From Daily Kos, July 15:
Via Hotline #1,269 from the Rail Passengers Association:
Like Passengers, Rail Labor Has Had Enough
By Jim Mathews / President & CEO
This afternoon, President Biden temporarily stopped the clock on a looming rail labor strike that could further snarl a national rail network that’s been slowing to a crawl for months, frustrating not only ever-more-delayed Amtrak passengers but angry grain and consumer goods shippers as well.
Biden signed an executive order creating a Presidential Emergency Board, or PEB, effective at 12:01 am on Monday, forcing a 60-day pause to permit a “neutral” panel of three to spend 30 days coming up with a potential solution to the impasse between labor and the railroads. After the PEB makes its recommendations, all sides have another 30 days to work out a deal or accept the PEB’s solutions.
If the White House had failed to act, labor would have been legally free to go on strike – and management would have been able to stage lockouts – by Monday. This week, both the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET, a unit of the Teamsters) and the SMART-Transportation Division overwhelmingly approved a strike vote. Now, that doesn’t mean a strike was guaranteed to happen on Monday, but it does mean that the memberships of the unions have signaled their backing for a walkout. Appointing a PEB stops that process, at least temporarily.
There’s more at the link from the RPA.
See A major strike may be coming and I promise you no one is ready for it if it does — UPDATED which covers the situation in depth and provides historic context. Biden’s action was anticipated by one of the people who commented on that story, Grumpy Old Railroader. He predicted this would happen and suggests where it might go:....
....MUCH MORE
Previously (June 28):
"Is the Perfect Storm Brewing for Railroad and Port Logistic Failures?"
