WASHINGTON: The US Congress passed legislation on Thursday to avert a freight rail strike that could have been devastating for the economy, intervening to break an impasse between workers and management as the holiday season approaches.in the House of Representatives a day earlier, effectively forces hold-out unions to accept a deal on higher wages, to which a majority of unions already agreed.
A strike would have seen almost 7,000 freight trains come to a halt, costing more than US$2 billion a day, according to the American Association of Railroads. The Senate also failed to approve an amendment for a cooling-off period between workers and management."We're going to avoid the rail strike, keep the rails running, keep things moving," he added, at aBut Sean O'Brien, general president of the Teamsters union, said in a tweet that it was"horrific" there were not 60 senators willing to fight for rail workers' basic rights, referring to the outcome on the sick days measure.
The agreement includes a 24 per cent pay increase for workers. However, critics in organised labour had slammed a lack of guaranteed paid sick leave, an omission seen as evidence of"unchecked corporate greed", as one leading union put it. A freight freeze would also have impacted passenger service because some passenger trains run on tracks owned by freight companies.
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