Posted on 09/12/22
| News Source: Washington Post
White House officials are holding emergency meetings in a desperate scramble to avert a national railroad strike that is days away from shutting down much of the country’s transportation infrastructure, according to three people familiar with the matter.
Biden administration officials have started preparing for a potential shutdown and have warned that a strike could seriously damage the U.S. economy, while also warning it could hurt Democrats in the upcoming 2022 midterm elections, two of the people said. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh was part of meetings led by the White House National Economic Council last week, and President Biden is also personally tracking the matter, the two people said. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is also involved trying to broker the impasse.
The stalemate pits two of Biden’s top priorities against each other. The president has been an adamant defender of union workers but does not want a breakdown in the nation’s transportation infrastructure that would disrupt commuter and passenger services.
The administration has little time to act: The nationwide rail shutdown is set to go into effect on Friday, and labor and management have been at an impasse over difficult issues such as sick time and penalties for missing work.
The freight industry has warned that the first national rail strike in decades would shut down 30 percent of the country’s freight and “halt most passenger and commuter rail services.” The Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees, a division of the Teamsters, on Sunday announced a tentative agreement with national rail carriers, leaving only two of the 12 unions without a deal in place. But those are the two biggest rail unions in the country, representing 57,000 engineers and conductors.