Citing the recent tariff trade war with China, an iron ore mine in Utah closed so suddenly that workers found out on Facebook that they no longer had jobs. The mine had supplied Chinese steelmakers with iron ore. The indefinite closure of Iron Ore LLC’s mine in Cedar City, Utah, immediately put nearly 200 miners out of work and will have a ripple effect on members of the BLET.
The closure negatively impacts BLET members at the Union Pacific Railroad and the Pacific Harbor Line (PHL), according to Trains.com. UP engineers operated iron ore unit trains out of the mine, while PHL engineers handled the switching operations once the trains arrived at the Port of Long Beach in California.
There are multiple crew change points along UP’s route from Utah to California, and the mine closure will result in less work for those crews. Once at the Port of Long Beach, PHL will not call the usual number of extra board employees to handle these trains. The likely result will be eventual cuts to the PHL extra board as less rail traffic comes into the yard. PHL handled an average of eight UP iron ore unit trains per month (154 cars each).
Given the number of intermodal trains and bulk commodities (such as iron ore, lumber, soda ash, potash, coal, grain, etc.) that are part of the global import/export network, there is a growing concern that trade and tariff wars will negatively affect rail shipping and will lead to a reduction of train crew jobs. The World Trade Organization published updated global trade projections for 2025 last week and warned of a “substantial downgrade” to the forecast for merchandise trade.