Will President Biden Allow a Railroad Strike?

With your Southeast Regional Ag News, I’m Haylie Shipp on the Ag Information Network.

President Biden says he wants rail unions and freight railroads to resolve their long-running contract dispute themselves, without saying publicly whether or not he’ll intervene or ask Congress to do so, barring an agreement. But Biden Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre would not say if Biden would step in or ask Congress to do so to stop a December walkout—only that Biden’s “directly involved” in talks…

“The president has said from the beginning, a shutdown is unacceptable because of the harm it would inflict on jobs, families, farms, businesses, and communities, just across the country.”

 

But Jean-Pierre would not get ahead of the president or others involved after four rail unions rejected either a tentative September agreement or a recent White House proposal.

 

But if Biden has the power to prevent a strike that would halt shipments of grain, produce, meat, and biofuels, Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley argues he should…

“He should exercise that, because he can do it instantaneously, and Congress may have several days of debate before we would get a bill passed.”

 

Grassley’s cosponsoring a bill to head off a rail strike that the industry says would cost the U.S. economy 2 billion dollars a day.