Eastern Railroad Discussion > CSX Furloughs have started

CSX furloughed 24 in the locomotive shop at Cincinnati Queensgate this last week and we heard they intended to do some deep cuts in MOW. After the letter we received about bonuses, I knew they were planning to cut. We declared 440 million in the third quarter which they claim as a loss. Wow.

Joe

Why is it management will trip over fifty dollar bills in track to pick up the quarter laying farther down track. The cuts will come back to haunt management this winter when they can't keep trains moving.

Posted from Android

We've seen it time and time again. I've watched for 15 years CSX make this mistake. If the stock holders only knew how much it really costs to train a new engineer, conductor, equipment operator, dispatcher, yardmaster, etc and also knew that CSX tried desperately to rid themselves of these folks only to train them again, our stock would go broke. It's such short sightedness.

Joe

As a friend of mine that used to work for Northfork Southern at the car shop at Williamson Wv. Said he never seen a company work so hard to hire you and work just as hard to get rid of you!!

joeygooganelli Wrote:
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> We've seen it time and time again. I've watched
> for 15 years CSX make this mistake. If the stock
> holders only knew how much it really costs to
> train a new engineer, conductor, equipment
> operator, dispatcher, yardmaster, etc and also
> knew that CSX tried desperately to rid themselves
> of these folks only to train them again, our stock
> would go broke. It's such short sightedness.
>
> Joe


This is all very sad.

Verizon, at least here in NJ, handles it differently.

The railroads generally operate as a collection of craft unions, for historical reasons. Dispatchers, MW guys, signals people, engineers, conductors, clerks, etc all have their own unions. An engineer can't bump an MW guy, for example. Or even an engineer in another district, even if he works out of the same terminal. At Verizon in NJ, all unionized people are in one of two unions. You're IBEW or you're CWA.

If you lose your seniority as a line guy or an inside installer, there are literally hundreds of IBEW job openings (wire puller, frame man, etc) that you can bid and hold with seniority. Often in the same garage or area. With "a few years" of seniority and a clean record. Or in another area closer to your vacation house or your boat, etc.

Layoffs still happen, and trained people lose their jobs, but it seems that your chances of keeping a job are better in a mass union like that than in a craft structure like the railroads.

Maybe the railroad custom of having small districts (on some lines), craft unions, or seniority limited to a single shop or a legacy railroad doesn't meet the demands of today's business climate?

I don't disagree that we might need system seniority and to have different crafts. The railroad doesn't pay penalty claims when they force you to do the work and the unions don't stop them. Might as well go for as big a pay day as possible.

Joe

My take would be that this is in expectation of lower future economic activity, especially with coal.

Companies, both big and small, have made such announcements in the past few days.

the northern t&e already have seniorty to bump anywhere on the old b&o/cr lines so you can bump anywhere.

1 Wrote:
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> the northern t&e already have seniorty to bump
> anywhere on the old b&o/cr lines so you can bump
> anywhere.


Yes and no. Yes, the NMAD roster opened up bumping into other districts, but no, because let's say a northern district employee with 18 years bumps to a western district terminal. Well there goes his/her 18 years of seniority and now he/she only has just under 2 years seniority (when NMAD took affect) and will still get bumped and pushed out of that terminal during slow times because he/she can't hold. Eventually those prior rights will be gone and the NMAD roster will be it and what's fair is fair, seniority rules. A person with only 3 years seniority should never be able to bump a person with 10-20 or even 30 years.

The symbol formerly known as Q122 is out

Horrible.........................

farmer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Why is it management will trip over fifty dollar
> bills in track to pick up the quarter laying
> farther down track. The cuts will come back to
> haunt management this winter when they can't keep
> trains moving.
>
> Posted from Android


That's any big corporation....Common sense not required.

Why is anyone surprised by this? Any old timer will tell you that winter furloughs were a way of life on the railroad for DECADES. Finding guys who had never been furloughed during their career was the exception, rather than the norm. It wasn't until the big hiring waves in the 1990's that you started seeing employees who didn't get furloughed at some point.

It has been that way in many industries. I know of a fellow railroader who used to work for one of the steel companies as a crane operator. He'd rack up all kinds of overtime during the summer to pad his bank account, then spend the entire winter skiing in places like Aspen, CO when he got laid off every winter.

Seniority is what it is ... you either chase it around your district to keep working in your craft, or you get demoted from engine service to train service and the junior men get furloughed. It has been that way for a long, long time.

i've been lucky 14 years t&e and never been furloughed

Pick any lane where CSX and NS are parallel, and I'd say NS has the most traffic, and continues to pick off CSX accounts. This is not a surprise; CSX's track, locomotives and especially stock price seem headed in the wrong direction again. I think Mr. Bill Ackman needs to visit Jacksonville, and soon.

the csx motto, "spend $100 to save $1."

Tis the season for Thanksgiving Day massacres. Remember them well from my SP days

If you believe that the stock prices of the major coal producers are good barometers of near term business ( historically they have been) then the coal road layoffs announced to date will prove to be just the tip of the iceberg.

Ross Rowland

SCL1517 Wrote:
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> Pick any lane where CSX and NS are parallel, and
> I'd say NS has the most traffic, and continues to
> pick off CSX accounts. This is not a surprise;
> CSX's track, locomotives and especially stock
> price seem headed in the wrong direction again. I
> think Mr. Bill Ackman needs to visit Jacksonville,
> and soon.

Aboslutley false. I see CSX getting traffic FROM NS. Maersk, Ford, GM, etc......And it wasn't bought traffic. In other words, CSX did not lower thier price to get traffic. It's well known Maersk is actually paying more, and getting better service from CSX than they did from NS.
And as far as Ackman.....Yeah, that's what CSX needs. A slash and burn, profits only, person to "Turn around" the company. Has no one read or seen what Ackman's boy Harrison is doing to CP? He is absolutley destroying it. All for the slime Ackman to make more money. Only fools think like that.

Soo6058

co614 Wrote:
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> If you believe that the stock prices of the major
> coal producers are good barometers of near term
> business ( historically they have been) then the
> coal road layoffs announced to date will prove to
> be just the tip of the iceberg.
>
> Ross Rowland


Unfortunately, I have to agree - it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

Soo6058, CSX is not taking care of the people who OWN the company--the stockholders. I know a guy in CSX Engineering, and he can't get the material he needs to get rid of slow orders because of, his words, "beancounters". The CSX line a half mile from my house is down to two through trains a day, and it IS because of NS taking the business (intermodal, and recently, coke traffic).

I don't agree with corporate raiding tactics at all; there just needs to be a wake up call down there--the owners are being s**t upon.