.png){kind=icon}
Administrator- Joined
- May 11, 2013
- Posts
- 24,890
- Reaction score
- 13,614
- Points
- 2,755
- Location
- Morganton, N.C.
- Website
- conversations-ii.freeforums.net
(The Guardian) Biden: rail deal 'avoids economic catastrophe'
Joe Biden says the US has dodged an “economic catastrophe” after Congress approved legislation averting a nationwide rail shutdown on 9 December.
The president was speaking at the White House before signing legislation that was approved in the Senate on Thursday and which imposes a labor settlement on rail workers who were poised to strike in a dispute over pay and conditions.
He acknowledged criticism that the deal did not include paid sick leave that the rail unions had insisted on, but said he would work on that: We still have more work to do in terms of ultimately getting paid sick leave, not just for rail workers but for every worker in America. That’s a goal I had at the beginning and I’m coming back at it.
The bill I’m about to sign ends a difficult rail dispute and helps our nation avoid what without a doubt would have been an economic catastrophe at a very bad time in the calendar.
Our nation’s rail system is literally the backbone of our supply chain. So much of what we rely on is delivered on a rail, from clean water, to food, and gas and every other good. A rail shutdown would devastate our economy. Without freight rail many of the US industries would literally shut down. I want to thank Congress, Democrats and Republicans for acting so quickly. I know this was a tough vote for members of both parties, it was tough for me. But it was the right thing to do at the moment, to save jobs, to protect millions of working families from harm and disruption, and to keep the supply chain stable around the holidays.
Biden said 765,000 workers would have been put out of work by the shutdown.
The president also hailed a just-released jobs report showing the US added 263,000 jobs in November, while the unemployment rate remained at 3.7%: We’ve now created 10.5m jobs since I took office, more than any administration in history at this point in the presidency. And 750,000 of them are domestic manufacturing jobs made in America. Americans are working, the economy is growing, wages are rising faster than inflation, and we avoided a catastrophic rail strike.
.png){kind=icon}
