Railroad Strike Looming

Fox is also reporting a tenative agreement. The fed’s need to stay out of it, we all know what happens when they meddle.

Bird One; I was questioning Ryan B’s claim that

“Corporate greed is driving it into the ground.”

If Ryan B’s definition of Corporate Greed was poor people calling in sick, I misunderstood.

Yea my understanding of at least one sticking point was that they're basically on call and get little to no schedule ahead of time. If they make a doctor's appointment and then get called in to work that day they lose "points."

I'm not sure the exact details and could be wrong in my understanding of it.

Bird One; I was questioning Ryan B’s claim that

“Corporate greed is driving it into the ground.”

If Ryan B’s definition of Corporate Greed was poor people calling in sick, I misunderstood.

Yeah man not letting guys get sick time off whether it be paid or unpaid sounds pretty greedy to me. At the beginning of negotiations they were asking for FIVE days of excused unpaid leave and they were told no. I’m not sure what else you would call that but greed. But that’s just me.

Bird One; I was questioning Ryan B’s claim that

“Corporate greed is driving it into the ground.”

If Ryan B’s definition of Corporate Greed was poor people calling in sick, I misunderstood.

Ryan's comment of "Corporate greed is driving it into the ground." sounded very general in nature and there had been no discussion of sick leave in this thread so I think Steve's response is quite understandable. There is a tendency to blame many general problems on "greed" while the motivation to maximize profits is usually best attained with a good balance of marketing, cost controls, and good employee relations.

I wasn’t talking about maximizing profits. I was talking about the railroad strike which the main reason that it was going to happen was over sick time. I’ve known a few guys over the years that worked or still work the railroad. It’s a brutal, thankless job. They certainly deserve more than what they are getting.

Ryan's comment of "Corporate greed is driving it into the ground." sounded very general in nature and there had been no discussion of sick leave in this thread so I think Steve's response is quite understandable. There is a tendency to blame many general problems on "greed" while the motivation to maximize profits is usually best attained with a good balance of marketing, cost controls, and good employee relations.

Seriously guys? I guarantee you most didn’t want to strike. And stop with the greed talk… freight railroad operating ratios are worse than trucking. It costs 1 million dollars per mile to maintain mainline trackage and signaling. It’s all about squeezing down cost and economies of scale. This includes labor.

Any clue what tenured freight locomotive operators and conductors make with the US and Canadian mega railroads? This includes road, local and yard operators for CSX, NS, BNSF, UP, KCS, CP and CN.

Granted their job much like ours is a lifestyle; however many are making close to 200k annually and they have awesome pensions to boot. Very little turnover in these positions.

I’m very close friends with several operators… they make ridiculous money, many living in RVs at the terminals or crew change points to maximize their rest time (like a truck sleeper cab). No social life, lots of studying /retesting due to ever changing fed. operating rules, operating policy, but incredibly lucrative once gaining experience. Sound familiar?

My previous IT career involved numerous consulting projects that were operational (movement of freight) and operational process control in nature; meaning in and among equipment, infrastructure , yards, signals, and frequent interaction with skilled labor. I’ve seen both sides of this…first hand.

When I was looking for my next career and ended up in trucking; honestly my first choice was working for Norfolk Southern (NS), conductor first then moving to operator. But extremely difficult to get hired as a trainee. Had I been able to prove extensive work experience out in the weather, my working environment instead of a Mack might have been a GEVO…

No regrets now, I’m happy with more free time and less money.

Carry on.

In Needles, Calif. the railroad was thee best option for grads of local high school. And knew couple guys (married to office ladies) at the Ford dealer I worked at in Needles. Even back in the early '90s they were making crazy money on the rails.

When I was looking for my next career and ended up in trucking; honestly my first choice was working for Norfolk Southern (NS), conductor first then moving to operator. But extremely difficult to get hired as a trainee. Had I been able to prove extensive work experience out in the weather, my working environment instead of a Mack might have been a GEVO…

No regrets now, I’m happy with more free time and less money.

Carry on.

Crazy, G.

That's exactly what Tom tried to do when the iT industry went through it's repeated RIF's. Only with CSX, not NS. They didn't see his O/O of his own trash/refuse business as 'extensive' enough to train him, either. Even with pals over at CSX, who are still there ... of course. (With bigger houses and bigger bills.)

His 'testing' skills were probably less than yours, to boot. I wasn't around (yet) at that time, but I'm thinking that was a contributing factor.

The chips fell otherwise, just as yours. We make do.

Carry on, also~

~ Anne ~

G-Town, I always wondered if those locomotives have sleeping quarters or bunks. Are any so equipped? And I know what the engineer does. He sits by the window and hangs his arm out. But what does a “conductor” do on a freight train?