Railroad Bosses Gave Millions to Congress to Defeat Their Workers
The booming railroad industry has delivered multimillion dollar payouts to CEOs and shareholders in recent years. The industry has also shoveled millions of dollars into campaign contributions — no wonder Congress knocked down pro–rail worker legislation.
A Union Pacific locomotive at a rail yard in City of Industry, California, December 1, 2022. (Bing Guan / Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The US Senate voted Thursday to deny 125,000 rail workers a handful of paid sick days that would have cost the equivalent of just four days of recent profits made by senators’ railroad industry donors, according to financial records reviewed by the Lever.
The cost of paid sick days for this year — roughly $321 million — would be less than half the amount that a single railroad tycoon, Warren Buffett, funneled to his family foundations last week.
Buffett’s railroad firm BNSF scored a huge win when forty-three senators blocked paid sick leave for exhausted railroad workers, and passed legislation preventing workers from striking. The Senate vote followed the Biden White House effectively pouring cold water on efforts to tie paid sick leave to the bill shutting down the rail strike, declaring in a press briefing that the president “does not support any bill or amendment that will delay a bill that’s getting to his desk by Saturday.”
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