CSX Layoffs

Were you a trainee? or a conductor?
On the unemployement we would not get it, I was told you have to have worked for 1 year before you can use the unemployement thru the railroad. What did they say to you on how long you would be furloughed?

Yes you will not be eligible for the Railroad UE. and even if u were, its $610 bi-weekly, u could make more than that flipping burgers at wacdonalds

To get Railroad Unemployment you have to work 6 months the previous year for RR. Best bet is your state unemployment website or office. Also don't tell your new job you were furloughed ... layoff or job termination sound better. If they think you will leave as soon as CSX calls back no job. Even though you probably will. I do blame CSX they need to cut their bloated management and hire back the regular guys because we have trains that aren't running and extraboards that are empty because no one is rested. What are they going to do in July when they can't work the crap out of the few employees they have left because of the new hours of service laws. And they need to sell that stupid resort in WVA. And they need to stop crying because they only made a few hundreds of thousands of dollars in a month. And blah blah blah it really doesn't matter we're screwed out of a job.

You guys kill me. Like none of you have ever been layed off before. Others were getting furloughed and you thought because you were training you might be exempt. All this doom and gloom crap. those complaining sound like the old hands at my terminal. And guess what. The old hands went through the same stuff we are now in the early 80's.

If you hold out you will get called back. They spent too much on you and have too many people retiring in the next year or two to hire and train more guys. There is absolutely no sense in spending more on new trainees if you are at home already trained through the REDI and waiting to come back. A phone call is a hell of a lot cheaper than training a new guy.

Just chill out and do what you need to. In 4 or 5 years this will be another story of how the company screwed you that you will be telling to anyone who will listen.......before you get on your train to wherever.

Yea we got Furloughed aslo....But what got me was we was Furloughed while in Training.....I knew we was going to be Furloughed after Training but is was a little shocker to get Furloughed before then. With that said the Economy Really is bad and I just got to bite the Bullet because some of us are lucky we could of Paid for the school and really be in a big hole. So I am going to wait for my Phone Call and the way it looks we might be back this year and when we come back looks like Training all over again. Which looks bad but in the long run 16 weeks of Training was never enough time anyway. Guest I will be going over my notes from Training and the Web site for Bullentins and staying up on things and reading my rule books....Good Luck guys and keep your Head up.

Yea furloughed while training is a new one for me, never heard of that before

Things might change a bit when the new hours of service law goes into effect in July...they can't run the same amount of trains with the same amount of guys, something has to change...while it'd hopefully mean more guys, it could go the other direction for all I know as well (running less trains). As I recall, the way the class ones furlough guys, they usually do it so they have the bare minimum available in terms of manpower (hence the extraboards get exhausted really quick and delays start building if a bunch of trains show up at once, there aren't enough crews rested, a bunch of guys mark off sick, etc.). With any luck, some guys that were furloughed by not too many spots might be called back to duty when this law goes into effect...that and I can't imagine it staying this slow through summer, based on how traffic rises and falls historically...but who knows. Best bet is to wait and see...

In most areas, the company can not furlough active employees, (already marked up, qualified conductors), if there are any trainees, or qaulifying employees with less seniority. I know this doesn't make anybody feel better. Just trying to explain the circumstance. On average up to 40% of the furloughed employees do not return. So, furloughing is usually a last resort, as when recalls go out. CSX will have to replace and train new employees to replace those that don't return.

Hopefully things will turn around in a few months. I had just finished my fourth week of training when I got the (hopefully very temporary) axe on the 17th. In our meeting they told us hopefully things would pick-up by the 3rd qtr. and maybe we would get back by then, but no promises. A couple of questions if anyone knows. Did they have students at the REDI center and did they lay them off to? And does anyone know how long our insurance will be good for? The trainmaster in our meeting didn't know how long it would be carried.

The UTU rep in Etowah called the union rep in Jacksonville and told me that Jacksonville said that all trainees lose their insurance on the last day of the next month that they dont work. So that means that all "cubs" lose their insurance at the end of Febuary. Also, our train master said he was hoping this would all be over in March or april but I will believe that when I see it.

Over 100 furloughed in Louisville, Ky. That and about 60 engineers cut back to conductor or included in the layoffs. It doesn't look good at all. Heard that there are about 1000 layed off system wide right now with more to come. Also heard that one of the yards in Ohio is shut down now, possibly Walbridge? Not sure on that. I've been here 4 1/2 years and this is the first time I have been furloughed. It is going back 6 to 7 years in seniority here. Along with that the amount of storage cars is getting to number in the hundreds of miles...

The fucking remotes have a lot to do with the lay offs at Selkirk. Consequently it was mostly new guys that made it work at the east end, now it is they who are on the street! How ironic indeed. For all the money they're saving cutting off the engineer what's the cost in loss of money invested in training all these new conductors and then laying them off?

Well I was down in Georgia at the REDI and passed everything there and was transported back to my home state to work from my home terminal.... Hey everything was going great...so I thought until the axe came out and everyone system wide was cut as far as trainees go. I among alot of other people I know left good jobs with the vision of working for a strong foundational ,with good benefits....hind sight.... I feel if most of us new we were going to get cut before being able to at least mark up , probaly would have never left our original jobs. I know call me crazy but ,when you have a wife and kids and left a job to better yourself for your family it just really sucks....unemployment in my state is at 9.75% and finding a job that will support my family now is like finding a needle in a hay stack.....Here is something very funny , I asked in my interview with CSX if I would be getting laid off and was told ooooooh no You are guaranteed employment through your training until you are marked up and then it would be close to summer and I would work through the summer and then would probaly get furloughed in the fall of 2009. Yes was told this by Divisional Represenative and Local Represenative before leaving my other job. I now hear we might be called back sometime, but nobody has a date...ha ha...is this funny or what. I tried to go to the Employee Gateway along with others and same thing all access has been denied....I thought we were still employees just furloughed for a while but with this it's almost like all trainees's have been terminated.

I always thought Trainee's were kept seperate here at CSX from actual Employees as far as financials go , I thought they were two seperate entities in CSX ?

I heard about being cutoff from the gateway by a couple of guys from my terminal, but so far I still have access. Yes I was told the same thing about being furloghed by the reps at our interview and also the first day back from the redi center. Figured it would happen in April for a couple of months, but wasn't expecting it this early since "CSX never furloghs Trainees".Oh Well!

I think it would have been better for them to keep us training during this slow time. Then it would have meant keeping the knowledge in our minds longer and in return less training after the furlough. Now if things pick up all of a sudden, they will have all these trainees that need to basicly start all over and will take a heck of a lot longer than if we were fully trained. But then again what do I know?