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Statement by the President Upon Receiving Emergency Board Report on the Railway Labor Dispute.

May 14, 1963

I HAVE received the report and recommendations of Emergency Board No. 154, covering the dispute between the Nation's railroads and the brotherhoods representing the workers who man the trains.

This report and recommendations will now go to the parties for their consideration. I urge upon them the most serious consideration of the recommendations in this report. There is no time to be lost for completing their agreement in this critical dispute.

The Board's report notes that the Nation "faces the prospect of a critical nationwide railroad strike" unless this dispute is resolved within the next 30 days.

Uninterrupted operation of the Nation's railroads is imperative. The carriers and the unions involved here carry a broad responsibility, not only to the interests which they represent but to the country. The future of free collective bargaining may very well depend upon the reaching of an agreement here by negotiation as provided by the Railway Labor Act.

I hope it will be possible for all parties concerned to accept the recommendations of Emergency Board 154. If there are remaining differences surely they can be worked out by the exercise of the parties' responsibilities, consistent with the demands of this situation.

The Government stands ready to provide assistance if it is needed to help the parties reach a just and equitable settlement but the ultimate dependence must be upon their own efforts.

I express my own appreciation and that of the country to Judge Samuel I. Rosenman, the Board Chairman, and to his colleagues, Professor Nathan P. Feinsinger and Dr. Clark Kerr, for their valuable services in the preparation of this report. They have undertaken an important and difficult assignment, and they are to be highly congratulated for the manner in which it has been carried forward.

Note: The report to the President by Emergency Board No. 154 is dated May 13, 1963 (Government Printing Office, 12 pp.).

John F. Kennedy, Statement by the President Upon Receiving Emergency Board Report on the Railway Labor Dispute. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/236299

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