Business Notes

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 over wages, work rules and health care. Tentative agreements were reached with only three unions just before the strike deadline. In January a bipartisan board created by the White House called for salary hikes accompanied by increases in the mileage that crews must travel for a day's pay and in worker contributions to health-plan costs. Most unions opposed the board's recommendations as promanagement. That may not matter. A new board is being set up with the power, so far uninvoked, to impose a settlement.