Should We Repeal the Railway Labor Act?
By 
The moment when Biden invoked the Railway Labor Act was incredibly frustrating to me because if there’s one thing people really really really don’t want when they are pissed off is for some historian to be providing historical context on Twitter that seems to defend the action when it is in fact simply explaining it. In other words, me saying that Biden did what any president would do here and was far less terrible than other, purportedly pro-labor presidents such as Harry Truman in fact did is very much not what the Dems Are Corporate Sellouts crowd wants to hear at such point.
But just because I correctly noted that Biden’s actions are make a ton of sense does not mean that I think the Railway Labor Act is a good idea in 2022. Probably it is not. So I wanted to link to Andrew Elrod and Nelson Lichtenstein’s Jacobin piece that argues for its repeal and maybe the workers should just strike anyway.
The government is not all powerful, and workers throughout the twentieth century often won strikes deemed illegal by either the courts or a state or federal agency. Many unionists have adhered to the old adage that “the only illegal strike is an unsuccessful strike.”
During World War II, many wildcat strikes, often lasting for a shift or shorter, persuaded foremen, plant managers, and other executives to accommodate union militancy rather than seek governmental intervention. In the 1960s, strikes by schoolteachers and other government employees smashed strike prohibitions and fostered unionization in the public sector. In 1966, when New York subway workers struck for higher pay, the city obtained an injunction prohibiting the work stoppage and imprisoning Transport Workers Union of America (TWU) president Mike Quill and seven other strike leaders. “The judge can drop dead in his black robes!” Quill declared just before he went to jail. The strike continued, ending only when the TWU secured a sizable wage increase and other improvements.
That victory may well have helped inspire the more than 200,000 postal workers who struck for higher pay in 1970 — by far the largest strike ever conducted against the US government, even though it was a federal crime punishable by immediate discharge and prosecution. President Richard Nixon declared a national emergency and sent 25,000 troops into New York City to move the mail then vital to banking, insurance, and stock market operations. But the troops could not do the job, so backroom negotiations with the striking unions soon commenced, yielding a large wage hike and a reorganization of the post office as a more independent part of the federal government.
Such illegal strikes continue. The red state teacher strikes of 2018 openly flouted the law and were largely successful. “At some point, you have to choose between doing what is right and doing what is legal,” a Massachusetts teacher union leader explained this year. “We choose what is right.”The Railway Labor Act and every other government-mandated strike prohibition should be cast aside. With the economic strength of US labor at a historic low — even as pro-union sentiment reaches new highs — any obstacle to exercising the right to strike forestalls the reemergence of the vibrant union movement we desperately need.
Last week’s congressional vote to impose an “agreement” on rail workers demonstrates just how precarious the victories of the twentieth century are today. It also serves as an object lesson for those seeking legal solutions in the future to pressing economic and social problems in the present: the decisions of courts and legislatures may enforce the norms and standards in the economy, but it is organized action that most effectively alters the balance of power those norms reflect.
A well-organized strike by railroad workers, legal or illegal, could win not just more sick days and more humane work schedules for those unionists but would provide an example of working-class power inspirational to millions of young and not-so-young workers seeking to build their own unions and challenge the entrenched power of capital, from coffee shops to warehouses and beyond.
I certainly subscribe to the only illegal strike is the unsuccessful one belief. As they say, the 2018 teachers strikes are a great example of the power workers have when they just really don’t care whether the strike is legal. What is the country going to do? Is Joe Biden actually going to try and fire railroad workers. I find that exceedingly unlikely. I also think that there’s a lot of grumbling from rail union leaders about the lack of sick days, and for good reason, but a wildcat strike would threaten them as much as it would the other powerful entities involved here.