A UP Engineer Provides His Two Cents on the Railroad Labor Shortage

[jordon412]

This is a very interesting article based on a letter written by a UP engineer about the railroad labor shortage to the Surface Transportation Board's chairman as commentary for the STB's hearing regarding service problems on NS, BNSF, CSX and UP. It was then added to the Public Record by the STB's Office of Proceedings.

https://www.railwayage.com/regulatory/the-game-has-changed/

 

[pitkin]

The problem of inflation vs wage gains seems to be through most of the labor markets.

A US President who shall go unnamed tried to introduce the opportunity to invest outside of Social Security and was shot down by the other party. On the other hand, investments go down, too.

No easy answers here.

 

[Forester1]

Typical corporate America, and I am sure you won't find any mid- to upper-level management taking cuts to save money when they can take it from the ranks of the workers. That may sound socialist, and I am not, but have been there and seen that done so many times. We like to think we are a classless society, but for management, labor is just not in the same class. Labor is a marginal cost to be reduced, whereas managers are to be rewarded for the great jobs they do. And they get expense accounts to boot.

 

[JCitron]

Typical corporate America, and I am sure you won't find any mid- to upper-level management taking cuts to save money when they can take it from the ranks of the workers. That may sound socialist, and I am not, but have been there and seen that done so many times. We like to think we are a classless society, but for management, labor is just not in the same class. Labor is a marginal cost to be reduced, whereas managers are to be rewarded for the great jobs they do. And they get expense accounts to boot.

Yup. Management is also rewarded for cutting costs which means not rewarding labor for doing the real work. The employees, outside of management are considered a liability according to the bean counters, so the less that's paid to the workers, the more the company can pay the management, or so they think. In one company I worked at, the CEO had his own elevator to avoid associating with the workers. He treated the workers like servants as if they owed him for the job. Many people quit and he was forced to resign to spend time with his family.

At another company I was at, the CEO didn't believe in pay increases for employees. What you made a decade ago is what you make today, take it or leave it. When it came to paying the commissions to the salesforce, there was always an excuse not to pay and he and his upper echelon always got their bonuses first. They weren't a small amount either and amounted to about $30 million per bonehead each quarter. One quarter he bought an island and a racing yacht while claiming the sales didn't meet expectations and no bonuses or commissions would be paid.

Not a socialist either and I lived it too.