Washington Correspondent
The threat of a crippling US freight rail strike has narrowly been lifted.
The intervention of the White House facilitated the conclusion of a last-minute agreement between the major private freight companies by rail and a dozen unions representing their 115,000 employees.
Negotiations had been dragging on for two years.
A strike call on Friday, in the event of a stalemate, promised to seriously disrupt the daily delivery, by 7,000 trains, of around 30% (in terms of weight) of the goods and foodstuffs that drive the American economy.
The unions knew they were in a position of strength.
The cost of such a strike has been estimated at $2 billion a day, or about 0.1% of GDP.
The malfunctions it would have caused would have aggravated inflation and penalized many factories throughout the United States in sectors as diverse as chemicals, food or…
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