If they accept the deal announced around 5 a.m. (09:00 Greek time), workers whose wages had been frozen will win double-digit raises and be allowed to seek certain types of medical care without fear of retribution, the leaders said of the unions. The deal includes an immediate wage increase of 14.1 percent, the railroads said. Biden, greeting federal negotiators before making remarks celebrating the deal, thanked businesses and workers and promised more labor-company deals in the future. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comSign up “I’m optimistic that we can do this in other areas,” the Democratic president said. Unions, whose members bitterly rejected previous proposals, will now vote on the deal. Even if those votes fail, a rail strike that could have happened as soon as one minute after midnight Friday has been avoided for several weeks because of standard language included in such an agreement, a person familiar with the negotiations said. Biden’s Labor Secretary Marty Walsh hosted contract talks in Washington that lasted 20 straight hours between unions representing 115,000 workers and railroads including Union Pacific ( UNP.N ), BNSF, CSX ( CSX.O ), Norfolk Southern (NSC.N) and Kansas City Southern. Officials are expected to hold a news briefing later Thursday. Failure to reach an agreement before the deadline would have opened the way for workers to legally strike. A rail shutdown could freeze nearly 30 percent of U.S. freight shipments by weight, spur inflation, cost the U.S. economy as much as $2 billion a day and unleash a cascade of transportation woes that affect the US energy, agriculture, manufacturing, healthcare and retail sectors. . Railroad shares posted early premarket gains after mixed financials, with Union Pacific up 2.2 percent in midday trading and CSX down 2.0 percent. read more U.S. natural gas futures fell about 9% after rising 10% in the previous session. Oil futures fell about 4% to a one-week low. Diesel and gasoline futures also fell. , read more Investors had expected a rail strike would have threatened coal supplies to power plants and boosted demand for rival energy sources. Amtrak, which operates the passenger rail, said it would resume normal operations Friday after canceling long-distance trains in anticipation of a strike. read more A Union Pacific rail car is parked at the Canadian Pacific Railway (CP Rail) Toronto Yard in Scarborough, Ontario, Canada March 20, 2022. REUTERS/Chris Helgren/File Photo read more The impact of a shutdown would have extended beyond US borders because the trains connect the United States to Canada and Mexico and provide vital connections to huge ships carrying goods from around the world. Negotiations between the companies and a dozen unions had dragged on for more than two years, prompting Biden to appoint an emergency council in July to help break the impasse. Biden personally called Walsh and negotiators Wednesday afternoon to push them toward a deal, telling them to “once again recognize the damage” a shutdown would do to families, farmers and businesses, according to a person familiar with the matter. the negotiations. National Retail Federation CEO Matthew Seay thanked the Biden administration for the intervention, adding in a statement that his team is “relieved and cautiously optimistic.” Emily Skor, chief executive of biofuels trading group Growth Energy, also praised the deal and noted that much of the country’s ethanol is transported by rail. Freight railroads had stopped transporting dangerous goods, including chlorine for water purification and ammonia for fertilizer, as well as shipments of refrigerated food and other goods using rail and at least one other mode of transportation. Their aim was to prevent cargo from being blocked in unsafe locations.
JOB CASES
The railroad industry has cut nearly 30 percent of its workforce over the past six years, cutting wages and other costs as it boosted profits, stock buybacks and dividends for investors. Profits at billionaire Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, ( BRKa.N ) which owns BNSF, rose 9.2 percent in the most recent quarter to $1.7 billion. The number of U.S. railroad workers has fallen from more than 600,000 in 1970 to about 150,000 in 2022, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, due to technology and cost reductions. The result is that many industry workers are on call at all hours, waiting to respond at short notice to work for days at a time. The latest deal follows some earlier recommendations by the president’s emergency negotiators. It includes a 24% salary increase over a five-year period from 2020 to 2024, as well as lump sum payments of $1,000 in each of the five years. Biden, who has billed himself as the most union-friendly president in history and attacked companies for “excessive” profits, praised a deal he said would give workers “better pay, better working conditions and peace of mind about with health care costs. .” The president is not out of the woods yet when it comes to supply chain labor issues. About 22,000 unionized workers at 29 West Coast ports that handle nearly 40 percent of U.S. imports are also in risky labor contract negotiations. Administration officials wanted the differences resolved before November’s midterm elections, which will determine whether Biden’s fellow Democrats retain control of Congress. Senior congressional leaders had threatened to pass legislation that would impose a resolution on railroads and unions if negotiations were unsuccessful. US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi praised the interim deal and said Congress was “ready to act” but that “fortunately this action may not be necessary.” Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comSign up Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt in Washington. Additional reporting by Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles, Steve Holland, David Shepardson and Susan Heavey in Washington, Stephanie Kelly in New York, Jahnavi Nidumolu, Aishwarya Nair, Bansari Mayur Kamdar and Kannaki Deka in Bengaluru. Edited by Heather Timmons and Catherine Evans Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
