LABOR: Casey Jones Walks Out

LABOR: Casey Jones Walks Out

In the age of the space shuttle, American industry still lives by the stodgier, workaday technology of the railroad. The proof: less than 24 hours after 235,000 railworkers went on strike last week against the nation's major freight rail companies, Congress, at the urging of President Bush, ordered the strikers back to work. Bush defended the action, saying that "the strike would cripple the economy and adversely affect national security." Some half million workers in the automobile and other rail-dependent industries faced layoffs within days of the aborted job action.

The railroad industry and 11 unions have been bargaining for years...

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