Editor’s letter

The rail industry is making record profits off the backs of its exhausted workers—with the blessing of our elected government. The labor agreement forced on rail workers last week gives them a decent raise but not one day of the paid sick leave they requested (see Best U.S. Columns, p.12). That means the conductors who drive the trains and the laborers who maintain the tracks will continue to be penalized any time they stay home with a fever or rush a child to the ER. It’s not like the railways can’t afford to offer benefits. The industry made $21.2 billion in profit during the first three quarters of this year—an all-time high. Guaranteeing workers seven paid sick days would only cost it $321 million a year, nibbling away less than 2 percent of that haul. In any other industry, the workers could strike. But thanks to an archaic law from 1926, when rail was the main conduit for the nation’s freight, railroad workers don’t have that right, so their employers have little incentive to meet their demands.

The thing is, though, workers shouldn’t have to walk off the job to get something as basic as sick leave. Nearly every other developed country has guaranteed it to their citizens for decades, while the U.S. remains a stubborn outlier. We rank dead last among Group of 20 industrialized countries in not just sick leave but all benefits, including vacation time, health care, unemployment pay, and retirement benefits. Until recently, we could at least point to South Korea as the other advanced economy with no sick leave—but this past summer Seoul began a pilot program to offer the benefit in six states, with a view to rolling it out nationwide in 2025. The pandemic, it seems, taught South Koreans how vital it is that sick workers be allowed to stay home rather than coughing all over their co-workers and customers. Why haven’t Americans learned that lesson?