Last week, the self-described “most pro-labor president in American history” spearheaded an effort to prevent more than one hundred thousand workers employed on the country’s railways from going on strike for better job conditions. That effort, supported by both senior Democratic leaders and most Republicans in the House and Senate, was successful. As a result, Congress has now imposed a contract on workers without any paid sick time — the key demand of the unions involved in the dispute. This intervention was exactly what corporate America wanted and, as ever, corporate America got its way. Workers will thus continue to toil through shifts that can run as long as eighty hours, remaining unable to take time off even in cases of emergency, with many expected to be on call for all or most of the day when not on the clock. It’s an absolutely wretched and indefensible state of affairs. It’s also the outcome that Joe Biden and other powerful Democrats wanted and actively sought.

These are the basic and incontrovertible facts of last week’s developments. But, owing among other things to the particularly cynical line that has been taken by Democratic leaders, these facts are apparently being lost on some. In a sense, that’s perfectly understandable. Most people, after all, have neither the time nor the inclination to follow the granular details of a particular story in Congress. And, if you’re an average news consumer who is generally inclined toward the Democratic Party, you’re liable to have seen and/or heard the following about recent events: first, that most Democrats in the House and Senate voted for railworkers to get seven days of paid sick leave; second, that President Biden and other key Democrats support the railworkers’ demand; and third, that all but a few Republicans in Congress voted against the idea.

Each of these things is strictly true and has been emphasized in various statements by figures like Biden (“[workers will get paid sick days] as soon as I can convince Republicans to see the light”), outgoing House Leader Nancy Pelosi (“As we consider Congressional action, we must recognize that railroads have been selling out to Wall Street to boost their bottom lines, making obscene profits while demanding more and more from railroad workers”), and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg (“The position of our administration is that every American worker ought to have paid leave”). Faced with these facts, it’s quite easy to see how a casual observer might conclude that the only obstacle to paid sick time for more than one hundred thousand railworkers is the obstinacy of congressional Republicans.