YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) – After a marathon bargaining session, which reportedly included a phone call by President Biden, a massive strike by the nation’s railroad workers has apparently been avoided.
A tentative agreement was announced early Thursday with close to 115,000 engineers and conductors. It averts a threatened strike against freight carriers that could have crippled the nation’s supply chain.
Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown today was crediting the President’s involvement in getting the deal done.
“I’m not sure that any president before him from Trump to Obama, Bush, Clinton could have done what he did here. He has those skills and he has that trust and all that difference in the world to keep our economy going,” Brown said.
Terms of the agreement are said to include an immediate 14% pay increase for rank-and-file workers as well as improved health care benefits.
Without the deal, workers had threatened to strike starting tomorrow
