By JOSH FUNK
AP Business Writer
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Major freight railroads, in a bid to apply pressure on unions and Congress, say a strike that could come after a key deadline passes next week would cost the economy more than $2 billion a day and disrupt deliveries of all kinds of goods and passenger traffic nationwide.
The Association of American Railroads trade group issued a report estimating the dire consequences of a strike Thursday, one day after U.S. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh took part in talks to try and help hammer out an agreement. A strike or lockout won’t be allowed until next Friday at the soonest under the federal law that governs railroad negotiations.
Five of the 12 unions involved that together represent some 115,000 workers have announced tentative agreements covering over 21,000 workers based on a set of recommendations that a special panel appointed by President Joe Biden made last month, but several key unions are holding out in the hope that the railroads will agree to go beyond those recommendations and address some of their concerns about working conditions.
The Presidential Emergency Board recommended a five-year deal, retroactive to 2020, that includes 24% raises and $5,000 in bonuses. But it wants unions to take their concerns about attendance policies, paid leave and expenses to arbitration or to negotiate separately with the railroads. Unions say their workloads have become unbearable after railroads eliminated nearly one-third of their workforces over the past six years.
The railroad trade group said a strike would idle some 7,000 freight trains a day run by CSX, Union Pacific, BNSF, Norfolk Southern, Kansas City Southern and other railroads and disrupt passenger operations nationwide because Amtrak and half of all commuter rail systems rely at least partly on tracks owned by the freight railroads.
A Labor Department spokesman confirmed that Walsh took part in the talks Wednesday. If this contract dispute does fall to Congress to resolve, lawmakers might be forced to make some difficult decisions in an election year.
Even if a strike were to happen, railroad analyst Anthony Hatch predicted it would “last not weeks, not days, not hours but minutes” because Congress would intervene.
The heads of the two biggest rail unions — the Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers — Transportation Division union that represents conductors and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen union that represents engineers — said in a joint statement last week that Congress should remain on the sidelines because that would put more pressure on the railroads and help them reach an agreement workers will approve.