Backshop Once you've made enough, then you want the time to enjoy it
I'm reminded of story the late radio personality Don Imus told about himself. After being discharged from the Marines he got a job as a brakeman on the Southern Pacific. He quit after a year. As he put it "I was making good money on the railroad, DAMN good money, and I liked the job, but I never got a day off! What's the good of the money if you can't spend it and enjoy it?"
BackshopOnce you've made enough, then you want the time to enjoy it.
I'm pretty sure I've related this story before, but in the current context, it bears repeating. I've forgotten the source.
A company produced a product that was not terribly difficult on the personnel. It was mutually decided that said company would go to 12 hour days, and work only three days per week. Everyone was on board with this.
After a while, the employees asked to return to a more normal schedule. It seems that they could not afford all the time off.
Think about it - if you like to go camping, f'rinstance, and every weekend is a four day weekend, wouldn't you be tempted to head out virtually every weekend?
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...
Murphy Siding Euclid- On a thread a little while back, you mentioned that you did contract excavating work, or something similar (?) How are you compensating your employees so that their real wages are keeping up with inflation?
Euclid- On a thread a little while back, you mentioned that you did contract excavating work, or something similar (?) How are you compensating your employees so that their real wages are keeping up with inflation?
As far as him being focused on wages, I don't think he's ever had a job that made "enough money". Once you've made enough, then you want the time to enjoy it. If the railroads offered higher wages now, they would want more onerous work rules in return. Can you say "one man crews"?
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Murphy SidingLet's say that investing in a new machine or new technology made a company more efficient and more profitable, but it cost $20,000 per year. Even though the gains were more than $20,000, would a company buy into it?
I used to have to "sell" improvement projects to a results-oriented entrepreneur all the time. And I found that his expectations were.....dynamic.
If ithe idea was something he wanted to do anyway, a payback in 7-10 years was more than acceptable. Projects he was less enthusiastic over, that bar was raised considerably.
Maybe I should have capitalized Loot?
Murphy Siding Convicted One Plus, where is the railroad gonna get the extra $20K? If they try to get it from their customers, I suspect that all the business that the railroads have managed to claw back from trucking, will go back to the trucks, volume goes down, and demand for labor follows. They aren't gonna get it from the stockholders, they've grown accustomed to their loot. And I don't see the executive wing cutting back their compensation packages, in order to share. Something I feel the Scrooge McDucks of the world don't understand is investing in employees. Let's say that investing in a new machine or new technology made a company more efficient and more profitable, but it cost $20,000 per year. Even though the gains were more than $20,000, would a company buy into it? It works the other way as well. I'll guarantee you, that any company that cuts wages or benefits suddenly has employees that aren't as efficient as they used to be. The Scrooge McDucks just don't get it.
Convicted One Plus, where is the railroad gonna get the extra $20K? If they try to get it from their customers, I suspect that all the business that the railroads have managed to claw back from trucking, will go back to the trucks, volume goes down, and demand for labor follows. They aren't gonna get it from the stockholders, they've grown accustomed to their loot. And I don't see the executive wing cutting back their compensation packages, in order to share.
Plus, where is the railroad gonna get the extra $20K? If they try to get it from their customers, I suspect that all the business that the railroads have managed to claw back from trucking, will go back to the trucks, volume goes down, and demand for labor follows.
They aren't gonna get it from the stockholders, they've grown accustomed to their loot.
And I don't see the executive wing cutting back their compensation packages, in order to share.
Something I feel the Scrooge McDucks of the world don't understand is investing in employees. Let's say that investing in a new machine or new technology made a company more efficient and more profitable, but it cost $20,000 per year. Even though the gains were more than $20,000, would a company buy into it? It works the other way as well. I'll guarantee you, that any company that cuts wages or benefits suddenly has employees that aren't as efficient as they used to be. The Scrooge McDucks just don't get it.
Remember that the PEB report stated that employees weren't responsible for profits.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Are we all forgetting that WE, with our pension funds, are the stockholders?
You and I, with our meager investments, are hardly recognizable.
Qualifier: this is just the way I would look at it. If I could earn $50-60 grand a year bending conduit or servicing peoples furnaces AND HAVE a semi-normal home life vs earning $70 grand per year as a locomotive engineer, but having to endure the unusually demanding schedule plus the hostile management style we hear so often about........the choice to me.... is simple,.. sayonara foamers!!
IF for some reason the railroads decided to sweeten that to $90K.....I might think about it as far as the lop sided schedule goes....but still having to deal with an employer that believes harrassing it's employees is key to it's survival, is still a deal killer.
So, I believe a big part of the reason that things currently are the way they are, is because the rank and file is the "low hanging fruit" as far as who management can squeeze and get away with it. Good luck trying to change that.
The purchasing power of railroad wages is for sure affected by inflation. Of course. But such is the case for every single other job in the economy. So I don't believe Euclid's theory holds water.
I tend to believe Jeff. With inflation high, people will gravitate more to high-paying jobs, despite the working conditions. So railroads may actually be doing better with hiring than many other industries.
This is railroad forum, so we are more aware of the RR labor shortage, but all sectors are greatly affected. This is more than anything a result of Covid.
Could railroads attract more labor if working conditions were better. Sure. Same as other industries.
Still in training.
Murphy Siding... This month, we set a new all-time sales record. Next week, I'm ordering pizzas for the crew and telling them thanks for their hard work. I won't hear a peep from upper management about the sales record, but I will hear about why I spent precious company money on pizza. I bet the railroads don't buy pizza for their employees or tell them thank you for their hard work. They probably should. Pay is important, but it's not the only thing that keeps people at a specific job.
This month, we set a new all-time sales record. Next week, I'm ordering pizzas for the crew and telling them thanks for their hard work. I won't hear a peep from upper management about the sales record, but I will hear about why I spent precious company money on pizza. I bet the railroads don't buy pizza for their employees or tell them thank you for their hard work. They probably should. Pay is important, but it's not the only thing that keeps people at a specific job.
I can't speak to the PSR world of railroading. That being said, when I was still working local management would 'reward' the employees of my facility when some particular objective had been achieved. Sometimes it would be a pizza party, sometimes it would be a catered BBQ party. While I was working, local management, did view us as valued human beings.
Since I have retired, the Dispatching Office was moved back to Jacksonville with a number of people, that came from Jacksonville in 2008 remaining in Baltimore and NOT following their jobs back to Jacksonville. Shortly after the Dispatching Office was moved the lease for the space occupied by both the Dispatching Office and the Division Offices was canceled after being in effect for in excess of 40 years. The space was immediately leased by Cowan Trucking. The Division Offices were moved to some location on the property of the Curtis Bay Coal Pier (which had a coal dust explosion in December 2021). A garden spot to work. [/sarcasm]
I'm hesitant to jump into a thread that will probably run off the tracks as being not really about railroading. <There, I put in my effort to make it somewhat railroad oriented. euclid wants to make it all about money. That's too simple-minded. In more realistic terms, it's more like bang for the buck. Your job has to have a balance between what you get paid, how much you like or dislike the job, and whether you can pay the mortgage and have a life. It's a moving target, as so many factors affect it. Like it or not, I am middle management. I have about 17-18 guys working for me. On average, most of us have worked there between 10 and 15 years. (33 for me, and I'm about 6th in time companywide). My newest guy has been there a month. I haven't had an overly amount of turnover, but the rate is increasing. In the last 12 monts, I've had 4 people move on. All 4 had worked there less than a year. Two left for personal reasons (their personal lives were a mess and they thought being a mess at a different job would somehow be different?) One left for better pay, but more importantly, better opportunities to advance. The most recent one left to develop his part-time business into his full-time dream job. None of the 4 left simply because the employer down the road is paying more. There's always that balance. What works for my operation is to treat employees like humans and not like replaceable cogs in a machine. Treat your employees well and they will treat the company well. Treat them like dirt, and you get what you deserve. Right now, I have 18 guys that work together as a team. We're all rowing in the same direction and we all know where we're going, and why. And, they all get along with each other! Seven miles away, our sister company has the exact same operation, with a different outlook and different results. Our upper managment must be similar to that of a railroad, or any other big corporation. It's all about money and money is all about numbers- people be damned, you're getting in the way of additional profits. A lot of years back, I worked for a big corporation. When they sent any paperwork to employees, it was always sent to your home address. They didn't put your name on it. Mine were addressed to Big Corporation employee #43-04. I always felt like that was their way of reminding me that I was a replaceable part in a machine. This month, we set a new all-time sales record. Next week, I'm ordering pizzas for the crew and telling them thanks for their hard work. I won't hear a peep from upper management about the sales record, but I will hear about why I spent precious company money on pizza. I bet the railroads don't buy pizza for their employees or tell them thank you for their hard work. They probably should. Pay is important, but it's not the only thing that keeps people at a specific job.
Three very elucidating responses to an interesting though overly simplified initial post.Thanks!
EuclidThe only impediment will be when this collective price increase is passed on to the end user/consumer. That group will then decide whether they need the goods and services at the new inflated price. They are likely to cut their consumption of goods and services as their prices rise. That is just simply supply and demand.
I really believe that the problem is a little more complex than you give credit for.
For the past several decades, the labor market has been a buyer's market. Now with boomers starting to leave the workforce in significant numbers....that is changing.... expanding opportunities for good paying jobs that do not require as big a sacrifice in "quality of life" areas. So, fewer people are finding it necessary to sell out, just to find a decent paycheck.
Even if the railroads up the ante by $20K/yr, some prospective employees might be swayed, but not everyone.
Perhaps a bit of the Hawthorne Effect comes into play here.
A study done quite a few years ago sought to determine the effect the lighting in a factory had on production. The plan was to gradually lower the light level and see what happened.
Unfortunately, the workers were made aware of the study. The darker the factory got, the more production rose...
People will do a job they enjoy for starvation wages.
You can't pay people enough to do a job they don't enjoy.
Every personnel management course I've ever taken has placed pay pretty far down the scale of what's important to people.
By most accounts, the pay at the Class 1's is reasonable. Of course, few will turn down an increase in wages, but that's not the issue.
The issue is the quality of life - many factors of which have been mentioned in various threads here.
The cure, of course, is to hire more help, and to keep that help on the books. A couple of bean counters just died of fright - doing so will cost money the railroads don't want to spend (or should I say, the activist investors). But knowing that I'll be going to work at the same time each day, and will be able to enjoy some semblance of a family life has a value the bean counters cannot compute.
I say the only reason they DO get some to hire out is the current wages. They are above almost all other blue collar jobs.
Yes, the inflationary pressure is felt by all wage earners, the lower the wage level, the more it is felt. About the only thing one can do it is find a way to raise your wages. For many, the only way to do that is to take a different job.
The railroad TE&Y crafts have always been demanding of a person's quality of life, i.e. time away from work. With the current PSR environment those pressures have intensified. Couple that for a new-hire that as soon as there is a dip in traffic the railroad will cut them off for who knows how long someone might think twice about even trying. If that's not enough, add the fact that all the class ones are saying they need to eliminate a large part of their work force. That is trainmen, conductors. The jobs that new hires are going to hold for quite a while.
Jeff
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