The United States Senate approved legislation on Thursday to avoid the suspension of railway operations, after President Joe Biden’s dire warning about the economic danger that a strike would imply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The House of Representatives approved the tentative rail deal on Wednesday. The measure will now be sent to the president’s desk for signing into law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The vote came after pressure mounted on lawmakers to act quickly. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Thursday that House members “can’t leave until we finish the job.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Without congressional action, a rail strike would have started on December 9 causing shortages, raising prices and halting production at factories. It could also have disrupted commuter rail services for up to 7 million riders a day and the transport of 6,300 wagons of food and agricultural products a day, among other items, according to a compilation of business groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A potential complication in the effort to pass the bill had been a push by progressives to add a provision related to paid sick leave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This Thursday, the Senate did not approve a paid sick leave measure that had passed in the House of Representatives and had the support of progressives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By a vote of 290 to 137, the House approved the tentative rail deal that will prevent a strike. The vote was largely bipartisan, with 79 Republicans joining Democrats in voting for the bill. Eight Democrats voted against the deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a separate vote, the House of Representatives also voted 221 to 207 to add the paid sick leave that progressives backed to the rail deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A freight train strike could cost the US economy $1 billion in its first week alone, according to a new analysis from the Anderson Economic Group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a result, Biden lobbied Congress to \u201cimmediately\u201d pass legislation to prevent a suspension of rail operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Calling himself a “proud pro-labor president,” Biden said in his Monday statement: “I am reluctant to quash ratification procedures and the views of those who voted against the deal. But in this case, where the economic impact of a suspension of operations would harm millions of workers and families, I believe that Congress should use its powers to adopt this agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The United States Senate approved legislation on Thursday to avoid the suspension of railway operations, after President Joe Biden’s dire warning about the economic danger that a strike would imply. The House of Representatives approved the tentative rail deal on Wednesday. The measure will now be sent to the president’s desk for signing into law. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5047,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[220],"tags":[1300,1308,1310,1309],"class_list":["post-5046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-news-today","tag-railroad-operations","tag-senate","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5046"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5046\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5048,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5046\/revisions\/5048"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}