PHOENIX (3TV/CBS 5) — A tentative agreement has been reached between the US rail freight companies and two out of three unions. A strike was due to start on Friday if no deal is reached, but it has now been postponed to the end of the month.
Trains carry everything from medical equipment to produce. Julia Macaluso and her husband Nick own GR8FR8 Logistics in Gilbert. They say that the imminent strike by the national rail freight company could cause massive problems. “You’re going to see bottlenecks in stores and price increases, and that’s going to have an impact that’s going to hit us almost immediately,” Julia Macaluso said.
Inflation and supply chain issues are not new issues, but the looming strike will only make things worse. “Since the train is not running, we need more trucks to get this freight. And you can imagine there’s already a shortage,” she said.
Her husband Nick agrees, saying we’re already 80,000 riders short of where we should be. “You pay more for trucks to pick things up and pay more to get them off the yard and go,” he said.
Hitendra Chaturvedi is Professor of Supply Chain Management at Arizona State University. “Arizona’s economy, agriculture plays a very, very important role. And the railroad plays a very important role in supporting agriculture,” he said.
Chaturvedi urges rail freight companies and unions to reach agreement. “We are heavily dependent on agricultural products and railroads are the main transporter of animal feed and poultry feed. This is harvest time and railroads transport many products, in fact a third of our exports are transported to ports by rail.”
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