Newsman: President Joe Biden signed a bill into law making a rail strike illegal, preventing workers from walking off the job weeks before the holiday season. The workers and companies had until Dec. 9 to reach an agreement before they vowed to strike, which the industry estimated would cost the U.S. economy $2 billion per day. Biden asked Congress to intervene, and the Senate passed a bill Thursday making a strike illegal.
“Our nation’s rail system is literally the backbone of our supply chain,” Biden said Friday. “So much of what we rely on is delivered on rail, from clean water to food and gas and every other good. A rail shutdown would have devastated our economy. Without freight rail, many of our industries would have literally shut down.”
“The bill I’m about to sign ends a difficult rail dispute and helps our nation avoid what, without a doubt, would have been an economic catastrophe at a very bad time in the calendar,” Biden said Friday morning before signing the bill.
President Joe Biden signed legislation on Friday. The House passed the tentative rail agreement on Wednesday, and the Senate passed the legislation on Thursday as pressure mounted on lawmakers to act swiftly.
President Biden said in remarks ahead of the signing that the bill “ends a difficult rail dispute and helps our nation avoid what without a doubt would have been an economic catastrophe.”
“Our nation’s rail system is literally the backbone of our supply chain,” Biden said. “A rail shutdown would have devastated our economy.”
Biden acknowledged the failure to pass the paid sick leave provision, but vowed to keep pushing for paid sick leave in his remarks Friday.
“Look, I know this bill doesn’t have paid sick leave that these rail workers and frankly every worker in America deserves. But that fight isn’t over,” he said. “I’ve supported paid sick leave for a long time and I’m going to continue that fight until we succeed.”
Biden thanked congressional Democrats as well as Republicans for passing the legislation. “Thanks to the bill Congress passed … we’ve spared the country that catastrophe,” Biden said.
“It was the right thing to do,” he said, “to save jobs, to protect millions of working families from harm and disruption and to keep supply chains stable around the holidays.”
Biden at the bill signing Friday said his economic advisors told him as many as 765,000 Americans, “many of them union members themselves,” would have lost their jobs.
Ninety-six hours before a strike date, chemicals are no longer transported. The American Chemistry Council found a drop of 1,975 carloads of chemical shipments during the week of Sept. 10, when the railroads stopped accepting shipments due to the previous threat of a rail strike.
The four major railroads also typically move more than 80% of the agricultural freight traffic, according to the National Grain and Feed Association.
The initial agreement brokered by the White House would give rail workers a 24% pay increase over five years from 2020 through 2024, immediate payouts averaging $11,000 upon ratification. Under the agreement, workers would receive one extra paid day off and the promise they could attend medical appointments without penalty.
