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Comment by over_bridge | Hacker News Reader

It's hugely in the public interest to not have sick rail workers infecting their passengers

There's no passengers involved as PSR refers exclusively to freight rail. It's still in the public interest to not have sick rail workers die on the job because they are not given time off to access health care or recuperate from illnesses. This is what the dispute is about.

That applies to freight railroads how?

Notice the names of the railroads involved: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_United_States_railroad_la...

Well, this sounds crazy, at least looking from Europe:

  In February 2022, BNSF Railway implemented a points attendance system named "Hi Viz" that a union president called, "the worst and most egregious attendance policy ever adopted by any rail carrier." In the system, each worker starts with 30 points and loses points for taking a day off. Workers can accrue 4 points by being on-call for 14 straight days, but any time off, even for illness or a family emergency, resets the clock. Unions representing about 17,000 workers threatened to strike over the points system, but BNSF Railway sued and won a restraining order to prevent the unions from striking.

It doesn't say how many points are lost for taking a day.

Here in Argentina, the right to strike is granted by our constitution. A restraining order preventing unions from striking would be seen like a restraining order preventing voters from voting.

The right to strike is granted in the US as well, however laws mean nothing to the oligarchs.

Subject to the president in certain industries, as in this case

Its not just about being sick. These guys can work in awful conditions doing a dangerous job and often can and do get hurt. "Sick" leave is not all about a virus .

It's in absolutely everyone's interest to have ample and guaranteed paid sick leave... except for a minuscule and already-wealthy portion of the population who might stand to lose a smidgen of money over such policies. Because of that threat of becoming more wealthy at a slightly reduced pace, they will oppose federal action with everything they have. And they usually win.

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