Eastern Railroad Discussion > This is so True !

Rail executives: Stop telling lies
By James Brunkenhoefer
National Legislative Director
Rail chief executive officers should be asking why employees hate them.

Answer: We have heard your promises before. Most turned out to be fool's gold. The treatment we receive on the job makes your statements regarding respect and teamwork absolutely ludicrous.

In the midst of your greatest profits ever, you want givebacks from employees while scooping out large portions of those profits for yourselves.

Think about that as you hold your town hall meetings. We see them as indoctrination sessions.

Talk as you will about a rosy future, but the reality for conductors and trainmen is an end to their craft because that is what you're demanding at the bargaining table.

What you want is elimination of one of the two remaining crew members. Were this to be accepted, the first to suffer would be those at the bottom of the seniority roster.

As those rosters are frozen, those at the bottom would become stuck in the same lousy jobs with bad off days that no one with higher seniority wants.

The next group of losers under your one-person crew scheme would be those offered buyouts. History records that before the ink is dry on your promises, you have your lawyers and friends in Congress figuring out how to void them.

When we previously agreed to reduce crew size, you made promises about preserving two-person crews. Recall we had to take you into court to stop you from breaking those contracts. And still, you persist.

And what might become of those accepting a promised buyout? The business pages report accurately what is happening to blue-collar jobs in America. Any senior employee accepting a buyout would face future unemployment, and then an end to promised continued health-care insurance and other benefits.

At the first sign of a business downturn, you would again put your lawyers and political friends to the task of undoing those promises. If we laid the previous broken promises of railroads end to end, they would exceed the length of all track in North America.

And what else are you seeking? Didn't we hear you demand wage freezes for existing employees, wage reductions for new hires and significantly higher cost sharing of health-care insurance premiums?

Heads, you win; tails, we lose. The only certain outcome in the railroad industry is higher rates for captive shippers and bigger bonuses for rail executives.

The solidarity among rail labor unions now extends to solidarity with rail shippers, whom you similarly abuse. You've lied to us in the past; we have good reason to think you are lying now.

Offer me a buyout, I'll go in a heartbeat. I'll take my chances. Plenty of other things to do to enjoy life than wait for a damned crew caller to screw with me, or try to do a thankless job for most of the morons who are officials. Buy me out!

Tell me about it. Its amazing how much new hires whine bout how long it will take them to hold down some sort of regular day job with good off days. Everybody before had to do the time....why shouldnt you? Hell I've been here 10 years, 8 as engineer and I still cant hold crap now thatnks to the RCO's. Big thanks to the UTU for giving in to the carriers at the first sign of RCO's coming to the US Class 1's...and for what a measely $15 xtra a day? All they wanted to do was be the first to secure guranteed membership in the UTU by giving into the carriers allowing RCO's as long as the RCO's could only be handled by UTU employees. So they cut engineer jobs everywhere and guess what.....shit trickles down hill the UTU just cut the throats of its newest members...the new hires. So guess what...now it will be even longer before you can hold down a plush assignment. Dont worry....rumor has it that the BLET is going to get into the action with the RCO's...making it so any union employee can hold the jobs....and once that happens...looks like the extraboard for the new guys again.