Why not force the companies to accept the union terms then instead of the other way around? Why is it always workers who have to capitulate to capital? The reason the government always interferes because we’re ruled by capital and business interests.
If they’re that important then they should have had all their issues addressed, including safety issues.
Also, the original contract was not good for the workers and that’s why it wasn’t ratified. The higher up union officials haven’t been connected to the rank and file, hence their bad original deals and the IBEW boot licking statement. To be honest the safety issues from Presision Schedules Railroading still aren’t addressed and they’ve only gotten a small amount of the sick days they asked for (Europe gets like 10-15, they got 4-6). It’s something, but it’s pathetic. You can’t say you’re the most friendly labor president and then sign a law destroying a strike. Instead, he should have made speeches blaming the railroad companies and tried to negotiate without signing the law destroying the strike, instead using the threat of a Congress law to force them to come to the table (which it sounds like he did, but only after destroying the unions leverage and absorbing the only power workers have). This was after the midterms so it’s not like he had to worry about an immediate election.
For the record, I get why he did it, but I still disagree that it was the right move, or the only move. There are European countries that have rail strikes, and they manage to survive those apocalypses, and keep a healthier labor movement at the same time.