Tie-ups ease up at nation’s largest inland port

The number of hours Jesus Ruelas works depends on the supply chain that stretches from China to Joliet.

Ruelas works at a Joliet warehouse that distributes parts to manufacturers. First, those parts have to get to the warehouse. When snags occur along the supply chain, shipments don’t come in.

“We have times when our hours are cut short because there’s not enough work,” he said.

Then the shipments arrive.

“I worked 55 hours one week because we had a bunch of trucks come in,” Ruelas said. “The next week I had my hours cut a little bit. The more trucks you get, the more hours pick up.”

His warehouse, like most in the area, depends on cargo containers moving through the two huge intermodal yards that make up what is regarded as the largest inland port in the nation: Union Pacific IV in Joliet and BNSF Railway Logistics Park Chicago in Elwood.

The inland port inside the CenterPoint Intermodal Center, which stretches into Joliet and Elwood, gets cargo by rail after it is unloaded from ships on the West Coast, where clogged ports have been a persistent problem most of the year.

Union Pacific and BNSF Railway both said cargo tie-ups were at their worst in the summer and have been clearing up since early fall. But problems persist, including labor shortages that have slowed down the rate at which warehouses and truckers pick up containers once they are taken off the trains at the intermodal yards.

With the COVID-19 pandemic persisting, no one is giving the all-clear signal just yet.

“There are just weird things happening right now,” Warehouse Workers for Justice Executive Director Roberto Clack said, mentioning a chassis shortage that has contributed to backups in cargo at the intermodal yards.

The commonplace chassis, upon which cargo containers are placed and before being moved by truck, are in short supply, a common problem at intermodal yards here and around the country.

So cargo containers stack up.

“I’ve seen containers put in places that I’ve never seen containers before,” Will County Center for Economic Development CEO John Greuling said, remarking on what he has noticed at the intermodal yards. “They’re looking for every nook and cranny to put those containers.”

A few months ago, Greuling got calls from local companies seeking help finding their shipments.

“They could’t find their container that’s come in from Singapore, and they’re wondering if I can help them out,” Greuling said.

He couldn’t.

“It just shows you that there’s some breakdown in the supply chain,” Greuling said.

Greuling thinks the worst is over and that things are getting back on track, literally. The movement of millions of containers by rail from the West Coast to the Midwest is returning to its regular pace, he said.

“People are saying this is going to continue all next year, but it’s just not happening,” Greuling said.

Clack is not so sure.

“I just wonder how long it’s going to last,” he said. “I wonder if there are going to be disruptions for months if not for the next year.”

Clack said warehouses remain vulnerable to COVID-19 breakouts because of the proximity of workers and the type of work they do, a situation discussed at a recent Warehouse Workers for Justice event.

“Some Amazon workers said they were seeing three of four new cases [of COVID-19] a week in the warehouses,” Clack said.

According to the report from BNSF Railway and Union Pacific, conditions are definitely better than they were in the summer months when the supply chain issues traced to the West Coast ports were at a peak. A return to more normal rates of production in China in early 2021 brought a flood of goods to the West Coast that the supply chain wasn’t equipped to handle.

The problem still persists in some ways.

Just as Ruelas’ warehouse depends on ships and trains bringing cargo to the local intermodal yards, Union Pacific and BNSF need warehouses and truckers to pick up containers. Labor shortages have affected the rate at which containers are picked up, leading to more containers being stacked at the intermodal yards.

The rate at which the containers move has an impact beyond the warehouse.

The unusual sight of sparsely stocked stores during the holiday shopping season is a reflection of the lingering tie-ups in the supply chain.

But it could have been worse considering how things were months ago.

“International supply chains began to experience significant challenges earlier this year under the weight of economic growth that came during the early stages of the COVID-19 recovery,” Union Pacific spokeswoman Robynn Tysver said. “Container processing at port terminals in Southern California increased and Union Pacific’s rail shipments to and from the ports increased as well to near record highs.”

Things have gotten better.

“Overall, Union Pacific is seeing improvement in the fluidity of the supply chain, and the number of ships awaiting berth in Southern California is trending downward,” Tysver said. “Additionally, Union Pacific has railcar assets at the ready to support significantly more international container volume to inland points in the U.S.”

Union Pacific took a number of steps to improve the flow of containers into the Midwest, including reopening its Global III intermodal facility in Rochelle. Union Pacific continues to use Global III, a sign that things are not back to normal even if they are getting better.

BNSF spokeswoman Amy Casas said “in early fall we began to see improved traffic flows, reduced lot congestion and are now able to process inbound shipments quicker.”

Intermodal traffic has been improving since early fall, Casas said.

But Logistics Park Chicago in Elwood continues to use new areas for container stacking, a sign that operations there, too, have not returned to normal.

“It’s getting better,” Ruelas said of his own place along the supply chain, although he does not take the next day and the work hours it will bring for granted. “I won’t know until tomorrow, and it varies every week.”