Union members in an earlier time were not only concerned with their own pay, but also with protecting or increasing the number of jobsin the craft. In this case there could be more jobs if engineers worked 8 hour shifts without all the bizarre (and apparently antiquated) conditions that lead to so much more time on the clock. But that value is also lost.
Wasn’t the accepted term for that called “feather bedding”?
In some management circles that was the term. However, when it comes to management citing examples - they only cite the one out of a hundred that proves their point - not the other 99 that don’t.
[quote user=“BaltACD”]
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Wasn’t the accepted term for that called “feather bedding”?
In some management circles that was the term. However, when it comes to management citing examples - they only cite the one out of a hundred that proves their point - not the other 99 that don’t.
As does Union mgmt. Cherry pick the points that help and ignore the rest.
Working 8 hours would increase employment, but wouldn’t it also increase benefit & retirement expenses? Paying for extra hours would seem to be cheaper
Considering how we’ve gone from 5 person crews to 2, extended crew districts to reflect more reasonable work times, closed a lot of operator/agent offices, mechinized MOW etc. I’d say it was a lot more than 1%.
Remember that was the union position when the the IC proposed a slimed down low cost (prior to dereg) operation on the Iowa Devision. IIRC the IC wanted 2 man crews and extended crew districts to divert traffic from the CNW. The Unions shot it down, how might the traffic map be different if it was accepted?
A Metra T&E employee making a $100,000 a year would pay about $27,000 total for Railroad Retirement, Medicare and Illinois and federal income tax. The total tax rate on the income above $100,000 would typically be 42%. While the amount left after tax can be enough to provide a comfortable living, costs in the Chicago area aren’t going to leave enough left to make the person rich.
Thanks for a reality check!
But unions can only do so much. They don’t do the hiring or firing. And since a crew can perform service up to 12 hours (with no 4 hour break) - it almost seems expected that they will work to the last minute. From personal observations locally, the older guys were the ones that wanted all the overtime. Attitudes have shifted the last couple of years, though. Most of the newer guys are completely happy with working just 8 and would love for that to be the norm. But the railroad has other plans.
Maybe that’s why they still have trouble finding people to stay with this line of work.
Technological advancement in MofW, computers, hardware and communications form the bulk of the jobs that no longer exist - not ‘featherbeding’. Part of the problem the carriers are presently trying to work their way through is the lack of trained personnel to step into needed positions of Conductor and Engineer - positions that in days gone by had apprentice personnel in the form of brakemen and firemen already on the property learning their craft. Now if you need Engineers you hire someone off the street process them through training to be able to work as a Conductor/Brakeman for a year or so and then force them into Engineer Training where they relinquish their Conductor/Brakeman Seniority and are school taught the basics of locomotive mechanical, electrical and air brake operation that has to cover the wide variety of locomotives today’s Class 1 carriers utilize -
Balt, about how long did a fireman or brakeman work before being promoted? I know some never took promotion–I knew a few flagmen who were getting along in years.
Your unintentonal spelling error here might be an accurate portrayal, after all. Back then, two-man crews wouldn’t have cut it. Much has been done technologically to make them more palatable. Yet there times when these crews, which look so good on paper, are faced with superhuman challenges just to get their trains over the road. Oh, they earn their money, all right.
And thank you, Jay, for bringing reality into play. In my employment days, I took the overtime when I was stuck with it, but never really volunteered for more than an eight-hour day. There are a few “Twelve and tow, or we don’t go” folks out there, but I suspect that the closest thing they have to a family is probably the bar owner and the barmaid.
[quote user=“BaltACD”]
Considering how we’ve gone from 5 person crews to 2, extended crew districts to reflect more reasonable work times, closed a lot of operator/agent offices, mechinized MOW etc. I’d say it was a lot more than 1%.
Technological advancement in MofW, computers, hardware and communications form the bulk of the jobs that no longer exist - not ‘featherbeding’. Part of the problem the carriers are presently trying to work their way through is the lack of trained personnel to step into needed positions of Conductor and Engineer - positions that in days gone by had apprentice personnel in the form of brakemen and firemen already on the property learning their craft. Now if you need Engineers you hire someone off the street process them through training to be able to work as a Conductor/Brakeman for a year or so and then force them into Engineer Training where they relinquish their Conductor/Brakeman Seniority and are school taught the basics of locomotive mechanical, electrical and air brake operation that has to cover the wide variety of locomotives today’s Class 1 carriers utilize - both EMD and GE as well as any orphans that may exist on a property. After passing the classroom education they are then put out in the field as Engineer Trainees on the territory where they will establish their seniority. After a indeterminate period of time, being taught by current engineers they will have a test ride with a Road Foreman of Engines and either become a qualified Engineer or require more OJT training or a d
Having done union work the union has a legal responsibility to defend any management action against a member. We had a Captain the did a very bad thing that cost a passenger his life. But union still had to defend him. Got quite a lot of time off but finally reinstated by arbitrator.
All other employees hoped he would get canned including yours truly.
Having lived on both side of the Management/Union divide - I stand by Management’s exaggeration of ‘Union Work Rules’ - THAT MANAGEMENT AGREED TO IN CONTRACT NEGOTIATIONS.
Contracts apply to all parties that signed the contracts - Management and Union.
Everybody ‘spins’ situations to what they percieve to be their ‘best PR’ benefit - Management and Labor.
If ‘Management’ had their true beliefs, employees would pay the company for the opportunity to work - having to pay employees decreases the profits available to management bonus’ and stockholder return.
Management has the belief that ‘any idiot’ off the street can do any job that Contract Labor can do, and most likely better (until they hire people off the street). Labor, conversly, knows that Managment has been staffed with the off the street idiots. I have been the idiot on both sides of the Labor/Management divide in my 49 year career.
The reality is the BOTH Labor and Management are needed to make the company operate and hopefully operate efficiently. Remember Management is charged with making the plans for efficient operation - when labor performs the plans that managment designs in the manner that management intended and the plans fail, who is to blame. You know what Managements answer is, even before the question gets asked.
Railroads live and die based upon their operating plans. Plans that work have traffic moving fluidly across the network. Plans that don’t work end up in a congested network, where, if the carrier is lucky they will be able to handle yesterday’s freight tomorrow or maybe the day after, all the while tieing up valuable resources of motive power and manpowe
[quote user=“BaltACD”]
Having lived on both side of the Management/Union divide - I stand by Management’s exaggeration of ‘Union Work Rules’ - THAT MANAGEMENT AGREED TO IN CONTRACT NEGOTIATIONS.
Contracts apply to all parties that signed the contracts - Management and Union.
Everybody ‘spins’ situations to what they percieve to be their ‘best PR’ benefit - Management and Labor.
If ‘Management’ had their true beliefs, employees would pay the company for the opportunity to work - having to pay employees decreases the profits available to management bonus’ and stockholder return.
Management has the belief that ‘any idiot’ off the street can do any job that Contract Labor can do, and most likely better (until they hire people off the street). Labor, conversly, knows that Managment has been staffed with the off the street idiots. I have been the idiot on both sides of the Labor/Management divide in my 49 year career.
The reality is the BOTH Labor and Management are needed to make the company operate and hopefully operate efficiently. Remember Management is charged with making the plans for efficient operation - when labor performs the plans that managment designs in the manner that management intended and the plans fail, who is to blame. You know what Managements answer is, even before the question gets asked.
Railroads live and die based upon their operating plans. Plans that work have traffic moving fluidly across the network. Plans that don’t work end up in a congested network, where, if the carrier is lucky they will be able to handle yesterday’s freight tomorrow or maybe the day after, all the while tieing up valua
A strike on the railroad would be squashed by court injuction (or whatever) in about 30 minutes. There is no threat to management in that one.
And if the managers came up through the ranks, then the required certifications (put in place by the government, not the unions) wouldn’t be an issue. They’d already HAVE them.
If we don’t follow our contracts we get pulled from service. If the carriers don’t follow the contracts all we can do is put in a claim that’ll be denied. Just how it is.
Not to mention (but I will) that if the strike process is taken all the way, it is possible to have a contract imposed upon both parties. A PEB, Presidential Emergency Board, composed of people picked by the POTUS, can recommend what a contract, or portions of a contract, should say if both sides can’t agree on something. The PEB’s recommendations aren’t binding by themselves, both sides can reject them. That opens up the process to allow congress to vote a contract in or out, usually what the PEB recommendations are. Although I believe congress can come up with their own “solutions,” not just what the PEB recommends. PEB descisions usually favor