SD70Dude So what you're saying is that brown-nosing works? And that it's not about what you can do, it's about who you know? The other 99% of us don't have such an advantage when it comes to applying for jobs at large companies.
So what you're saying is that brown-nosing works? And that it's not about what you can do, it's about who you know?
The other 99% of us don't have such an advantage when it comes to applying for jobs at large companies.
Networking..let's say you're out of work and out of the blue someone you've worked with before calls you and expresses an interest in hiring you.. Another example..my nephew Paul recently got hired by Amazon in Los Angeles.. he was contacted through his network of college classmates..hired without even sending a resume or applying. I guess if (heaven forbid at this late stage in my life) I found myself out if work someone in my network would reach out to me..That's not brown nosing..If you suddenly lost your job at CN no one would come knocking on your door? "Hey Bob, I hear you might be looking for something and I happen to know of something that would fit your profile".. That's not brown nosing..If you're any good at all people are going be seeking you out as soon s they hear you may be available.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
zugmann Ulrich 1996 - Irving Transportation Group That was a bit ago. Now most interviews aren't even done in person.
Ulrich 1996 - Irving Transportation Group
That was a bit ago. Now most interviews aren't even done in person.
You're right.. 1996 is a long time ago.. I think if I were looking for work today I'd have a hard time unless its a small business.. Also depends on the business and job too...
I'm not sure how important networking is these days, but the last two jobs I got were from people knowing I was available, and they reached out to me. I was surprised both times.. I never really thought networking was anything more than business school nonsense. And had I simply "applied" I likely would have been turned down flat by HR. Networking effectively allowed me to shortcircuit the hiring process by getting to a decision maker who was looking for someone..
Ulrich1996 - Irving Transportation Group
It's been fun. But it isn't much fun anymore. Signing off for now.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any
zugmann Ulrich I know.. I wasn't around in 1960.. works well today.. When's the last time you applied for a job with a bigger corporation?
Ulrich I know.. I wasn't around in 1960.. works well today..
When's the last time you applied for a job with a bigger corporation?
1996 - Irving Transportation Group
UlrichI know.. I wasn't around in 1960.. works well today..
zugmann Ulrich One caveat.. its important to be speaking to the owner of the biz or someone with some skin in the game.. no point in interviewing with HR people.. But it's not 1960 anymore.
Ulrich One caveat.. its important to be speaking to the owner of the biz or someone with some skin in the game.. no point in interviewing with HR people..
But it's not 1960 anymore.
I know.. I wasn't around in 1960.. works well today..
UlrichOne caveat.. its important to be speaking to the owner of the biz or someone with some skin in the game.. no point in interviewing with HR people..
wjstix Yes I was going to reference the same John Oliver report re 300% turnover of truckers due to their horrific employment conditions. BTW re college education...one thing they don't tell you is that although getting a degree might open up say 10% of the jobs in the job market that you couldn't otherwise get, once you get the degree something like 50% of jobs are no longer available to you. In my twenties I had many job interviews where I was told I would have been hired - if only I didn't have a college degree.
Yes I was going to reference the same John Oliver report re 300% turnover of truckers due to their horrific employment conditions.
BTW re college education...one thing they don't tell you is that although getting a degree might open up say 10% of the jobs in the job market that you couldn't otherwise get, once you get the degree something like 50% of jobs are no longer available to you. In my twenties I had many job interviews where I was told I would have been hired - if only I didn't have a college degree.
I've never had anyone ask about my education.. because I steered every hiring conversation around to "what I can do for you?". I realized early on that nobody cares about credentials and degrees.. irs all about what can you do for me today! One caveat.. its important to be speaking to the owner of the biz or someone with some skin in the game.. no point in interviewing with HR people..
RKFarms "But having a degree in something solid like engineeering nevertheless speaks volumes about the person who has it.. I'll sum it up: 1) you're intelligent.. (can't get one if you're dumb) 2) you're mechanically inclined.. again.. can't get that degree if you're not." I don't mean to be disrespectful and I forgot who wrote this, but it made me laugh. I spent over 25 years in industrial maintenance in the Subaru plant Lafayette IN and a LOT of my time was fixing or modifying equipment designed by engineers with degrees and making it work so the associates could build cars. Again, NOT dissing anyone. Why are people leaving work? I did, it was a good paying job but management was a PITA, some of the comments about RR management sound familiar. Would I go back? They couldn't afford me now. My farm is almost paid for, rents and land values are up and we have enough coming in to be comfortable. If people can get by, why put up with management BS and crappy working conditions? I hope it gets to the point where more vakue is placed on workers and a LOT less on share value. I guess we'll see. PR
"But having a degree in something solid like engineeering nevertheless speaks volumes about the person who has it.. I'll sum it up: 1) you're intelligent.. (can't get one if you're dumb) 2) you're mechanically inclined.. again.. can't get that degree if you're not."
I don't mean to be disrespectful and I forgot who wrote this, but it made me laugh. I spent over 25 years in industrial maintenance in the Subaru plant Lafayette IN and a LOT of my time was fixing or modifying equipment designed by engineers with degrees and making it work so the associates could build cars. Again, NOT dissing anyone.
Why are people leaving work? I did, it was a good paying job but management was a PITA, some of the comments about RR management sound familiar. Would I go back? They couldn't afford me now. My farm is almost paid for, rents and land values are up and we have enough coming in to be comfortable. If people can get by, why put up with management BS and crappy working conditions? I hope it gets to the point where more vakue is placed on workers and a LOT less on share value. I guess we'll see.
PR
I said that.. if you doubt me crack open an engineering textbook and work out some problems in advanced fluid mechanics.. Sure, not everything they come up with works perfectly.. but alot of stuff comes pretty darn close..
The great, unwashed masses...
wjstixYes I was going to reference the same John Oliver report re 300% turnover of truckers due to their horrific employment conditions. BTW re college education...one thing they don't tell you is that although getting a degree might open up say 10% of the jobs in the job market that you couldn't otherwise get, once you get the degree something like 50% of jobs are no longer available to you. In my twenties I had many job interviews where I was told I would have been hired - if only I didn't have a college degree.
When it comes to work and wages - any number of organizations view their employees as little more than slaves - they view that they have to pay employees as a insult to their 'superior station'. Even slaves that through work and/or politics manage to ascend to the Board Room view their starting point as a blemish on their history and not something to be emulated.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
A partial explanation for truck driver shortages -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phieTCxQRLA
As regards Jeff's post just above this one.
On CSX I worked in the Tampa Division, Jacksonville Division, Atlanta Division, Mobile Division and Baltimore Division. Each of the divisions operated under a multiplicity of craft agreements dating from the predecessor carriers with one carriers agreement applying to certain subdivisions and a different carriers agreement applying to other subdivisions.
While FIFO Pools were the predominate means of operating road operations; local union officials in concert with local railroad management would negotiate specific agreements that were to apply to specific subdivisions. Every form of pool operation that Jeff mentions was implemented on one subdivision or another somewhere, sometime during the periods I worked on the various Divisions. There was no form of operation that was universally liked or disliked by those involved with them - everybody liked some aspects of the operation they were working in and disliked other aspects. The saying you can't please everybody certanily applies.
Sorry this is late. I was just getting ready to respond Saturday when the phone rang about 6 hours early. That's not a bad thing better to go to work at 4pm instead of 10pm. It just shows how bad the line ups can be. Then the motel's internet was down. It went down last Wednesday. The lady at the desk said they don't have a very good internet provider. I said I don't think there is such a thing as a good internet provider.
It's not the expectations of today's railroaders. It's the expectations of railroad management. Most of today's railroaders are no longer the old, work as much as possible type. Although it's no longer possible with RSIA, no one now would think of showing being relieved from duty at 11 hrs 59 mins to avoid extra rest*. Most railroaders want some semblance of a more normal life. They don't want to work on their rest all the time with the only time off being vacation or paid leave, which can be denied due to "manpower" needs, or time off required under RSIA rules. That Federal required rest time (48 or 72 hrs) can't be counted on, usually doesn't fall when it best benefits the employee, and to an extent it can be manipulated so an employee doesn't get the FR (Federal Requirement).
*(Before the RSIA changes, if you showed relieved at 11'59" you only received 8 hours non-disturbed rest, meaning they could call you to report for duty at the 8 hr mark. If you showed relieved at 12' or more, then you received 10 hrs non disturbed rest. Now rest time is undisturbed and figured from the time you were released. If the released time is over 12 hrs, that difference is added to 10 hours undisturbed, which means they can't call until you are legally rested. So if your total time on duty is 12' 20" that 20 mins would be added to the 10 hrs so you wouldn't be rested until 10' 20" had passed.)
There have been proposals for call windows, and other things like that. There have been trial runs, but they never really work out. Both sides think the other is taking advantage of them. Depending on how the call windows are worked, I've heard of a couple different proposals, it's going to mean less money for the employee who misses out on going to work. Even though that person may get pay for a basic 8 hour day, it might be 1/2 or more of a regular trip, depending on run.
We had a trial period many years ago for rest days on the extra boards. If it worked out, it was going to be extended to the pools. Those working the extra boards worked 7 days on, then 3 (72 hrs) days off. If you worked into your off day, you still received 72 hours off. You could plan things, although maybe not the first day. We also maintained our guarantee with no offset for the rest days.
What killed it was the amount of guarantee they paid at some terminals. Those where it mainly protected yard vacancies or small one or two person extra boards where the regular assigned people it protected didn't lay off very often. Where I worked at the time, we turned on our rest (It began a 10 hour undisturbed rest contract obligation that continued for us until RSIA became law.), had our days off, and still made over guarantee.
I wouldn't mind seeing something like that again. 7 on/3 off for extra boards, 6 on/2 off for pools. (Most pools work out one day, home the next.) Other things instead could be better staffing so boards don't turn as fast. Better line ups so that you could gauge your rest requirements. (This last trip at my away terminal I thought I was going out on my rest, 10 hours, when I tied up. I instead had 22 hours off.)
Some smaller railroads, and even some larger ones, have tried having crews swap trains at a midpoint so that crews returned home. Still being home after every trip doesn't mean much if you're going back out as soon as your rested.
Today's PSR orientated managment wants as few people working as possible. They don't want any excess so that some might have a few hours more at home. If you gave them one person crews, they wouldn't become any more benevolent to those still working. They would still keep things as tight as possible. That's what the draconian attendence policies are meant to do. Intimidate people to not take any time off, except compensated time that as I said can be denied, so that you can keep boards as thin as possible.
Now, all that being written. My own case is different. My road pool doesn't turn real fast. We are not a guaranteed board so what I make depends on how often I work. Our conductors and both engine and trainmen's extra boards are guaranteed. While they keep my, and the other engineer's road boards flush, they keep those guaranteed boards as thin as possible. (I might go back to work in 30 to 40 hours, the conductors and extra boards usually go back to work in 10 -legal rest- to 15 hours. I think they do this, on the engineer's side, because they feel that they can "starve" the road engineers to fill in vacancies, such as yard engines and locals, when the too-thin extra board is depleted. As I said once before, I don't have to accept those off pool assignments and I usually don't.
I wouldn't mind working more, but on my assignment.
Jeff
I put in about 40 years with Chessie and CSX. After about 10 years I could switch pretty much at will between unscheduled road work and scheduled yard or local jobs. I prefered road work but when I'd had enough of that I'd change. The pay on the yard jobs was much lower but I could deal with that.
When CSX got a contract with Schneider for the Chambersburg to North Baltimore intermodal business they put on assigned crews with regular scheduled work and rest days. I worked one day out, one day back, and had about 30 to 35 hours off at home. I worked that for about 5 years until they changed it to rotating pool with the right to drop your turn. That and the fact that they couldn't keep the trains on schedule led me back to a yard job.
I soon realized that I could get more money from Railroad Retirement than what the yard job paid and pulled the pin. I had worked 8 years past my minimun retirement age and might still be working if they had kept the regular assignments.
Now they run all trains out of one pool. You don't know where you're going until you get called and spend little time at home..
BackshopDpeltier wrote... "I can only speculate, but right off the bat - based on what every company has done with non-unionized or exempt employees - they would slash fringe benefits in favor of increasing wages instead. Most people these days will take higher wages over higher benefits. What's that, you say? Every railroader you know loves their benefits and complains bitterly whenever they are cut? My point exactly. The people who love the bennies are already working for either the railroads or the government. Potential new recruits probably feel different." Much of that has to do with new employees being younger, with families where every cent counts. They don't think about health issues (they're invincible) or retirement (working until the day you die sounds romantic). Sometimes, people need to be forced to do something good for themselves. The other problem with your scenario is that it doesn't happen in real life. Here in the Midwest, the auto companies spun off most of their component plants. Most of what's left are assembly plants. The new owners (either Big 3 subsidiaries or suppliers) cut hourly wages, health care insurance and got rid of pensions. Between the three, people have a lot of problems saving in their 401k. There just isn't enough money left over at the end of the month.
"I can only speculate, but right off the bat - based on what every company has done with non-unionized or exempt employees - they would slash fringe benefits in favor of increasing wages instead. Most people these days will take higher wages over higher benefits. What's that, you say? Every railroader you know loves their benefits and complains bitterly whenever they are cut? My point exactly. The people who love the bennies are already working for either the railroads or the government. Potential new recruits probably feel different."
Much of that has to do with new employees being younger, with families where every cent counts. They don't think about health issues (they're invincible) or retirement (working until the day you die sounds romantic). Sometimes, people need to be forced to do something good for themselves. The other problem with your scenario is that it doesn't happen in real life. Here in the Midwest, the auto companies spun off most of their component plants. Most of what's left are assembly plants. The new owners (either Big 3 subsidiaries or suppliers) cut hourly wages, health care insurance and got rid of pensions. Between the three, people have a lot of problems saving in their 401k. There just isn't enough money left over at the end of the month.
but shareholder values......
Dpeltier wrote...
dpeltier Ulrich Never asserted that having a mechanical aptitude and having an engineering degree are the same thing. If they were I'd be a pretty fine engineer, as would most weekend mechanics. Lots of people are mechanically inclined yet aren't engineers.. far more in number I'm guessing than engineers who aren't mechanically inclined.. Im sure there are some, but I don't know of any. For what it's worth, I'm a professional engineer (civil), and I am definitely not mechanically inclined. I can fully wrap my mind around large things that don't move much, but small things that rotate or move in more than one dimension at a time give me trouble. On the other hand, I'm a lot less intimidated by math than a lot of practicing engineers. Dan
Ulrich Never asserted that having a mechanical aptitude and having an engineering degree are the same thing. If they were I'd be a pretty fine engineer, as would most weekend mechanics. Lots of people are mechanically inclined yet aren't engineers.. far more in number I'm guessing than engineers who aren't mechanically inclined.. Im sure there are some, but I don't know of any.
Never asserted that having a mechanical aptitude and having an engineering degree are the same thing. If they were I'd be a pretty fine engineer, as would most weekend mechanics. Lots of people are mechanically inclined yet aren't engineers.. far more in number I'm guessing than engineers who aren't mechanically inclined.. Im sure there are some, but I don't know of any.
For what it's worth, I'm a professional engineer (civil), and I am definitely not mechanically inclined. I can fully wrap my mind around large things that don't move much, but small things that rotate or move in more than one dimension at a time give me trouble.
On the other hand, I'm a lot less intimidated by math than a lot of practicing engineers.
Dan
Similarly, I am not an auto mechanic or an enthusiast who does his own work even though I understand the theory of how cars work pretty well. I don't have the coordination or talent to be a good mechanic. Just takes me too long to do things, and I can't diagnose the root cause of car problems.
Historically, my union focused on pay increases. But this has changed over the past 15 years, and the last few rounds of negotiations have seen us pushing for better benefits and scheduling (call windows), while also standing firm and refusing further reductions in crew size.
While we have gotten some benefit increases and call windows in one form or another are slowly becoming a standard (they still need a lot of work), CN's response in the last round of negotiations was to offer a very substantial wage increase in exchange for eliminating restrictions on what conductor-only crews can do. This would have resulted in the elimination of hundreds of jobs across western Canada alone and significantly increased the workload on conductors working jobs with a lot of switching work, which for decades have been the only ones that still have a brakeman.
Management's current strategy is to try to avoid negotiating with the unions as much as possible and force things into a labour dispute and eventually arbitration, where I think they hope to force through concessions they could never get through negotiations. They do this by stalling as much as possible and proposing ideas that have no real chance of being accepted. They want the smallest number of employees to work as much as possible, and have no concern for time off or quality of life. In every round of negotiations they try to reduce or eliminate the rest and time off provisions that we already have and are very reluctant to discuss ideas that the union puts forward to improve them.
It is also important to note that the call windows I mentioned only came in after Transport Canada told both CN and the union that if they did not negotiate an improved scheduling agreement one would be imposed. Without that threat CN would never have taken this particular idea seriously.
On a more local and daily basis, they have adopted several strategies that maximize the number of hours that each employee spends away from home, which also probably serve to hide a lot of the delays from trying to cram too many long trains across congested mainlines and yards and giving too much work to trains on slow branchlines:
- Deliberately hold trains well back from their destination terminal for hours, and then scramble to move them ahead just under the crew's maximum hours.
- Keep the inbound crew sitting on the train for hours if the outbound isn't ordered yet, and also don't order the outbound until the inbound's hours are already done.
- Hold crews at the AFHT for as long as possible, even if it is clear that you will need to call deadheads at some point in the day. This goes in conjunction with the above point, as our heldaway clock only starts when we go off duty, so the longer the inbound sits on the train the longer they can be held at the AFHT.
- Put crews to bed online if they run out of hours enroute, instead of calling a relief crew. This usually happens on branchlines but has also been happening with increasing frequency on the mainline during congested times. This will delay the train by at least 8 to 12 hours but who cares, the yard can't handle it anyway.
- When you do decide to call a relief crew make it a turn out of the AFHT. This will lengthen that crew's total trip significantly, often by 24 hours (10 hour turn shift + another 14 hour layover).
Except for not calling deadheads, they didn't do any of those other things on a regular basis 10 years ago. And if they chose they could stop doing all of them tomorrow.
dpeltierOr perhaps I'm too pessimistic (or optimistic?), and the job candidates will come flooding back when the labor market cools off.
We used to have regular hour jobs with predictable days off for less pay. They were yard jobs. Work your 8 hours (usually) and go home. Even many of our locals didn't get much OT. If you wanted the big paydays - you could go on teh road or grab one of the locals that regularly made 12. Now with PSR everything is an overtime job, and many yard jobs have been eliminated. Not to mention how much harder they made it to take a day off.
Used to be people quit their first year or stayed for 30. Since PSR became a thing - I've seen guys with 5, 10, 15, even 20+ years say "nuts to this!" and walk out.
More later if I feel like it.
As Yogi Berra said.. "it's tough to make predictions, especially about the future". The freight market has softened somewhat, but overall capacity remains tight.
MP173 "Everyone seems to be hiring..." I think we are on verge of a recession. The freight market is drying up quickly. Consumer spending has stalled due to inflation and much higher costs without corresponding increases. As mentioned above the shortage of labor is due to a number of factors including high number of folks retiring and a lack of bodies to replace them. Again, i wouldnt be surprised to see a recession (and inflation) around the corner. Stagflation anyone?Hope I am wrong. Ed
"Everyone seems to be hiring..."
I think we are on verge of a recession. The freight market is drying up quickly. Consumer spending has stalled due to inflation and much higher costs without corresponding increases.
As mentioned above the shortage of labor is due to a number of factors including high number of folks retiring and a lack of bodies to replace them.
Again, i wouldnt be surprised to see a recession (and inflation) around the corner. Stagflation anyone?Hope I am wrong.
Ed
We might have a very short recession due to rising interest rates to combat inflation. However on the IT side of the fence we are in boom times for at least the next 3-4 years as companies move their applications to cloud type environments and realize fairly significant productivity and cost savings from doing so. It will be roughly similar to the impact the introduction of Windows had on desktop productivity in the 1990's, though maybe not as large.
Additionally workplace automation which is becomming increasingly necessary due to declining birth rates and population groups will become more prevalent in the long-term.....10-15 years.
The casualties on the Russian side in the Ukrainian - Russian war are going to accelerate the population decline in Russia as will the migration out of that country. We'll see by how much but it will be noticeable.
Dan - Just imagine PSR and the carriers having a free hand without any union contracts to comply with. In the carriers ideal, minimum wage and no benefits would be the standard. At present the carriers don't really view that they have any problems in attracting employees and they are only too happy to lose their boomer age employees as they feature they require a bloated pay and benefit structure. In the carriers view the only people deserving of 'real compensation' are in the board room (or board zoom call), all the rest are just peons deserving only a pittance to have a hard scrabble existance and not a life.
jeffhergert Almost all of the railroad's problems in recruiting new employees are of their own making. Jeff
Almost all of the railroad's problems in recruiting new employees are of their own making.
Jeff, I have a hypothesis, and I'd like to hear your take on it. I don't think that the problems are solely of the railroads' own making. l think the situation may be a result of the collective bargaining process operating over time. This is not an anti-union screed - the unions are doing what they should do, representing the interests of their members. But here's my hypothesis: the biggest problem may be the widening gap in expectations and priorities between today's railroaders on the one hand, and the workforce at large on the other.
Collective bargaining agreements are negotiated with, and voted in by, existing workers. As the expectations of workers in society at large have changed over time, the percentage of the population willing to do railroading the traditional way has shrunk - but the people willing to do railroading the traditional way are, almost by definition, the people working for the railroad and voting on the contracts. Terms and conditions that satisfy current employees are not seen as satisfactory by potential employees.
Let's suppose, for a moment, that the railroads were allowed to adjust wages, benefits, and work rules however they wanted in order to make the jobs more attractive to newcomers - BUT, they had to spend the same amount of money overall on labor. (In other words - they are not given an opportunity to reduce cost, just to reallocate costs to help get more people in the door). What would they do? (Let's leave aside the question of crew consist reductions, for now.)
I can only speculate, but right off the bat - based on what every company has done with non-unionized or exempt employees - they would slash fringe benefits in favor of increasing wages instead. Most people these days will take higher wages over higher benefits. What's that, you say? Every railroader you know loves their benefits and complains bitterly whenever they are cut? My point exactly. The people who love the bennies are already working for either the railroads or the government. Potential new recruits probably feel different.
If you reduce benefits enough, you could also potentially keep the non-guaranteed pools a little heavier when the inevitable downturn happens. This would keep more of the new guys working. But, it would mean less $ for everyone else. So again, not likely to be popular at the local chapter meeting.
Finally, I think that if they could start from scratch, management would take a good, hard look at redefining how some of jobs work. Right now, railroaders (especially TYE and especially road crews) are paid a premium to work very undesirable schedules - unpredictable, and incompatible with a lot of the things that contribute to a satisfactory life. Could you add in protections for TYE that would improve quality of life, such as additional scheduled days off (with transportation home), limited call windows, or even fixed hours of availability? Yes, but it would cost a lot of money. I suspect that there are more people in the world outside railroading who would be willing to work for the railroad if the schedule-related quality-of-life issues improved, even if it meant significantly lower per-trip wages. The railroad could quite possibly get a happier, healthier workforce without added labor costs overall. But again, the people who would actually approve such a change are the people who, despite the complaining, have shown (by the fact that they are current employees) that they prefer the bigger paychecks to the better quality time at home.
So in fact I don't think that the problems are all of the railroads' making. The problem is that people are not looking for the kind of jobs that railroads have to offer, and the railroads don't have the ability to adjust the jobs to match the new expectations.
Frankly, the only opportunity I see to snap out of this spiral would be to get some major productivity improvements that free up money for employee quality-of-life improvements. To put it more bluntly, SMART-TD and BLE-T would have to agree to one-person crews, and the carriers would have to give everybody more time off and / or more predictable schedules without cutting pay or benefits. It doesn't appear at the moment that we're on course for such an agreement. And the arbitration and PEB processes that could come into play really don't favor this kind of strategic horse-trading.
Or perhaps I'm too pessimistic (or optimistic?), and the job candidates will come flooding back when the labor market cools off.
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