The threat of a railroad strike returns just before the holidays as the nation’s largest rail conductor union voted to reject its latest offer.

SMART Transportation Division, the union representing the rail conductors, announced the results on Monday, adding that negotiations have until a December 8 deadline to avoid a potential strike.

“Honestly, this vote is about the frustration that the railroads have created with [their attendance policies] and the deterioration of quality of life as a result for our conductors,” Jared Cassity, the national legislative director at SMART Transportation, told the Washington Post.

“It’s about attendance policies, sick time, fatigue, and the lack of family time. A lot of these things that cannot be seen but are felt by our membership. It’s destroying their livelihoods,” he added.

The attendance policy has been a major focus of the union vote. The deal offered to union workers also included a 24% pay increase by 2024 and updates for workers for healthcare appointments. Unless Congress intervenes or a new deal is struck before the deadline, workers could strike.

Rep. Rick Crawford (R-AR), a top Republican on the House subcommittee that includes railroads, spoke out against the potential union strike.

“Look, what a terrible Christmas gift that would be to give to the American people at this point. Right before Christmas, shutting down our supply chain,” Crawford told Politico. “So we’ve got something prepared if necessary, but I’m hoping it’s not necessary.”

The Association of American Railroads (AAR) has estimated that a nationwide shutdown of railroads could result in economic output would likely be at least $2 billion per day. A strike could also have massive consequences beyond rail.

“A single container or trailer on a railcar can contain 2,000 UPS packages, tens of thousands of bananas or hundreds of flat-screen televisions. A rail shutdown would slow or halt these shipments,” the AAR stated.

The Daily Wire previously reported regarding the rejection of a Biden administration proposal by the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes Division of the Teamsters (BMWED), which represents nearly 12,000 railroad workers. The group rejected a tentative agreement between railroaders and Class I freight railroads.

Another previous report focused on a second railroad union that rejected the labor deal negotiated by the Biden administration. The Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen (BRS) voted overwhelmingly to reject the labor deal in a vote, the union said in a statement. The union represents more than 6,000 railroad workers.

“For the first time that I can remember, the BRS members voted not to ratify a National Agreement, and with the highest participation rate in BRS history,” union president Michael Baldwin said in a statement on the union’s website.

In September, railroad companies and labor unions struck the tentative agreement. The deal was negotiated by Presidential Emergency Board (PEB), led by Labor Secretary Martin Walsh.

John Riggolizo contributed to this report.

Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon revealed that the Christian satire outlet ultimately gained a broader audience by refusing to delete a post that caused the former management of Twitter to shutter its account.

The publication was banned from the social media platform earlier this year for an article that jokingly named Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary Rachel Levine, a biological male who identifies as a transgender woman, as “Man of the Year.” Elon Musk, a vocal fan of The Babylon Bee and the new owner of Twitter, consulted with the company’s leadership before launching his bid to acquire the platform, according to Dillon.

The censorship effort greenlit by former Twitter executives, many of whom were summarily fired after Musk purchased the company, appears to have backfired. Dillon remarked that The Babylon Bee would soon surpass two million followers after boasting 1.5 million when the company was locked out of the platform in March.

“We now have more followers, reach, and revenue than ever before,” Dillon said, “not because we acquiesced, but because we stubbornly refused to bend the knee for tyrants.”

The victory lap continued during an interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson. “Twitter’s ban was publicized, Elon Musk saw it and was outraged by it. Not because he’s a right-winger, but because he believes in the First Amendment,” the top-rated primetime anchor commented. “Fast forward to today: Elon Musk now owns Twitter.”

Dillon said that Musk is currently threatening a system of censorship established by radical leftists that has supported their views on issues such as gender. “He’s got a tough battle ahead of him,” Dillon noted.

Americans with conservative viewpoints have faced censorship from the nation’s major institutions, from government entities to technology conglomerates, as Musk himself recently acknowledged. Libs of TikTok, a popular account that focuses on left-wing activists, was temporarily locked out of Twitter several months ago for a “hateful conduct” warning. Allie Beth Stuckey, a commentator and podcast host, was suspended from Twitter on two separate occasions, once for saying that a transgender woman competing as an Olympic weightlifter is “still a man” and again for denouncing a Fox News segment that highlighted a family who claimed their child was transgender.

Dillon added last month that Twitter would have allowed The Babylon Bee to regain access to the account if it had opted to remove the post calling Levine a man. “We could have restored our account at any time by deleting the tweet, but we refused. It was the right call,” he said. “Never censor yourself, and never apologize for speaking truth.”

Musk recently told advertisers and members of the public that he bought Twitter to facilitate open dialogue between citizens with differing opinions. The world’s richest man has nevertheless faced aggressive internal opposition from Twitter employees, causing him to dismiss some workers who took their criticism public.

Twitter also restored accounts belonging to DailyWire+ host Jordan Peterson, who had similarly refused to delete a tweet about radical gender ideology, and former President Donald Trump, whose profile was suspended after he allegedly promoted violence at the United States Capitol Building on January 6, 2021.