MEL BUER, mel.buer.reports@
Based in Omaha, Nebraska, Buer is a contributor to The Real News Network and has been covering the potential railroad strike.
She said today: “A tentative agreement between the rail carriers and the rail unions was reached early Thursday morning, temporarily averting a national rail shutdown that would have begun at midnight. However, full details of the last-minute deal, facilitated by the Biden administration after key unions seemed poised to reject the recommendations of the Presidential Emergency Board, have not yet been made public. It will ultimately be up to the union membership to decide if the deal negotiated by their leadership is satisfactory: the tentative agreement is to be sent back to members for review, with a vote later this month. Initial responses from many individual workers suggest that while the proposed agreement may begin to address some of the draconian policies around sick days and scheduling that have been at the heart of the impasse, it may not go nearly far enough to ultimately win approval of all unions in the sector and avoid a strike or employer lockout. The fight isn’t over yet, despite the Biden administration’s victory lap.”
Along with TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez, Buer recently co-hosted a panel — “Is the U.S. headed for a national rail strike?” — with current and former railroad workers and members discussing the looming possibility of a massive national rail strike.
Alvarez just wrote the piece “Wall Street is holding the supply chain hostage to stop a railroad workers’ strike.”
Earlier this summer, Buer wrote the story “Corporate billionaires are wrecking the supply chain. Just look at the railroads.”