U.S. railways to halt grain shipments ahead of potential shutdown

reuters.com

7 points·0xChain··4 comments

A lot of people are going to be very hungry, between the roughly 50% reduction in food produced this year vs last and the huge amounts that will spoil when it gets left in warehouses unable to get transported.

If the supply chain and consumers must suffer to improve railroad worker working conditions (improved quality of life around availability and attendance is the ask), that seems like a reasonable course of action when all other options have been exhausted.

I recommend some light reading regarding the working conditions railroad workers currently face. The solution is simple: railroads simply need to stop abusing their workers while raking in record profits. Freight rail can afford it, there is no excuse except to maximize profits.

https://www.npr.org/2022/09/14/1122918098/railroads-freight-...

https://inthesetimes.com/article/railroad-job-conditions-nat...

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/07/15/rail-j15.html

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/sep/14/us-railroad...

https://www.newsweek.com/why-railroad-workers-like-me-are-pl...

>the roughly 50% reduction in food produced this year vs last

That seems like a huge piece of news that I have missed. Do you have a source so that I can read more about it? There was the worry about Ukrainian wheat not making it to parts of Africa this year, but even that I thought was less of a concern with a deal struck between Russia and Ukraine for grain exporting.

I found that quote buried in some news article about grain from Ukraine and it stuck with me. Let me see if I can find it (or a reference to a similar figure) again.

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