A labor agreement reached Sunday between Amtrak and maintenance workers averted a possible national passenger rail strike that would have disrupted travel for hundreds of thousands.
The threat of a shutdown had hung for months over long-distance passengers nationally and daily commuters in a half-dozen major cities, just as the railroad has been fighting off bankruptcy.The settlement gives workers "a fair and deserved (wage) increase while preserving the financial integrity of the company," the Amtrak chairman, Tom Downs, said.
For the agreement to hold, congressional approval is required for an Amtrak rescue package already under consideration on Capitol Hill. That package has been stalled in Congress over provisions that would relax some labor protections.
Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater, who brought the parties together for days of talks that stretched overnight into Sunday, urged lawmakers to act quickly.
A prolonged shutdown would have forced Amtrak's 54,000 daily passengers to find other travel and could have led to the suspension of commuter rail services for more than 500,000 people in the Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, New York and Washington metropolitan areas.
The tentative three-year contract gives the 2,300 members of the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees a wage increase each year, but it will amount to less than the annual 3 percent raise proposed earlier by mediators.