White House Statement on the Report of Presidential Emergency Board No. 217 To Investigate a Railroad Labor Dispute

January 11, 1989

Presidential Emergency Board No. 217 submitted on January 6, 1989, its report to the President concerning a dispute between the Port Authority Trans-Hudson Corp. and the Transportation Communications Union-Carmen Division.

The three-member Board was established on November 7, 1988, by Executive Order No. 12655. The Board was chaired by Professor Thomas G.S. Christensen, an arbitrator and professor of law at New York University School of Law. Dr. Thomas Francis Carey and Dr. Mark Leo Kahn were appointed as members of the Board. This dispute was investigated by a prior Presidential Emergency Board No. 214, which issued recommendations for settlement of the dispute. Presidential Emergency Board No. 217 was ordered to select the most reasonable final offer submitted by the parties.

After formal hearings and careful study of the final offers submitted by the parties, the Board selected PATH's final offer as the most reasonable. The primary features of PATH's final offer are a 5-percent increase in all rates in each year of a 3-year contract beginning in June 1985, improvements in medical and life insurance, and the addition of Martin Luther King's birthday as a holiday.