OMAHA, Neb. (KMTV) — Trains are moving through Nebraska right now but they could stop in their tracks come Friday.
It's due to a possible strike because two large unions and the railroad companies, including Union Pacific and BNSF, haven't been able to come to an agreement.
Pat Pfeifer with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen puts it bluntly.
"Everybody that's a railroad employee feels like they've been treated like dirt for the last 4 to 5 years, do they have a chip on their shoulder? Are they pissed off at their railroad? Yeah," Pfeifer said.
The sticking point is over sick leave and changes in scheduling rules. Without an agreement by midnight Friday, freight could stop moving.
"7,000 daily freight trains crisscrossing the country. In a strike, theoretically, all of those would stop. There's no way trucking by itself can take up that slack," said Nebraska Trucking Association President & CEO Kent Grisham.
He says trucking and railroads are so closely tied to moving freight that what affects one affects the other.
Grisham estimates if those trains stop in the event of a strike, it would take 460,000 additional trucks hitting the highway to move the same amount of freight. That's virtually impossible given there's a critical equipment and truck driver shortage.
"That equals a supply chain already stretched, might just finally break," Grisham said.
Pfeifer admits a strike is a last resort, but the whole country will feel the ramifications.
"Whether it's food, whether it's ethanol for your gas pumps, we do that 24/7 365 nonstop. When the railroads claim if we go on strike, it will cost our country $2 billion a day, that should tell the importance of what we do," Pfeifer said.
A spokesperson from Union Pacific says they want to push for a "prompt resolution," providing historic wage increases and allowing railroads to restore service as soon as possible.
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