“Congress can fix this with one easy bill:

Mandate that employers in any "critical infrastructure industry" must grant their employees a minimum of 7 paid personal/sick days per year. Done. The Railroads don't want to give up a penny of their BILLIONS in profits, so MAKE them. Don't force the workers into slavery conditions instead.

Mandate the sick time and the rest of the negotiations are fine. No strike. Workers are happy. Rail barons are slightly miffed at making 15 BILLION rather than 20 BILLION, but they'll get over it.“

“Y'know, it's almost like we should mandate that every worker deserves time off/sick leave, but that'd make us socialists like those dirty Europeans or something.“

“Fuck this goddamn country. If getting paid sick leave makes us socialist then fuck it I am one. Fuck the capitalists and their profits.“

“Im down for that! Fuck the capitalist profits, treat us like godamn human beings, not mindless cogs in the capitalist machine!“

…and there’s so many more just like that.

  • 420blazeit69 [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    If getting paid sick leave makes us socialist then fuck it I am one.

    This is why I don't think conflating stuff like free healthcare in the U.S. with socialism is a bad thing. If it gets some folks over the socialism = bad brainworm, that's huge. It's way easier to bring people around to better and better positions if they're not reflexively rejecting you due to the scary s-word.

    • VenetianMask [any]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Yeah but the liberals have been saying this for almost a decade now and all it's done is make them think socialism is when capitalism doesn't eat itself.

      e: Actually what it's done is make them think there's just another word they can hollow out and migrate to once 'progressive' starts to sound bad in the mouths of right wing media.