Biden Rail Deal Adds to His Political Gains -- Unless It Falters

Josh Wingrove, Nancy Cook and Ian Kullgren
·6 min read
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(Bloomberg) -- President Joe Biden’s allies are counting on political dividends from the agreement he brokered to avert a disastrous railroad strike, yet there’s still a risk the deal falters before November’s elections.

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Biden, who ran for office on a pledge to keep the nation’s proverbial trains running on time, managed to keep engineers and rail yard workers at their jobs -- at least for now. The tentative agreement reached Thursday between unions and railroad companies means a strike that would have wreaked havoc across the US economy won’t happen for weeks or months, if ever.

“If the strike had gone through and the supply chain had been interrupted, inflation would have spiraled even more than it is -- it would have been a disaster for the Democrats,” said Ed Rendell, a former Democratic governor of Pennsylvania. “That’s all been avoided by the settlement.”

Biden’s personal involvement in negotiations showed that a president who’s often called himself the biggest union advocate to occupy the White House can throw his weight around with both labor and employers. And the deal comes as Biden’s approval rating had already begun to rebound after a series of accomplishments, including major legislative victories, giving Democrats fresh hope for midterm elections they looked set to lose just months ago.

But any broader political gains pale in comparison to the damage Biden would have suffered from a work stoppage. And he’s not yet clear of the risk; rank-and-file union members -- who tend to be less supportive of the president than their leaders -- don’t yet know the terms of the agreement and it’s not certain to be adopted.

“I’m inclined to vote no, whether I read it before I vote or not,” said Matt Parker, a union locomotive engineer from Nevada.

Parker said many union members were incensed by a proposal from an emergency board Biden appointed that they considered disrespectful toward workers.

“That really inflamed a lot of people,” Parker said.

‘Good Deal’

If the agreement holds, it will fit neatly into a White House campaign message for voters that the president and his party have achieved tangible improvements to American families’ lives and have at least begun to combat inflation, the biggest political liability for Democrats.

“Part of this is ‘crisis averted,’ which is helpful for Democrats and the administration,” said Ben LaBolt, a Democratic strategist.

The deal also helps strengthen Biden’s ties with labor, which he regards as his political base. Union leaders hailed his role in the talks.

“The administration brought a full-court press to try to resolve this issue,” said Greg Regan, president of the AFL-CIO’s Transportation Trades department.

Biden has signaled that union members should accept the proposed contract, calling it a “good deal” for labor in an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” to be broadcast on Sunday.

The week began with a 12:00 a.m. Friday deadline before a possible work stoppage and the two sides far apart. As talks between the unions and railroads faltered on Tuesday, Biden’s team delivered an ultimatum, according to senior administration officials: make a deal by 5 p.m. or be in Washington the next morning.

Administration officials were concerned about broad fallout from a strike or worker lockout, including worst-case scenarios like municipal water systems running out of chlorine or fuel refineries shutting down because they’d be unable to dispose of waste products.

Negotiations hosted by Labor Secretary Marty Walsh began Wednesday and stretched about 20 hours, concluding early Thursday.

“It matters for the economy, it matters for almost every American whose life would have been disrupted and now it matters for a lot of people around the country whose lives will be made better,” Brian Deese, the director of Biden’s National Economic Council, said in an interview.

“I’ll leave the political implications to somebody else but the economic implications are, I think, really significant here,” he added.

Ratification Uncertainty

It isn’t clear when union locals will vote on the agreement. A new “cooling off” period will last at least several weeks after the ratification votes before a strike could again loom, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday. Local union leaders and worker advocates said Friday they hadn’t seen the text and were relying on news reports.

“Nothing has been sent to us from the railroads with the actual language,” said Josh Hartford, leader of the International Association of Machinists’ rail division. IAM District 19, which voted to authorize a strike Sept. 14, could benefit from Thursday’s deal when it renegotiates a contract with the railway companies.

Ron Kaminkow, the general secretary for Railroad Workers United, an advocacy group whose officers are members of railroad unions, said his organization plans to meet Friday evening to discuss the agreement “and how people feel about it objectively.”

“I don’t think ratification is in the bag,” Seth Harris, Biden’s former top labor adviser, said in an interview. “I won’t say it’s definitely going to fail, but leadership has some work to do.”

A person familiar with the administration’s plans said the focus is now on sharing details of the deal with union members so they have a full understanding before they vote. The administration must also deal with the consequences of actions railroads took to prepare for a possible strike earlier in the week, the person added. There will be daily inter-agency briefings to monitor activity. The aim is to have normal operations so that union members can decide on the tentative deal.

The administration is also planning a review of the events leading to this week’s dramatic negotiations in order to avoid ever getting so close to such a huge potential disruption of the economy, according to the person familiar with those plans.

Even if some unions’ members vote to reject the rail deal, it’s now very unlikely there would be any strike before the midterm elections, said former Communications Workers of America union president Larry Cohen. Biden’s role in securing a rail agreement, along with other recent achievements, will help union leaders mobilize their members to elect Democrats this fall, he predicted.

“Unions will be using all of that with members and it will lead to an uptick,” said Cohen, who chairs Our Revolution, the advocacy group founded by Senator Bernie Sanders.

For Biden, the week’s events meant averting a crisis with the potential to upend Americans’ lives and sow fresh doubts about his economic policies, less than two months before voters go to the polls.

“There’s no question that a bad thing didn’t happen,” Harris said. “And that’s a good thing if you’re the president and you have a lot of vulnerable seats.”

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