President Biden said Thursday that the White House was engaged in negotiations aimed at averting a looming national rail strike.
With a deadline for negotiations between America’s railroads and its labor unions set to end just after midnight December 9, a rail strike threatened to upend the holiday travel and shopping season and inflict billions of dollars in damage upon the economy.
Speaking from Nantucket, MA during a Thanksgiving visit, Biden declined to provide details on how the talks were going because it was “the middle of negotiations.”
More than 300 groups, including the National Retail Federation and the National Association of Manufacturers, urged Biden last month to get involved to help avoid a strike.
America’s railroads carry roughly one-third of the nation’s freight, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. And there’s no real alternative should the trains stop running.
Biden said on Thursday, “My team has been in touch with all the parties, and in (a) room with the parties and I have not directly engaged yet because they’re still talking.”
On Monday, several unions voted against a tentative contract deal that was reached in September with Biden’s intervention.
If both sides can’t come to an agreement, it’s expected Congress could intervene.
