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House passes paid sick leave bill to avert rail strike despite worker objections
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House passes paid sick leave bill to avert rail strike despite worker objections
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Lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives voted Wednesday by a margin of 221-207 to pass a concurrent resolution adding seven days of paid sick leave to a White House-brokered contract that was rejected by over half of the nation’s unionized rail workforce but that President Joe Biden urged Congress to force through to prevent a nationwide rail strike next month.
Only three Republicans joined 218 Democrats to approve the paid sick leave measure. Three Republicans and one Democrat abstained.
Just minutes earlier, 79 Republicans joined 211 Democrats to pass a strike-averting resolution that would impose Biden’s heavily criticized tentative agreement, which in its original form does not guarantee any paid sick leave. Five Republicans did not vote.
Biden—a self-described “pro-labor president”—has been condemned by rail workers and progressive lawmakers and advocacy groups for pressuring Congress to use its authority under the Railway Labor Act of 1926 to ram through his deal to preempt a looming strike.
Prior to the intervention of Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), who submitted an amendment to add seven days of paid sick leave to the existing settlement on Tuesday night, progressives feared that House lawmakers would advance the White House-brokered pact without trying to improve it.
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