The current motto of efficiency is about to change. With near future changes to have some Engineering managers and Signal managers to expand some of the territories to eliminate a manager in the middle just seems ludicrous. They are looking at not only saving with less managers but the residuals from such i.e. less vehicles, less gas per vehicle, etc, etc. Complete closure of several yards! Yet more hard hits on certain crafts! And union contracts with other crafts that are agreed as "seasonal" will now effectively be as stated. MofW production gangs will now start cutting every August. Signal Zone gangs as well. B and B will be downsized as well as an already hurting Water Service. All this justifies less upper management positions as well. Our only change really needs to be at the CEO level!
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The govt shouldve never bailed out chrysler (nor any other company) too big to fail my @$$. Let em fail, let the shareholders use the paper their stock is printed on to line bird cages. The property, rail, and other assets can go to the highest bidder. If the shareholders knew their stock could one day be worthless they wouldnt let the executives make bad long term decisions.
I was furloughed in 2019, got my degree and now I work in a completely different industry. Here is what I am thinking may be going on and why UP is allowing the railroad to decline.
The shareholders know how vital the railroads are to national security. If the railroads are unable to live up to the transportation demand, then the federal government would have to step in and assist the railroads financially to get up to standards. For a comparison, look at the defense industries. Ever since the cold war ended, the federal government has failed to ensure our we-pons manufactures have the capability to mass produce we-pons. The 155 mortar is a munition example. There are so many prime contractors getting emergency federal funding to crank out the 155 mortar as existing capabilities have become non-existent. The companies that used to mass produce the mortar rounds either got out of the business or let their equipment fall into disrepair.
I'm thinking this is exactly what the investors are looking at. They are milking UP for the maximum amount of money and when the proverbial cow has run dry, the government will have no choice but to come to the rescue and save UP financially. Just look how much the government is currently pouring into the prime contractors. The billions of dollars supposedly for Ukraine aren't going to Ukraine, they are going to the prime contractors to build up production capability. In the end, the only ones getting sc--wed are the taxpayers and the rank and file railroad workers.
Efficiency isn't the correct word. After PTC UP was eager to go to one man crews, there was way too much backlash from federal, state gov't, and the media. To avoid a negative public image that would cause the stock to drop in price UP tried to hype one man crews but left the conductor in place. Instead UP cut EVERYWHERE else in an attempt to get their financial numbers to emulate as closely as possible like if the conductor had been dropped. As of now there is no loud public outcry about the mechanical and engineering dept cuts that have led to this company falling apart. When accused of a man power shortage UP claims they are hiring or have hired some number but that's almost always for operating dept and they omit mentioning the horrible heavy losses mechanical dept has suffered. The track is falling apart, slow orders linger longer than ever and FRA defects keep rising. Signal is cut to the bone with some locations not having enough man power to respond to trouble calls anymore. They focused on mechanical cuts figuring the rolling stock will just keep moving. All of this bcuz of greed. No insult to conductors, but this would be a much better freight shipping railroad if all the other crafts kept their headcount and there was instead, one man crews. Instead UP did the opposite and now the track infrastructure and rolling stock is in the worst condition ever.
John Henry is the best in LA
Managers create ZERO production. That's ALL cost saving cutting them. More workers less managers, it's a WIN, WIN. Now if we can keep the workers though.