The nation’s freight railroads have reached tentative agreements with the Transportation Communications Union/IAM; Brotherhood of Railway Carmen; International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers; the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; and the American Train Dispatchers Association.
A newly released Association of American Railroads (AAR) report found that a nationwide rail service interruption would dramatically impact economic output and could cost more than $2 billion per day of a shutdown. If negotiations remain unsettled with the remaining unions by Friday, September 16 at 12:01 AM, Congress must act to prevent a service interruption that would immediately harm every economic sector served by rail. Failure to act could idle more than 7,000 trains daily and trigger retail product shortages, widespread manufacturing shutdowns, job losses and disruptions to hundreds of thousands of passenger rail customers.
