Ulrich Euclid I have never suggested or believed that there is any control that determines how large or small the gap between highest and lowest wage should be. But many people here and elsewhere complain that this gap is too large. So since they know this, they ought to be able to explain how large is too large. Of course everyone has the freedom to start their own company and make all pay equal from top to bottom. Actually I don’t expect people to answer these questions. The answer is in their refusal to answer. It works like a charm. The control is supply and demand. You and I might not believe that an entry level NHL hockey player should make more than an experienced cancer researcher.. but the market says otherwise. Diddo for the spread between what the CEO gets and what the worker bees get.. the market is the mechanism that controls the spread.
Euclid I have never suggested or believed that there is any control that determines how large or small the gap between highest and lowest wage should be. But many people here and elsewhere complain that this gap is too large. So since they know this, they ought to be able to explain how large is too large. Of course everyone has the freedom to start their own company and make all pay equal from top to bottom. Actually I don’t expect people to answer these questions. The answer is in their refusal to answer. It works like a charm.
The control is supply and demand. You and I might not believe that an entry level NHL hockey player should make more than an experienced cancer researcher.. but the market says otherwise. Diddo for the spread between what the CEO gets and what the worker bees get.. the market is the mechanism that controls the spread.
Health insurance, RR retirement, and many business owners in a lot of areas still think it's 1950 and $11 an hour is a lot of money.
And I know this is weird, but many RRers actually like RRing.
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
Ulrich Electroliner 1935 Some companies would not treat an animal as they treat their employees. Yet some people choose to work there because???
Electroliner 1935 Some companies would not treat an animal as they treat their employees.
Some companies would not treat an animal as they treat their employees.
Yet some people choose to work there because???
$$$. If you're living paycheck to paycheck you might be willing to put up with a lot more crap at work.
And in the case of the railroads it might be the best paying job they can get in that area.
In the U.S. there is also the little issue of health insurance.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
EuclidI have never suggested or believed that there is any control that determines how large or small the gap between highest and lowest wage should be. But many people here and elsewhere complain that this gap is too large. So since they know this, they ought to be able to explain how large is too large. Of course everyone has the freedom to start their own company and make all pay equal from top to bottom. Actually I don’t expect people to answer these questions. The answer is in their refusal to answer. It works like a charm.
Turds smell. Works like a charm.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
BaltACD Euclid How much gap should there be between the top and bottom wages? Since you are asking the question - poist YOUR answer, since you will disagree with anyone else's.
Euclid How much gap should there be between the top and bottom wages?
Since you are asking the question - poist YOUR answer, since you will disagree with anyone else's.
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Only Mr Market knows the answer to that. And Mr. Market simply reflects our values as a whole..
EuclidHow much gap should there be between the top and bottom wages?
tree68 It's been said that the gap between the top and the bottom wages has been increasing (insanely) for years.
It's been said that the gap between the top and the bottom wages has been increasing (insanely) for years.
Just the same, the lot of those who find themselves at "the bottom" is generally better than it was a hundred years ago. Compare the life of a railroader (they're not at the bottom but just by way of example) of 1922 to one of today and I doubt that anyone would say that things were better in 1922. Of course, the rate of improvement is not linear.. maybe things were better 15 years ago or 30 years ago... but over longer spans things have always improved. What we're experiencing now is serious, and the logjam it will cause in the supply chain will be remembered for years, but this too shall pass, and by 2122 it will be no more than a footnote... remembered by historians only.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
Electroliner 1935Shadow, I love what you post. My employer had reasonable personnel policies that I appreciated. Some companies would not treat an animal as they treat their employees.
And remember, in the railroads, as bad as they treat Contract employees, that is about 10 times better than they treat their first level non-contract supervision (Asst. Trainmasters, Trainmasters, Roadmasters, General Car Dept. Foremen etc). Contract employees have SOME protection in their union contracts and the federal Hours of Service laws, first level supervision doesn't.
Electroliner 1935Some companies would not treat an animal as they treat their employees.
You had to go out and buy a mule. Wokers would show up at the front door.
Shadow, I love what you post. My employer had reasonable personnel policies that I appreciated. Some companies would not treat an animal as they treat their employees.
SD70DudeIf our upper management ever sees the true data from these interviews, they are ignoring it.
Who? Me?
Ulrich The larger progressive companies do exit interviews to determine why people leave. At the end of each quarter they collate the data and report the results to senior management.
The larger progressive companies do exit interviews to determine why people leave. At the end of each quarter they collate the data and report the results to senior management.
CN does exit interviews when conductors or engineers quit, well, if the now former employee will do it (some guys just quit on the spot and literally walk out). Most everyone says something about how bad the management attitude and 'schedule' is.
If our upper management ever sees the true data from these interviews, they are ignoring it.
If you run a business and no one is happy then you're doing something wrong. If run a business and everyone is happy you're doing something wrong too (not that that ever happens).. It's a very fine line..
The larger progressive companies do exit interviews to determine why people leave. At the end of each quarter they collate the data and report the results to senior management. This approach doesn't work so well for smaller businesses as it is statistically based.. and if the numbers are too small they become meaningless in terms of identifying trends.. i.e. a company with five employees has two quits.. one guy turned 80 and decided to retire and the other won the lottery.. clearly the retention numbers took a beating, but none of it was really the employer's fault, and the quits thus don't point to any trend requiring corrective action. Given how large the class 1 railroads are, they must have some pretty good data to identify trends.. they have a good handle on what's not working for them and where they need to improve. The data base is also big enough to allow employers to discard quits that aren't the employers' fault and to hone in on quits that are attributable to the employers' actions. If quits rise sharply directly after a new attendance policy is implemented, for example, then it shouldn't require Sherlock Holmes to conclude that the policy should be amended or discarded.
My boss got bought out about a year ago. The new owner at first could not figure out my job wondering why I was so popular with the drivers. Then he sat beside me for a week and realized just what I did. He also wondered why since he bought us out his own carriers turnover rate dropped 40% in the same timeframe. It was because they had someone that had their back and would listen to their complaints and could forward them to mangement in a way they took notice of them. Things like if the shop was refusing to fix something or if they needed to get home in a hurry and operations was not wanting to get them home. However where I make the biggest help is just being there to listen to complaints and then go lets see what we in the office can do to make your job better. He never realized that just having one person that took care of his drivers issues wheter they where in the home or on the road meant so much for the drivers. The new guy is learning that 1 I take no BS from anyone in his company. 2 in terms of who comes first it is the Drivers then their families then company issues. We had a driver whose wife had a miscarriage. Operations did not want him to fly home from Dallas. Not only did I override them had him on the next plane back to Midway but his replacement driver was on the flight down to get his truck and bring it home. Let's just say the dispatcher that refused to get him home was fired even though he had been with the new parent company for 28 years. Boss realized that in my contract I had with the old boss it states if a dispatcher refuses to do something in an emergency that could cause a driver reason to take legal action I have the power to terminate that dispatcher or whomever else refuses. There was a clause he put in there that stated even if we merged with another carrier as long as I am employed by my old carrier or the new one until my contract was redone. New boss liked that clause and kept it in my new one along with a 25% pay bump. Why instead of 250 drivers I now have about 450 drivers to keep happy.
I won't claim my experience is typical, but it is a real-world case study that may give some insight. I have changed jobs twice in the last six months. About 18 months ago my office was moved from one building to another; my new workspace was close to 1/4 mile and a 40-foot climb from the only available parking, and we went from individual offices for everyone to the non-supervisors sharing small offices or being crammed into small cubicles almost on top of one another. For several years we had been paid less than employees in the same specialty at other agencies in town. I found a job that offered an instant 15% pay increase, my own (small, but my own) office, and parking near the building where I worked. Before leaving, I told the managers at the old job what the pay and conditions were at the new job, and why I was going to leave. I also told them the reason I wanted to leave was 60% pay and 40% office situation and distant parking.
A month after starting the new job, my old boss called and asked if I would consider coming back for another 15% pay raise over what I was making at the new job, which about matched the going rate in town for my specialty. The new pay at the old job would be about a 15% premium over the going rate in town. I thought it over and accepted the offer. Sharing an office and making a long hike morning and evening still isn't ideal, but for a 15% premium over the going rate in town it's tolerable. I only plan to work another five years (I'm 65 now) before retiring, so it won't be forever.
If you want to see the final offers from both the National Carrier's Conference (the railroads) and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, go to this link.
National Contract Negotiations | Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (ble-t.org)
Jeff
Well said, Jeff, Backshop, B&O, Electroliner, Zug, et al. Unions and one political philosophy helped this great nation have an increasingly larger middle class. Too bad it's been eroding since 1981.
tree68 Euclid Also, build in the stipulation that you are willing to give up some pay in exchange for these improvements in working conditions. After a fashion, the railroaders would give up pay for better conditions already. Management notwithstanding, I don't believe most Class 1 railroaders are salaried (I'll gladly stand corrected), being paid only for time worked. Thus any measure that reduces time worked (and thus increases time off) amounts to a cut in pay. And therein lies a conundrum. As for relative value - how do you place a dollar value on attending your kid's baseball game (and witnessing her first home run), or birthday, or First Communion, your wedding anniversary, or any of a host of other life events? This is where draconian attendance rules and the lack of depth in available manpower come home to roost. If you want to improve working conditions, this is where you need to start. Have enough employees available so Joe can go to his kid's champtionship football game without facing a penalty.
Euclid Also, build in the stipulation that you are willing to give up some pay in exchange for these improvements in working conditions.
After a fashion, the railroaders would give up pay for better conditions already.
Management notwithstanding, I don't believe most Class 1 railroaders are salaried (I'll gladly stand corrected), being paid only for time worked.
Thus any measure that reduces time worked (and thus increases time off) amounts to a cut in pay.
And therein lies a conundrum.
As for relative value - how do you place a dollar value on attending your kid's baseball game (and witnessing her first home run), or birthday, or First Communion, your wedding anniversary, or any of a host of other life events?
This is where draconian attendance rules and the lack of depth in available manpower come home to roost.
If you want to improve working conditions, this is where you need to start. Have enough employees available so Joe can go to his kid's champtionship football game without facing a penalty.
Generally, most of the trainmen (Conductors, Brakemen, and Switchmen) have guaranteed boards. Some of the guarantees are for the pay half, the other for the month. If you don't make guarantee, the railroad pays the difference. However, there are things that can take away part or all of the guarantee.
Some engineer's boards (extra, yard and locals) have a guarantee, again some by the half month the other the full month. Road thru freight boards don't have a guarantee. (Local agreements may be in effect that are different than the above for both train and enginemen.) In not having a guarantee, the union local chairman is supposed to control the manning of the road boards. There is a formula to regulate the boards as to adding or removing turns on the boards.
Some jobs have days off. Usually locals and yard jobs. The road and extra boards don't. We had a pilot program about 20 years ago for days off on the extra boards. When implemented, there was no offset for the extra board guarantees. We worked 7 on and 3 off. The days off rotated, and if you worked into your first off day, the 72 hours was extended so you got the full time off. It was that guarantee wasn't modified because of the time off that killed it. Most large terminals that had mostly road vacancies to protect were OK. The extra board worked over guarantee even with the time off. It was the small terminals that either had a few people on the extra board or where the extra board protected a lot of yard jobs. You could work mutiple yard jobs and with the time off, not break guarantee. The paying of guarantee at those terminals is what killed it.
If we had rest days, on both pool and extra boards, the draconian policies might make some sense. You would have an idea when you would be off for appointments, etc. You could schedule some life beyond work. Less reason to take time off between days off, although life's pitfalls don't follow a schedule.
We do have personal leave days, instead of holiday pay, for road and extra board crews. (Currently there are 11 PL days possible. You don't get all 11 at first, it takes time to build to the full 11.) Some places allow us to convert vacation weeks to be used as single days. The problem is, the company must approve the use of PL or single days. The reason of course, is manpower issues. In response to the outcry of their Hi-Viz policy, the BNSF gave their people a few more PL days to use. What good is it to have those days if you aren't allowed to use them?
One more thing about our guaranteed boards. If they are off uncompensated for more than 48 hours within the pay half, they lose the entire guarantee for the half. The uncompensated time off includes time off required because of the RSIA Federal Requirement for working 6/7 consecutive jobs without a period 24 hours off between them. Usually if you're working to enough to get the Federal Rest, you should break guarantee anyway. However, it can be feast or famine, even now. It's possible to work like gang busters and then everything come to a halt. You could work the 6/7 days on one half and then have to lose 2 or 3 days on the next. It could be enough to wipe out the guarantee on a half where things have slowed way down.
While in college, I co-oped with the PRR. ,When graduating I was offered a starting a starting position as a Signal & Communications Assistant Supervisor by the RR. My dad had worked for the MOPAC as a chief Clerk and had been moved from Indianapolis to Chicago to Milwaukee to Cincinnati. When they told him about four years after that move, He said no, and stayed in Cincinnati for the rest of his life. He had two sons in school and didn't want to uproot them. I had observed the supervisors, assistant supervisors and other people I was working with being relocated and working very irregular hours, I chose to NOT accept the PRR's job offer. Also, the "salary" they offered was less than what I was offered by most other positions I was offered.
I can feel the pain the BNSF crews are experiencing and think the upper executives have no concept of what their people have done for them, they see them as a serf to push to do more than is reasonable. Just as they want to overload a locomotive until it stalls or burns out.
diningcar Backshop That's why they fought for unions, OSHA, EPA, etc. Add Quote to your Post The Greatest Generation concept has no distinction for or against unions. Currently people with "free money and health benefits" provided in the last two years and so some are willing not to work as a result.
Backshop That's why they fought for unions, OSHA, EPA, etc. Add Quote to your Post
The Greatest Generation concept has no distinction for or against unions. Currently people with "free money and health benefits" provided in the last two years and so some are willing not to work as a result.
Unions created the 'middle class'. Employees compensated with both money time conditions that allowed those employees to have a life. Being able to own a home and enough 'free time' to be able to have a family and interact with those family members and all the trials and travails that happen in families.
What BNSF (and other carriers) is doing with their Hi-Viz attenance policy is to 'claw back' the time employees had for family life.
Carriers while they have negotiated Vacation and Personal Leave provisions in the various craft contracts tend to do everything they can to prevent employees from using those benefits to the employees advantage.
2. Any stimulus money is long gone. Nobody can live on that amount of money for long.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/07/15/president-biden-signs-executive-order-creating-a-presidential-emergency-board/?fbclid=IwAR1oJUnjl9wOv4JBMxGrOIzZzQUzfDml-eflI5KNIkXxvHI9Oq2ecj8OwOM
For those keeping score at home.
My sense is that the majority of railroaders would give up some pay in return for more regular, predictable schedules, and enough time off to lead a semi balanced life.
in law there's the concept of What would a reasonable person deem to be X. I don't think most non-railroaders would deem current RR attendance policies to be fair.
People deserve to have some balance in their lives, and having to wait 10-20 years is not reasonable.
Still in training.
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