US President Joe Biden has ratified a Congressional act imposing a deal on striking rail workers and their employers.
The bill, which passed through the Senate on Thursday after earlier clearing the House of Representatives, is designed to head off the threat of strikes over the Christmas season — as the US struggles with rampant inflation and chronic supply chain problems.
"Our nation's rail system is literally the backbone of our supply chain," Biden before he signed the bill into law. "So much of what we rely on is delivered on rail. Without freight rail, many of our industries would literally shut down."
The relies on powers granted by the 1926 railway Labor Act to force the Association of American Railroads (AAR) and a dozen trade unions into an agreement to end the ongoing dispute.
Eight out of 12 unions in the dispute had already agreed to the terms of the deal, which include a 24 per cent pay increase over five years — way below the current year-on-year inflation rate of 8.5 per cent.
Another sticking point has been the AAR's refusal to guarantee paid sick leave for staff, although the deal protects their health insurance perks for another five years.
1 December 2022, 21:11 GMT
Biden has often expressed his love of travelling by train, claiming in 2021 that he had clocked up more than 1.5 million passenger miles on the Amtrak network over his decades in politics. That assertion was met with scepticism.