Res­o­lu­tion: Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Jaime Her­rera Beut­ler, Dan New­house, Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers (WA), Cliff Bentz (OR), Russ Fulcher and Mike Simp­son (ID), Matthew Rosendale (MT)

With regard to the two res­o­lu­tions’ prospects in the Sen­ate, Punch­bowl News com­ment­ed in this morn­ing’s AM newsletter:

Across the Capi­tol, it seems as if the ten­ta­tive agree­ment could pass the Sen­ate – as long as every Demo­c­rat votes yes.

But sen­a­tors on both sides of the aisle told us they think it’s pos­si­ble that the paid-sick leave por­tion could poten­tial­ly pass as well. The issue of sup­port­ing more than 115,000 rail­road work­ers cuts across par­ty lines, mak­ing a vote count hard to predict.

Yet the prospect of the paid leave ele­ment gain­ing con­gres­sion­al approval has rail­road oper­a­tors on edge, sources told us Tues­day evening. A num­ber of Sen­ate Repub­li­cans do appear open to an increase in paid sick leave from one day to sev­en days.

If the paid sick leave por­tion fails in the Sen­ate, the under­ly­ing rail agree­ment could still go to Biden’s desk with­out return­ing to the House for anoth­er vote.

Pro-labor sen­a­tors like Bernie Sanders, Eliz­a­beth War­ren, and Jeff Merkley can be count­ed upon to do their utmost to get the paid sick leave lan­guage approved. But will there be enough votes to ulti­mate­ly get it adopted?

We hope so, and we’ll be urg­ing sen­a­tors to take a stand for paid sick leave for rail­road work­ers. They need it and deserve it. All Amer­i­can work­ers do. The big, prof­itable rail­road com­pa­nies can afford to do right by their work­ers. Since they won’t do so vol­un­tar­i­ly or even through the col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing process, it’s entire­ly rea­son­able that Con­gress use its author­i­ty to make them.