GN 599 wrote:I would hope that they wont be furloughing many more people. I think in my opinion we are at the bottom as far as the railroad industry is concerned. A lot of the old heads are comparing it to the 80's when they could have brought people back sooner but didnt. The guys that could work worked all the time and everyone else stayed furloughed. I have 8 years in and cant hold my home terminal. They have been running things short out here on the NW Division. I hit RSIA all the time and have made 3k this half and its only the 9th. Yet we have 60+ people furloughed here in Vancouver WA. I dont get it.
SWE Division is being cut pretty heavily right now. Guys with early '04 and mid '03 dates are being left out in the cold. We have terminal managers that INSIST the work can be done with personnel already on the active boards and are not about to recall anyone anytime soon. The furlough stats that come out on Monday will probably be close to, if not exceed, the high mark of 3,092 furloughed June 8th, 2009.
Those 12,500ft trains and management's eye on 15,000ft are killin' the road as each of those trains eliminates two crews for each run. That, in turn, adversily affects the yards as those junior road guys (engineer and conductor) move into the yard jobs and prevent the furloughed from ever getting close to a recall. Many, many of those hired on in '06, '07, and '08 are feelin' like never returning to the railroad and are actively seeking other careers. But, when the recalls begin, maybe the latter part of this year, due to severe lack of personnel, BNSF and the other Class I's are going to rapidly run out of people to fill the vacancies. The railroads will hire like crazy and once again, those with the least experence will be training the new guys, an unsafe situation!
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