Last summer I attended a conversation of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. The union president was speaking and touched on the point of the upcoming national engineer contract. Apparently the carriers are digging in their heels harder than they have in the past.
As stated countless times here, the railroads are in a labor shortage. It seems very counter productive to be cheapening out on pay packages (collective bargaining agreements) at a time when it is a job seeker’s market. Perhaps, since the contracts are long term, the railroads feel as if we will soon enough be back to a tight job market. This might be why they are holding out.
Over the last ten years of PSR the economy has seen fluctuations to the good and to the bad. Business has gone up add down too during the last decade. Under PSR no fat is allowed in the workforce. They hired like crazy during the oil boom. When it crashed boards were cut down to the bare minimum. Things picked up in other directions, and they were right back to being short handed. In the spring of 2000 the China virus was the next excuse to cut things to the bone. Sure everyone was recalled, but in my experience only a small fraction returned. Off on another hiring spree they went.
I understand completely why they had to make cuts. I’ve been around enough family businesses to see this. The difference is that board reductions of the past weren’t so drastic.
The main point here is what do the railroads really have to entice people to hire out initially, then stay, and finally return if cut? The answer is that they can except to work every day, maybe multiple times. There are no days off, especially with the reduction of allowable days off under the attendance policies like the one Uncle Warren just implemented.. With the meager raises, other jobs have caught up with the railroad wage scale, and the worker can have a job with regular hours and days off.
I’m lucky in several ways. The first is that I can hold a run which gives me time off. I also have other options, as I mentioned earlier. How though is a new hire going to be willing to give up his best years for no life? A recent class of new hires at work mostly left. Management’s response was that they hired kids who could still go back home to mama. The response was to hire more mature employees. Even these guys have been around the block. They’re shrewd enough to be looking to jump if something better comes along. Meanwhile we are still short and the rob crews from job to job as each emergency pops up.
Before I go, there is one additional point which I’d like to delve into. With PSR managers are implored to cut cut cut. Right not the adjacent hub terminal to mine is right to the bone. Whomever is running that terminal will likely get his reward for doing as told. The problem is that their lack of crews means delays to our trains being made up. Often our crews are instructed to do extra doubles and switching which that terminal should be doing. As a result of this our crews tend to run out of time because of the delays making up the train. Therefore PSR has turned the railroad into a game of hot potato where eventually drops the potato. Instead of giving the tools needed to efficiently do the job, everything gets passed down until the guy at the end ends up holding the bag.
