Rail strike

"The tentative agreement reached tonight is an important win for our economy and the American people," President Biden said.

[looming rail strike](https://www.axios.com/2022/09/14/railroad-unions-marty-walsh-rail-strike) was averted and a tentative deal struck between the freight rail operators and their unions. What's happening: The tentative agreement now goes back to the unions for a vote. [potential railroad workers' strike](https://www.axios.com/2022/09/12/possibility-of-railway-and-port-strikes-threaten-supply-chain-recovery). [looming freight rail strike](https://www.axios.com/2022/09/12/possibility-of-railway-and-port-strikes-threaten-supply-chain-recovery). - One sticking point had been working conditions. - Virtually every part of the economy needs functioning railways.

President Joe Biden said Thursday a tentative railway labor agreement has been reached, averting a potentially devastating strike before the pivotal midterm ...

"It means a way to attract and retain great workers," Buttigieg said. Under the tentative agreement, workers will be able to take time off for medical care without facing discipline, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen and the SMART Transportation Division confirmed in a joint statement. Yesterday, Amtrak announced that it was canceling all of its long-distance trains due to the threatened strike. Wednesday night to urge groups to "be flexible, be creative, get a deal done," an official said. Thursday, Labor Secretary Marty Walsh called to announce they had a deal. Union members still have to vote to ratify the agreement before it is finalized.

Unions and management reached a tentative deal early Thursday, averting a freight railroad strike that had threatened to cripple US supply chains and push ...

The agreement, which members of the nation's two largest freight rail unions must vote to approve, marks a victory for a resurgent labor movement that the ...

[CSX](https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2021/10/20/csx-corporation-csx-q3-2021-earnings-call-transcri/) achieved a record low operating ratio — a key industry measure that gauges the share of revenue eaten by expenses, like labor — for the third quarter. For example, he created a task force to protect employees’ rights and has worked to undo rollbacks of worker protections under the Trump administration. The panel recommended last month that workers be given raises amounting to a 24% increase over a five-year period ending in 2024, with a 14% raise backdated to 2020 to be made available immediately. (CNBC and NBC News are both part of NBCUniversal.) BLET and SMART-TD hailed the tentative deal in a joint statement Thursday. “This is a win for tens of thousands of rail workers and for their dignity and the dignity of their work,” Biden said. He also called the tentative pact a victory for railway operators, saying it would boost their ability to hire and retain workers, and hailed the carriers as vital “backbone” of the economy. If rank-and-file union members vote not to approve the plan, it won’t take effect and they could find themselves back in negotiations. “They’ve been through the pandemic and through all of the work they’ve done for us.” Hinrichs was not directly involved in the negotiations. Rail workers often are on-call 24/7 year-round and are allotted time off only after being called to a number of consecutive on-call shifts. But while rail operators had already agreed to those compensation changes before Wednesday's talks, a key sticking point remained: attendance policies that workers said made taking planned days off nearly impossible. There will also be exemptions from attendance policies for hospitalizations and surgical procedures, and workers will gain an additional paid personal day each year without fear of discipline.

Rail union leaders said they were starting to line up votes from their members on a tentative agreement with the nation's largest rail freight carriers to ...

“We applaud both sides for reaching a tentative agreement that averts this outcome and permits our supply chain to continue climbing out of this COVID-induced rut.” Already, preemptive impacts from the potential strike had begun to pile up. Major industry groups exhaled in relief Thursday after word of a deal arrived, while being mindful that it is not yet finalized. Negotiators had spent more than 20 hours at the Labor Department under the watchful gaze of Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, a former union president, arriving shortly after 9 a.m. Friday, but the tentative deal pushes off the deadline for several more weeks as union leaders work toward a vote. In a 9 p.m.

There will be no freight railroad strike early Friday. But the threat of a strike has not gone away entirely.

Those scheduling rules did not apply to more than 50,000 other union members at the railroads, and most of the other unions had reached tentative agreements before Wednesday night. A smaller railroad union has already voted to reject the tentative agreement – the unit of the Machinists union that has 5,000 members working as mechanics for locomotive and track equipment and facility maintenance personnel. It includes changes in work rules that forced more than 50,000 members of the two unions to be “on call,” and ready to report to work on short notice, as much as seven days a week. They finally returned to [work after five weeks](http://www.cnn.com/2021/11/17/business/john-deere-uaw-strike-vote/index.html) after a third vote on a similar package passed. The deals give all the unions an immediate 14% raise, and backpay dating back to 2020. “When the members look at what is in the contract, I think they’re going to see that the wages and extra day of paid leave is going to be beneficial to them. That rejected offer included immediate raises in their base pay of 5% to 6%, and additional wage increases later in the contract that could have increased average pay by about 20% over the six years. “I think we got everything we could,” Dennis Pierce, president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen told CNN. Rank and file union members working in other industries have recently balked at approving their deals, even when recommended by their unions’ leadership. The details of the ratification vote have yet to be set but it is likely weeks away. But the agreement still needs to be ratified by rank-and-file union members for it to go into effect. “We got a little bit of paid time off, but we’ll live to fight another day.