President Joe Biden signed聽legislation Friday to prevent a strike聽that he warned would cripple the economy and put millions of Americans out of work heading into the holidays.

“We’ve spared the country that catastrophe,” Biden said during a signing ceremony at the White House. “I know this was a tough vote for members of both parties. It was tough for me. But it was the right thing to do at the moment.”

At Biden鈥檚 urging, Congress voted last week to intervene in a labor dispute between rail unions and operators of the nation鈥檚 freight railways. Lawmakers voted to adopt a tentative agreement that the White House brokered in September between union leaders and rail operators.

Four of the 12 unions representing rail workers rejected the deal, setting the stage for a work stoppage that would have begun Dec. 9. The unions wanted more than the one day of paid sick leave provided in the agreement.

Some union leaders slammed the government鈥檚 decision to intervene, charging that many elected officials had turned their back on workers.

鈥淲hile we are disappointed, we are not defeated,鈥� Greg Regan and Shari Semelsberger of the AFL-CIO said in a joint statement. 鈥淲e are going to keep this fight moving forward, whether it be through legislation, executive action, or dragging the railroads back to the bargaining table.鈥�

Biden, promising he would pursue expanded sick leave for all American workers, said 鈥渢hat fight isn鈥檛 over. 鈥� I鈥檓 going to continue that fight until we succeed.鈥�

Lawmakers’ decision to adopt the agreement marked the first time in 30 years that Congress has intervened to stop a strike.

The agreement that Biden signed into law includes a 24% pay increase over five years, $5,000 bonuses, voluntary assigned days off, but only one paid sick day.

Biden, a supporter of labor unions, had warned that a rail strike would cost the economy about $2 billion each day and claim 765,000 jobs within the first two weeks of a strike.

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A two-week strike that dockworkers at the U.K.鈥檚 Liverpool port launched Tuesday is the latest in a series of walkouts to hit the country鈥檚 transportation networks, and follows an agreement in the U.S. last week that averted  hours before it was set to begin.

The conflicts count a range of workers that handle freight around the world, from truck drivers in South Korea to package sorters at  distribution centers in New York, who are newly emboldened to press for higher pay and better working conditions after more than two years of stressed business during the pandemic.

 workers are 鈥渢ired of being called essential and treated as expendable,鈥� said Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, the largest federation of labor unions in the U.S. 鈥淚 do think this is emblematic of what we have seen and what we are going to continue to see.鈥�

Some of the labor battles, including the strikes at Liverpool and at the Port of Felixstowe in the U.K., have shut down freight transport operations for a time. Others, such as the near-strike against U.S. railroads and ongoing , have triggered contingency planning by businesses bracing for broader impact.

High inflation is adding to the pressure for higher wages. Workers at Liverpool鈥檚 port rejected a contract offer that included an 8.3% annual pay increase, and the Unite union said that fell short of increases in consumer prices.

In South Korea, truck drivers  in June when they stopped working for a week in a dispute over pay and the drivers鈥� demand for subsidies to cover rising fuel costs.

Companies say the conflicts have made  and exacerbated strains caused by supply-chain shocks such as the recent Covid-19 shutdowns in China and the war in Ukraine.

鈥淚t doesn鈥檛 take a lot of disruption to cause massive effects on supply chains and incur additional costs for importers and exporters worldwide,鈥� said Morten Landry, managing director for air and sea in the U.K. and Ireland for Danish freight forwarder  A/S.

DSV in recent months has navigated strikes at Felixstowe, Britain鈥檚 busiest container port, and at Hamburg in Germany. Mr. Landry said the company tries to rapidly shift cargo to alternative ports when a gateway closes, a change that triggers a scramble for trucks, drivers and freight-handling equipment at those ports and which has led to delays and higher costs.

Dockworkers at Felixstowe walked off the job for eight days in August and plan a second eight-day strike starting Sept. 27 in a push for higher wage increases. A series of strikes at North Sea ports in Germany, including Hamburg, one of Europe鈥檚 busiest container ports, disrupted operations for months before a contract agreement was reached in late August.

The U.S., strikes have become more common this year, according to labor experts, as workers from teachers to nursing-home staff聽聽over pay and quality-of-life demands.

Truck drivers effectively shut down the West Coast鈥檚 third-busiest port at Oakland, Calif., for one week in July as they picketed outside of terminals to  that they said makes it harder for them to operate as independent contractors.

Workers at an Amazon.com Inc. warehouse in New York City in April voted to form the e-commerce giant鈥檚 , and staffers at an Amazon site in upstate New York are scheduled to . Amazon workers in the U.K. have held walkouts as they push for an increase in their hourly wage.

The Biden administration narrowly avoided a systemwide freight rail shutdown last week after brokering a last-minute deal between railroads and unions. That tentative contract agreement between two holdout unions must still be ratified by rank-and-file members, while one of several unions that negotiated separate agreements with the railroads will try again for a deal after its membership rejected the contract terms.

At U.S. ports, retailers and manufacturers are diverting tens of thousands of containers from the West Coast to East Coast gateways because of concerns that contract talks between dockworkers and employers from Washington state to Southern California could spark disruptions.

鈥淚t has been a really unprecedented year,鈥� said Harry Chase, senior director for central materials at GE Appliances, a subsidiary of Chinese home appliances and electronics company Haier Group Corp. 鈥淭his has been the first time that we鈥檝e seen a combination all across the world of different labor unrest.鈥�

Mr. Chase said some GE Appliances shipments have been delayed at ports in Belgium, France and Italy that were overwhelmed by cargo diverted from striking German ports.

鈥淚t really caused us to be flexible and move different containers to different ports that we normally wouldn鈥檛 flow out of,鈥� Mr. Chase said.

Joe Trusner, executive sales director at Total Quality Logistics LLC, said some of the Cincinnati-based freight broker鈥檚 customers are holding more inventory as safety stock in case of labor disruptions.

The labor concerns have grown as some of the broader pandemic-driven upheaval in supply chains, including factory closures and vessel backlogs at ports, have eased.

Now, the potential for walkouts and business shutdowns adds new uncertainty, said Tim Kraft, an associate professor of operations and supply-chain management at North Carolina State University鈥檚 Poole College of Management.

鈥淚t鈥檚 left a lot of companies still in that scramble mode that they鈥檝e been living in the past few years in the pandemic,鈥� Dr. Kraft said. 鈥淭he good thing is a lot of companies have gotten really good at scrambling.鈥�

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