U,S, container ports just like the Port of Savannah could be laborious hit by any rail strike
After an all-night bargaining session within the Washington, D.C., workplaces of Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, a freight railroad strike that might have had a devastating impression on U.S. container ports and finally world container routes has been averted — at the least for now.
The Association of American Railroads (AAR) stated at this time that tentative agreements have been reached with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen Division of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers – Transportation Division, and the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen. Collectively representing roughly 60,000 workers, the tentative agreements reached with these unions avert a possible rail strike upfront of Friday’s deadline.
All tentative agreements are topic to ratification by the unions’ membership, famous AAR.
In a White House assertion, President Joe Biden hailed the tentative settlement as “an important win for our economy and the American people.”
“It is a win for tens of thousands of rail workers who worked tirelessly through the pandemic to ensure that America’s families and communities got deliveries of what have kept us going during these difficult years,” added President Biden. “These rail workers will get better pay, improved working conditions, and peace of mind around their health care costs: all hard-earned. The agreement is also a victory for railway companies who will be able to retain and recruit more workers for an industry that will continue to be part of the backbone of the American economy for decades to come.”
All that stated, the settlement is tentative and topic to ratification, so a rail strike may but occur.
A report in our sister publication Railway Age cautions:
“Significantly, the threat of a work stoppage is not over, as tentative agreements face ratification votes by rail union members whose mood over the past 33 months of collective bargaining between their leaders and the NCCC [National Carriers Conference Committee that represents most U.S. Class I railroads and many smaller ones] has been super sour.”
Read the Railway Age report HERE
