US House to vote on measure to avert rail strike

The US House of Representatives is set to vote tomorrow on legislation that would override union objections to a proposed rail worker contract, a move meant to avoid a nationwide strike that threatens widespread economic disruption.

Absent congressional action a rail strike could be initiated as soon as 9 December, after one of several rail workers unions last week rejected a labor agreement brokered by the White House. That leaves the contract unratified by four of the 12 major unions that collectively represent over 100,000 US rail workers.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) said the House will vote on 30 November on a version of a rail labor agreement brokered by the White House in September, which includes a 24pc pay raise over five years and some increased health care benefits. Pelosi acted after President Joe Biden called on Congress to pass legislation imposing a contract on railroads and labor unions, warning that "a rail shutdown would devastate our economy."

"I don't like going against the ability of unions to strike," Pelosi said today outside the White House after emerging from a meeting with Biden, Senate leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) and other congressional leaders. "But weighing the equities, we must avoid a strike."

Schumer said he would work with Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) to bring a House-approved measure to a Senate vote as quickly as possible.

Congress has acted to avert rail strikes 16 times in the past, most recently in 1992, under the authority of the Railway Labor Act, which gives lawmakers broad authority to intervene in rail labor disputes. The last national rail labor strike was in 1991 and lasted less than 24 hours before then-president George Bush signed congressional legislation to end it.

Lobbying groups warned that rail strikes could cause severe disruptions across virtually every segment of the US supply chain, ranging from gasoline to fertilizers to retail goods. Schumer warned that a strike could interrupt railed shipments of chlorine, which are essential for water treatment plants.

A rail strike could also crimp deliveries of ethanol, which is required to be blended with US gasoline supplies to meet federal air quality mandates. Because of corrosive properties that make it unsuitable for pipeline transport, about 95pc of US ethanol supply moves by rail, according to the American Petroleum Institute (API).

Even a one-day rail stoppage could lead to "disastrous shortages in the gasoline market" and boost fuel pump prices ahead of the US holiday season, API chief executive Mike Sommers warned.

US fertilizer producers said that a rail strike would be "catastrophic for global food security," with about half of US fertilizer supply moving by rail.

Fertilizer manufacturers would have to begin curtailing their rail shipments about five days ahead of the start of an official strike because of the hazardous nature of cargoes like ammonia, said Corey Rosenbusch, chief executive of The Fertilizer Institute (TFI).

"There is zero elasticity right now in transportation," with a chronic truck driver shortage and historically low water levels on the Mississippi River, which have drastically reduced barge movements and shifted many movements onto rail, Rosenbusch said. "We are already in a very volatile supply chain situation," he said. "It is not as if contingency planning can just quickly pivot and shift that volume."

By Chris Baltimore