Cole right about trade-offs, wrong about everything else

No one would ever accuse Althea Cole of supporting labor, but in shilling for railroad companies, she gets her facts wrong. Rather than it costing $600 billion to provide our essential supply chain workers with the ability to take a day off instead of attending work with influenza, it would actually cost $600 million, or less than 3% of the $23 billion in profits the companies made last year. It’s also about a single percent of the $42 billion they’ve recently spent on stock buybacks rather than investing in their workers.

Althea is correct about trade-offs, but our country continues to sacrifice the well-being of the workers she claims are vital in supplying her with toilet paper just so we don’t inconvenience the already rich railroad barons.

Mike Schluckebier

Iowa City