Railroads and rail workers unions have struck a tentative deal early Thursday which should avert a national rail strike that threatened to disrupt shipping and travel across the country. Since roughly 40% of the nation’s cargo travels by rail, a strike threatened to idle 7,000 trains and cost the economy $2 billion per day.
On Friday morning at midnight, a cooling off period deadline would have triggered action by the unions in response to the failure to secure a contract. Both parties engaged in over 20 consecutive hours of negotiations before striking the deal. The negotiations had been primarily hung up over issues regarding unpaid sick time.
Joe Biden said in a statement announcing the deal, “The tentative agreement reached tonight is an important win for our economy and the American people. It is a win for tens of thousands of rail workers who worked tirelessly through the pandemic to ensure that America’s families and communities got deliveries of what have kept us going during these difficult years.”
In a press release, the Association of American Railroads said that tentative deals had been struck with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen Division of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers – Transportation Division, and the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, which collectively represent approximately 60,000 employees.
Biden said the new deals would improve pay and working conditions for the workers and offer them, “peace of mind around their health care costs.”
Biden continued, “I thank the unions and rail companies for negotiating in good faith and reaching a tentative agreement that will keep our critical rail system working and avoid disruption of our economy.”
The new contracts will give workers a 24% salary increase from 2020 through 2024, including immediate payouts of $11,000 on average, upon the contract’s signing. Ratification of the deals may take at least one week.
A union spokesperson noted the deal will also allow them to revisit attendance policies in the future. Workers will also get an extra paid day off.
Norfolk Southern railroad said in a message to customers, “Our goal from the beginning has been to provide our craft railroaders with pay and benefits that keep them among the highest compensated workers in the nation. We are pleased to have a path forward that accomplishes that goal and lets us get back to the work of running a customer-centric, operations-driven railroad.”
