New York
CNN Business
—
In September, President Joe Biden, the most union friendly president in recent history, got personally involved in negotiations that reached a tentative labor deal that averted a strike at the nation’s major freight railroads. It was a deal he hailed as a “win for tens of thousands of rail workers.”
But many of those workers didn’t see it that way.
And as a result, rank-and-file members of four of the 12 unions have voted no on the ratification votes, starting the clock ticking to a potentially catastrophic industry-wide strike that could start at Dec. 9 at 12:01 am ET.
While the rejected contracts would have granted workers their biggest wage increases in 50 years – immediate 14% raises with back pay and 24% raises over the course of five years, plus $1,000 cash bonuses every year – wages and economics were never the big problems in these…
