announcing a tentative agreement to avert a nationwide freight rail strike. a shutdown that could have had catastrophic consequences for the economy. talks involving the unions, rail companies and labor secretary marty walsh went on for 20 hours. we re told that president biden, who calls himself the most pro-union president ever was instrumental in getting over the finish line. last night was a historic night for rail labor. we re proud of what was accomplished. we wanted to take a few seconds and thank secretary marty walsh, deputy secretary julie sue and definitely president joe biden, everybody pulling together to make sure we could get our members what they deserve. this is the quality of life issue that we have been trying to get to our members. so we re going to hit the ground running. we ll have more information here in the coming hours. some tired looking leaders emerging as the sun was arising there. jeremy diamond is at the white house. what do we know abou
one more detail, john, the president last night, he was involved throughout the day, getting updates from the labor secretary who was in the room with the labor officials and railway companies. but the president last night at 9:00 9:00 p.m. made a phone call and pushed them to realize the harm that could take place if the strike took place. we re told that was a critical phone call according to one source. a looming dark cloud lifted from over the economy. jeremy diamond at the white house, thanks for keeping us posted. with us is the ceo of national wholesale distributors eric hopland. thank you for being here. good morning. are you confident this will be passed when there s a vote? this is fantastic news for the economy. my phone has been ringing off the hook for the past 48 hours talking to leaders across the
our next guest warns that president biden s vaccine mandate could turn the crisis into catastrophe. here to explain the president, ceo national wholesaler distributors, eric hopland. thanks for joining the program. seems like early on i was going into stores, things were out of stock, they didn t want the customers to panic, we ll get the stuff in. but now it seems like the writing is on the wall. so i guess my question is. how bad is it? well, lawrence the supply chain is already stressed and the president s executive order is telling companies that do business with the government as a contractor that they have to fire employees who aren t vaccinated by december 8th. what that is going to mean that tens of thousands of people across the american economy are going to lose their jobs weeks before christmas. in our industry where we re at the center of the supply chain to keep things moving, the busiest time of year we re