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Biden announces deal to avert rail strike that threatened huge disruption
The White House has struck a tentative deal to avoid a rail strike that threatened massive disruption across the United States, President Joe Biden announced early Thursday.
Politics
The White House has struck a tentative deal to avoid a rail strike that threatened massive disruption across the United States, President Joe Biden announced early Thursday.
Business groups and political officials had been growing increasingly concerned about the possibility that a strike could cripple the country’s supply chains and disrupt passenger services.
The tentative deal will represent a relief for Biden ahead of the midterm elections, after days of mounting fears that a union contract dispute might not be resolved by then.
"For the American people, the hard work done to reach this tentative agreement means that our economy can avert the significant damage any shutdown would have brought," Biden said in a statement.
The president said the deal was also “a win for tens of thousands of rail workers who worked tirelessly through the pandemic.”
“These rail workers will get better pay, improved working conditions, and peace of mind around their health care costs: all hard-earned,” he said.
The president said it was also a victory for railway companies “who will be able to retain and recruit more workers for an industry that will continue to be part of the backbone of the American economy for decades to come.”
The statement did not expand on the details of the deal struck. As of early Thursday morning, neither the labor unions or railway companies appeared to have commented on the tentative deal.
A source familiar with the negotiations described the “tentative” language as “a standard part of the ratification process,” which will now go to the union membership for a vote. As part of the agreement reached last night, there will be a “cooling off” period of several weeks to ensure that if a vote doesn’t succeed for any reason, there still would not be an immediate rail shutdown.
Biden made “a crucial call” at around 9 p.m. ET last night to Labor Secretary Marty Walsh and the negotiators representing railroad unions and companies, the source said.
Both sides met at the Department of Labor in Washington yesterday, with 20 hours of negotiations ultimately leading to the tentative deal, the source added.