News and Media

MSNBC Video. President of the Transportation Trades Department of the AFL-CIO Greg Regan joins to share how the rank-and-file rail workers are reacting to the bill signed by President Biden set to avert a nationwide rail strike, which doesn’t include paid sick time.

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Reported by Sarah Zimmerman for SupplyChainDive. President Joe Biden on Friday signed legislation imposing a labor agreement on rail workers, avoiding a national strike or lockout that was expected to cost the economy $2 billion a day. “A rail shutdown would have devastated our economy,” the president said at a bill signing event. “Without freight…

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Reported by Mark Gruenberg and John Wojcik for People’s World. Giving in to pressure from Democratic President Joe Biden and corporate rail bosses, the Senate overwhelmingly imposed a four-year contract on 115,000 unionized freight railroad workers—without the seven paid sick days they sought. The contract, which a Biden board crafted, came in legislation the president…

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Reported by Harold Meyerson for The American Prospect. So, what’s at the root of the conflict at the railroads? In their very successful effort to raise their profits and payouts to investors, the seven major freight railroads have all but eliminated their competition, downsized their workforces to reduce the share of revenues going to wages,…

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Reported by Josh Funk and Kevin Freking for AP News. Legislation to avert what could have been an economically ruinous freight rail strike won final approval in Congress on Thursday as lawmakers responded quickly to President Joe Biden’s call for federal intervention in a long-running labor dispute. The Senate passed a bill to bind rail…

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Reported by Trains. President Joe Biden today signed legislation averting a railroad strike that would have shut down the national freight network and snarled Amtrak and commuter service. “Our nation’s rail system is literally the backbone of our supply chain, as you all well know. And so much of what we rely on is delivered…

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Reported by Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Emily Cochrane for the New York Times. President Biden signed legislation on Friday to impose a labor agreement between rail companies and workers who had been locked in a bitter dispute, averting a strike that could have upended the economy just before the holiday season. “Without freight rail, many U.S.…

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Reported by Karl Evers-Hillstrom for The Hill. One of the largest railroad unions on Thursday urged senators not to extend the Dec. 9 deadline for rail workers to strike and instead force through a contract that would guarantee paid sick leave for workers. The plea from the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes Division (BMWED)…

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