Relief for Biden as US rail strike averted after late-night

“It might not make sense for us to poke the bear.”

“We don’t want to see a dustup over anything.”

Those are two of the quotes from this Politico piece that captures the vibe among Democrats in Congress worried about their control of the House and Senate less than two months before the midterms. According to the piece, lawmakers are looking to avoid any disputes or crises in the weeks ahead and instead concentrate voters’ attention on the bills they’ve passed over the last two years. “Just brag about everything we’ve gotten done,” is how Rhode Island representative David Cicilline put it.

The vibes are similar at the White House, where Joe Biden has taken time out of his day to personally fete the deal his administration brokered to keep rail worker unions from striking. It’s a crisis that’s been averted, and he intends to remind voters of that.

Biden to speak on rail labor agreement after strike narrowly averted

Now that a strike has been averted, Amtrak announced that it is trying to reschedule the long-distance trains it cancelled yesterday in anticipation of a work stoppage:

Indiana has joined the ranks of states banning abortion, outlawing the procedure except in narrow circumstances with a law that went into effect today, Poppy Noor reports:

A sweeping abortion ban went into effect in Indiana on Thursday, containing only extremely narrow exceptions for medical emergencies, rape and incest and making it the latest state to largely outlaw the procedure in the US.

The ban is being challenged in court by the ACLU and several abortion care providers, with hearings set to start on 19 September.

Indiana lawmakers passed the legislation during a special legislative session in early August, with a six-week pause before it came into effect. Then, Indiana was the first in the nation to bring in a new law banning abortion after Roe fell. Before that, anti-abortion activists had relied on so-called “trigger laws”, written pre-Roe, to ban the procedure once the supreme court decision came down.

As part of the agreement to avert a potential strike, freight rail companies conceded to a more flexible attendance policy that will allow workers to call out for medical emergencies without being punished, The Washington Post reports.

It also includes a pay increase of 24 percent over the next two years, annual bonuses and changes in how health care costs are managed, the Post reports. Had the impasse not been resolved, a strike could have begun after midnight on Friday.

Democratic political leaders are cheering the agreement. Here’s House speaker Nancy Pelosi:

The report of a tentative agreement between railroads represented by labor unions and the National Carriers’ Conference Committee is good news for our nation’s economy, our security and the well-being of the American people. I commend President Biden for his personal involvement and insistence on resolution and especially Labor Secretary Marty Walsh for leading the negotiations.

Had a deal not been reached, Pelosi said Congress may have stepped in, she said:

Congress under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution has the authority and responsibility to ensure the uninterrupted operation of essential transportation services and has in the past enacted legislation for such purposes. Led by the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, the House prepared and had reviewed legislation, so that we would be ready to act, pursuant to Section 10 of the Railway Labor Act. Thankfully this action may not be necessary.

The deal must still be approved by the rail workers’ unions.

Here’s more from The Guardian’s Martin Pengelly on the narrowly averted rail strike:

A tentative agreement has been reached to avert a freight rail strike that could have disrupted commuter rail services across the US, Joe Biden said on Thursday.

A strike would also have dealt a major blow to Democrats two months before midterm elections in which they will try to keep control of the Senate and the House.

A rail shutdown could have hit food and fuel supplies – freezing almost 30% of US cargo shipments by weight, stoking inflation, costing the US economy as much as $2bn a day and affecting the energy, agriculture, manufacturing and retail sectors.

How disruptive would a freight rail strike be to the world’s largest economy? Here are a few numbers, from industry group the Association of America Railroads.

A work stoppage would have cost $2 billion per-day, and required 467,000 trucks to pick up the slack from idled railroads, which moved approximately 75,000 cars, containers and trailers daily. But the shipping industry doesn’t have that capacity – it’s struggling with shortages of manpower and trucks.

Amtrak’s announcement yesterday that it would cancel long-distance service in anticipation of the strike that could have started Friday was a taste of the consequences that could have come. More worrying would have been the economic ripple effects from tens of thousands of shipping containers being idled or delayed. Supply chain snarls such as these are one reason why consumer prices have risen so quickly in the United States since the start of 2021, and sent Biden’s approval rating steadily lower. And as data released earlier this week indicated, the inflation wave isn’t abating as quickly as many economists hoped.

All of this would have most likely been worsened by the narrowly averted rail strike.

Biden administration breathes sigh of relief as rail strike averted