Vox Sentences - Deal puts rail workers back on track

The US averts a railroad strike; Russia’s Putin and China’s Xi meet face to face.

Tonight's Sentences was written by Jariel Arvin.

For the final episode of 40 Acres, a Vox Conversations mini-series, Vox race and policy reporter Fabiola Cineas investigates the promise and peril of local reparations through interviews with an Indigenous philanthropist and reparations activist.  Read more here ».

What’s in the new rail workers' deal?

Stefani Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images

• Thursday, unions and rail companies reached a tentative deal to avert a freight railroad strike that could have broken already stressed supply chains and led to higher prices for many goods. [New York Times / Jim Tankersley]
• The deal, reached after 20 hours of federally mediated negotiations with unions representing more than 50,000 workers, includes a 24 percent raise over five years, and back pay averaging $11,000 per worker if ratified. [CNN / Chris Isidore, Vanessa Yurkevich, and Jeremy Diamond]
• Rail workers also won the right to take unpaid time off for medical appointments and emergencies without fear of retribution from management. [Associated Press / Josh Funk, Josh Boak, and Zeke Miller]
• Avoiding the strike is a crucial win for Democrats and President Joe Biden, who are pro-union but vulnerable to the economic fallout from a strike ahead of the upcoming midterms. [Bloomberg / Ryan Beene, Rebecca Rainey, and Josh Wingrove]
• Amtrak will return to regular service Friday after suspending long-distance trips in anticipation of a strike. [Washington Post / Luz Lazo, Ian Duncan, and Natalie B. Compton]
• Union membership must still ratify the agreement. If the vote fails, workers and management have agreed to enter a “cooling off” period before any strikes. [BBC / Sam Cabral]

📍 If you read just one story

Vox’s Emily Stewart and Li Zhou take a deep dive into what’s at stake in the railroad labor fight. [Vox / Emily Stewart and Li Zhou]

Putin meets Xi Jinping

• Russian President Vladimir Putin met Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Uzbekistan on Thursday for their first face-to-face talks since the invasion of Ukraine. [CNN / Nectar Gan]
• Putin thanked China for its “balanced” position on Ukraine while acknowledging Beijing had some “questions and concerns” about the crisis. [AP]
• The last time the two leaders met, they agreed to forge deeper ties against the West. China has not condemned Russia’s invasion, and the Kremlin backs China in its dispute with Taiwan. [Reuters / Mukhammadsharif Mamatkulov]
• The meeting comes as Russia suffers significant battlefield losses in Ukraine and as China faces an economic slowdown due to disruptions from its zero-Covid policies. [NBC News / Jennifer Jett]

Indiana’s near-total abortion ban took effect Thursday with narrow exceptions for rape or incest. [Guardian / Poppy Noor]

• The Senate postponed voting on same-sex marriage protections until after the election, when the proposal could gain the GOP support it needs to pass. [The Hill / Alexander Bolton]
• 20-time Grand Slam champion Roger Federer announced his retirement from tennis Thursday. [NYT / Christopher Clarey]
• Donald Trump warned of “big problems” if he’s indicted over seized documents from his Mar-a-Lago estate. [Washington Post / Azi Paybarah]

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“We would definitely start to see a lot of key parts of our consumer society really break down, which is a little apocalyptic to say.”

[Rachel Premack, editorial director at FreightWaves, on the rail strike / Vox]

40 Acres: Reaching reconciliation

Are small-scale reparations helpful? Or do they detract from calls for federal reparations? To find out, Fabiola Cineas spoke with philanthropist Edgar Villanueva about local reparatory justice efforts, and with activist Kavon Ward about returning land seized from Black Californians to their descendants. 

40 Acres was made possible by a grant from the Canopy Collective and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. To provide feedback, please take our survey here.

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