WASHINGTON — It’s not every day that conservative stalwart Sen. Ted Cruz — breaking with fellow Texas Republican John Cornyn — votes with democratic socialist Bernie Sanders to support union worker demands. But that’s what happened as Congress intervened to prevent a railroad strike that threatened to paralyze the nation’s economy.
Several major rail workers unions have been in a stalemate for months with freight rail companies over worker contracts, threatening to shut down the nation’s railways just days before the holiday season. While eight unions accepted a tentative agreement, four others did not, setting a fuse for a national strike.
The prospect of a supply chain shutdown caught the attention of Congress and the Biden administration, which tried to negotiate a resolution before ultimately pushing for all the unions to accept the tentative agreement earlier this week.
