Biden calls deal to avert strike ‘a win for tens of thousands of rail workers’ – The Washington Post

A last-minute resolution made the gambit unnecessary, but the idea reflected Biden’s deep personal involvement in one of the most dramatic confrontations between labor and capital in recent American history. The pro-union president, eager to avoid a massive economic disruption weeks before the midterms, urgently made phone calls and got updates late into Wednesday night.

Four decades after President Ronald Reagan fired thousands of striking air traffic controllers, Biden took a markedly different tack, often defending the workers’ demands in private discussions. And after a deal was struck in the predawn hours Thursday, he tried to turn the potential disaster into a political victory, welcoming the negotiating parties into the Oval Office to celebrate the agreement and regale them with stories of his journeys on Amtrak.

In typical Biden fashion, he publicly framed the deal — which still must be ratified by the union’s members — as a win for everyone, including the railroad companies. “They’re really the backbone of the economy,” Biden said. “I have a visual image of rails being the backbone — I mean, literally the backbone — of the economy.”

As the two sides stalemated in recent days, especially over sick days, the president grew animated in private about the lack of scheduling flexibility for workers, expressing confusion and anger that management was refusing to budge on that point, according to two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share details of private conversations.