YexingTudou

🎶 Goodness gracious, lint starts a fire 🎶

I can't wait til the built in translation engine can work with Chinese. I'm sure it's a ways off, especially since the research and funding is being done with support from the EU, so there's an interest to getting European languages done first. For now I'll have to stick with Google on that front :/

We have a cat fork too! It even has a special place it lives next to the sink

Ah okay, I think I just didn't quite get the whole picture during the consult. The main weird thing was just that after asking me to change into a gown they left the room for like 20min with no explanation, but he probably just had other stuff on his plate that day. This was also like 5 years ago so it could've been bc of his team at the time.

How was your experience with him? I met him for a consultation years ago when I thought insurance would cover it, but he kinda gave me a weird vibe. I had heard his work was good so I still would've went with him if I could have, but it just wasn't in the cards at the time unfortunately

Which surgeon? Is that Schechter?

Exactly. And maybe I'm just a salty leftist, but I don't think we should thank dems for not pissing on us when they choose to spit on us instead.

This strike was regarding freight rail and would definitely not cause the industry to disappear since rail is the most cost effective way to transport certain goods, and we do not have enough infrustructure for trucks to be a reasonable alternative (and we have a hell of a lot of roadways). Here's a basic list of common things freight trains carry.

Many people would feel the hit from things like lumber and car shortages, but I think hazmat materials would be the biggest stopper of the economy. According to this page rail transports 99.9% of hazmat materials in the US, including 11% of the US's crude oil at it's peak oil shipments in 2014, though idk how pipelines factor in/how companies distibute gasoline, so not sure if that would affect gas prices in some areas more than others or if it would affect the nation as a whole. What I do know is that many industries rely on our freight system, and it can't all be converted to trucking. Many workers wouldn't have raw materials to work with and it would touch everyone in some way.

I actually did miss that, thank you for replying. I had been working for a passenger rail company at the time, but ended up leaving my job a little after the big event and didn't keep up on the news.

That being said, I still think the union could have gotten a much better deal had they been permitted to strike. They were originally asking for 15 paid days (note: I think they would've settled lower, but higher than 4). While the deal that was negotiated does help people, it is a far cry from what's needed. I worked at the best of the railroads (in terms of contract), and that was too much for me. I was on call 6 days a week and worked all 6 of those days for several months straight. I got sick a lot more often in my year on that job than ever before and it's becuse I didn't have rest. But again, that was the best contract in the RR, freight workers (at the time at least) were on call for up to 2 weeks at a time, sometimes being called in more than once a day.

I haven't looked at the new contracts that freight workers are getting now, but I know that 4 days sick leave (7 if you convert your personal days), is not enough, even if they got contracts as good as we had at my company. The railroads use and abuse their employees, and employees should've gotten a lot more than they did. A strike would have ground things to a halt, but that's literally the point. That's the only card we have as workers and Biden took that away at a pivotal moment.

So I personally still think it was a shit deal, and it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I'm glad that workers are getting more now than they were, but they could have gotten more had they not been kneecapped.

Railroading. Not the next day, but probs pretty quick. There's a reason Biden nipped the railroad strike in the bud, and my theory as to why he's trying to build up the "pro-union" image again before the election - he really screwed labor in that move.