Biden announces tentative deal to avert U.S. rail strike

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.

The White House struck a tentative deal Thursday to avoid a rail strike that risked major disruptions across the United States, with freight workers securing a key demand.

The agreement between major freight rail operators and two large unions — the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen and SMART Transportation Division — highlights the labor movement’s growing influence under an administration that has cast itself as a staunch ally of labor. Their tentative pact drew a collective sigh of relief from business groups that had warned a stoppage would cause crippling economic damage.

“This agreement is a big win for America,” President Joe Biden said Thursday at the White House, thanking negotiators for the unions and the rail carriers, after what he said were 20 hours of marathon talks ahead of a looming Friday deadline.

For the president and fellow Democrats, the deal offers a measure of political relief after fears that the economic fallout from a strike could further squeeze households hit by stubbornly high inflation.

Freight industry officials had warned that a strike could cost the U.S. economy some $2 billion a day.Bing Guan / Bloomberg via Getty Images file“This is a win for tens of thousands of rail workers and for their dignity,” Biden said, adding that the deal would also boost rail operators’ ability to hire and retain workers, and called the carriers a vital “backbone” of the economy.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/biden-announces-tentative-deal-avert-us-rail-strike-rcna47850

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