Railroaders among the ranks of the unemployed
U.S. employers shed 84,000 jobs in August — the eighth-consecutive month of significant cuts. Since January, 605,000 jobs have been eliminated.
The rail industry hasn’t been immune from workforce reductions. On the freight side, the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway Inc. furloughed 33 operating, mechanical and engineering workers at June’s end primarily because the 745-mile regional is dealing with a downturn in paper, lumber and other forest products business.
The U.S. Class Is are employing fewer people, too. As of mid-July, the large roads’ workforce totaled 164,644, down 0.8 percent (or 1,383 employees) compared with July 2007’s level, according to the most recent Surface Transportation Board employment data. The Class Is employed fewer train and engine-service, transportation (other than T&E), and maintenance of equipment and stores workers than last year, as well as fewer professional and administrative staffers, and executives and staff assistants.
On the passenger-rail side, the Chicago Transit Authority recently eliminated 43 jobs, including nine management positions. By year's end, the agency expects to cut a total of 80 administrative positions through layoffs and attrition. The Sacramento Regional Transit District and San Diego County’s North County Transit District also are contemplating job cuts because of reduced state funding, and Miami-Dade Transit might trim its workforce because of budget woes.
Smaller workforces will continue to be the norm for a number of industries nationwide. In June, 31 percent of the respondents to the Business Roundtable’s second-quarter chief executive officer survey said their company's workforces would decrease over the next six months compared with 22 percent of first-quarter survey respondents. An association of CEOs at leading corporations, the roundtable solicited responses from 110 of its 160 members.
Whether the five-year-high national rate means the economy is entering or already in a recession is irrelevant to perhaps thousands of railroaders and workers in other industries who already are or soon might be out of a job.
Posted by: 
Jeff Stagl | Date posted: 9/10/2008
Comments
Posted by Larry Kaufman on 9/12/2008 9:53:57 AM
I wonder if railroad workers really are joining the ranks of the unemployed or whether the data simply suggest that as workers leave through normal attrition they are being replaced at a lesser rate. There certainly have been no wholesale layoff announced as has occurred in other industries that are outsourcing or otherwise trying to make themselves more efficient. The era of wholesale job reductions in the railroad industry seems to have ended with the spin-off of many branch lines into the operation by short line and regional railroads. This is a nitpick, I realize, but there really is a difference between not being hired, which I believe is the case, and being laid off, which I do not believe is the case.
Posted by Mike Wilson on 9/12/2008 12:34:32 PM
It is my experience that anyone that really wants to work, and really takes an interest in their job will never be out of work. A great number of the jobs that leave the railroad, end up as opportunities at contractors or consultants.
Posted by ed morley on 9/16/2008 1:30:59 PM
suggest workers sign up for free on quietagent.com (an anonymous internet hiring system) also railroads can join and they pay only on a success fee basis (actually the company is giving it away to build up the data base- google allianceQ to find out more
Posted by Michael Willis on 9/16/2008 11:52:04 PM
What if this was a Detroit business headline in the possible future?: The United Auto Workers & the auto industry join forces with the railroad industry to re-engineer, re-construct,& re-integrate the US surface transport systems. The UAW will now be the UARW the United Auto & Railway Workers.The Society of Automotive Engineers will become the SARE, The Society of Automotive & Railway Engineers. Due to the numerous closings of auto plants& suppliers, re-tooling will take place in existing facilities with modifications to accommodate larger scale fabrication & assembly. Presently in the real world of today, there are millions of square feet of design/engineering, machine shops & heavy manufacturing facilities available in metro Detroit that are shuttered, with thousands of talented & hard working skilled workers, designers & engineers who are wasting away living on meager unemployment & public assistance.
Posted by Larry Kaufman on 9/17/2008 10:13:26 AM
A fascinating scenario, Michael Willis, but one that would require some very significant legislation before it could be implemented. Railroad workers are covered by the Railway Labor Act of 1926, while workers in all other industries (airline workers also are covered, ironically, by the RLA) are covered by the National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act. Under RLA, workers are organized by craft and class and company-wide, while under NRLA, unions organize site by site, and in most companies all unionized employees belong to one union - like the current UAW. The railroads long have desired to see rail unions merge so that they can deal with fewer and stronger unions in the belief that strong unions can do deals that weak unions fear to consider. This in no way is intended to argue against what you obviously are positing. It is just to shed some light on why it is unlikely to occur absent a lot of other changes.
Posted by Michael Willis on 9/18/2008 1:01:10 AM
Here is a quotation form "Fares Please! A Popular History Of Trolleys, Streetcars, Buses, Elevateds & Subways" by John Anderson Miller Copyright 1941 Appleton-Century Co. Dover Publications edition 1960 isbn:0486-20671-8 Mr. Miller wrote: "It would undoubtedly be the ideal standard of travel if everyone were able & could afford to execute all of his own movements is is own car, with complete safety, free from all traffic annoyance & delay & have a doorman take and deliver the car whenever the need for parking arose, but unless it is proposed that we first wreck from stem to stern the present pattern of city streets which we have inherited, we know that no such traffic utopia is possible even if our national economy could afford it.I conceive the only adequate approach to a lasting solution to the problem to be a comprehensive attack upon the broad & the fundamental, though basically unsound practice which brings about this condition. The guilty culprit is the excessive & uneconomical use of the private automobile for daily travel to & from home & place of work or other occupation. It is not my idea that there should be less ownership of automobiles, but that those who have no need for their cars for their daily activities should leave them at home, & avail themselves of public carrier facilities". Mr. Miller could be considered a futurist of his day with his chilling hint of what was in store for Americas cities... Which have really been totally wrecked beyond recognition, the transit,railway systems, depots & stations have mostly vanished. We now have a nation with only 5% of the worlds population thirsting for more than 20% of its petroleum to support a destructive & unsustainable automotive traffic utopia. As a licensed chauffeur,here is a bit of trivia from an airport pickup. As I was waiting for a passenger arrival a group of European kids with their backpacks approached me and asked me where the transit stations were located, I had to give it to them straight-there was no public transit from the airport to downtown Detroit, only costly rental cars, taxis & limousines. They had mistakenly ridden a bus that took them to the rental car outfits and had to return to the airport. I told them that their best option was to get back on another flight to New York City, Boston, Chicago, Toronto or San Francisco, cities with some public transport.
