Blog
Occupy Wall Street
By now occupy Wall Street should be no secret to anyone. The Occupy Wall Street movement quickly spread as a rebellion against what protesters saw as corporate greed, Wall Street’s contribution to the nation’s economic collapse and other financial evils of big business. It seems (at least in Seattle) that every social media site is swamped with Occupy posts, buildings have posters pasted on, I even went to a local concert and they had an occupy presentation before the show. I understand what they are trying to represent but from a transportation point of view they are disrupting operations on the west coast every chance they get. They have already shut down operations in Oakland and attempted to in Seattle. The nation is already frustrated with the economy and now protesters are making it difficult for truckers to do their job. I hope some resolution is worked out soon so operations can resume to normal again.
Rail Strike
Shippers and fleets can have a sign of relief! Two rail unions settled with carriers on a tentative agreement to avert the December 6th walkout. An agreement was made between the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, Trainmen and the American Train Dispatchers Association. This left just one union, the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees, who have not reached a contract agreement. BMWE will honor the tentative agreement in the meantime with no prospect of a strike until February 8, 2012. BMWE had proposed increasing compensation by about 70% to match the reimbursement allowed to federal government workers. The union offered the two month bargaining extension to work out the issue. A national railroad strike would have created a supply chain disaster during this holiday shipping season. A freight rail work stoppage would have cost the U.S. economy about $2 billion a day. These unions will revisit these issues early 2012.
Transportation Funding
Hurricane Irene
With Hurricane Irene quickly approaching the States, South Florida grower fear its winds will damage their crops even though Irene is still about 150 miles east of Miami. Irene is projected to hit land in North Carolina and travel up the coast on land to Virginia this weekend. News reports say 8 people are already injured in Florida with a possibility one might be dead. The estimated damage Irene could cost the East Coast is about $13.9 billion in insured losses and $20 billion in overall economic losses due to lost hours at work, power outages, interruption of shipping and airline traffic. But this hurricane is possibly going to be as strong as a category 2 when it reaches Long Island, NY. Reports say this will not be as bad as Hurricane Katrina but it is being compared to Hurricane Gloria. Check out http://www.fema.gov/ if you need any information on how to prepare for any natural disaster.
Be safe everyone!
Crazy Times??
This year has been one for the books. Fuel prices are up and then down and then up again this week they went up again and are averaging about $3.949 per gallon. The government is broke and looking for cuts to make that will definitely impact everyone eventually. The stock market is up and then its down then its down some more. And did we even have a summer this year? I know in Washington State we had summer for about 5 1/2 days. The weather across the US has been crazy and out of control. How does everyone deal with these such things? I'd love every one's feedback. How do these things effect your business? Your personal life?
Have a fantastic weekend where ever you are :)
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