TrainsMag.com Reader Poll – November 14, 2003

[BaltACD]

QUOTE: Originally posted by atsfan1

QUOTE: Originally posted by DennisHeld

This is exactly the problem with corporate America now days. I'm surprised that the headlines weren't "CSX cuts 1000 jobs, buys 1 million bucks of Super Bowl tickets and gives CEO and CFO 1 million in bonuses. I don't mind Exec's getting a good salary. But come on. Just the perks they get are more than the Average Joe makes in total wages. Maybe Bush can give them another tax break so they can make ends meet!

I don't know about the CEO's but Bush's tax break helped me and I'm an average working stiff.

The bigger question is...With the Bu***ax plan and other anti-worker laws and actions....how long will you be an 'average working stiff'. Stiff you may become, but average and working, as we have previously known it in the US, is rapidly becoming a thing of the past.

[Anonymous]

This sort of behaviour is disgraceful. We get it just the same in England. The government sold off our national railway sytem to private enterprise about a decade ago and it has basically never worked since. Almost all of us here want it to be nationalised again but we are told that the polls show that we don't. Why is it that I never meet anyone who wants it to remain private!!!!?

Ian

[Anonymous]

After reading about football tickets for CSX brass and layoffs, added to Walmart exploiting the third world for cutthroat pricing, I fully understand why we are the most hated people on earth.
Ken on the left coast

[Anonymous]

I doult very much if Bush had anything to do with it. It is just plain bad management from a greedy little person CEO trying to make points to the stockholders. I am sure some of the tickets will go for ATTA BOYS and Large customers.(Shippers) His timeing is not very good. BAD PR. I hope it backfires on his BUTT. John P

[kenneo]

I would have liked to voted for Monday and Wednesday, but the bald faced greed shown in the CSX layoff and ticket purchase just fries me. Economists tell us that it was the railroads and the middle class that built America and when the auto industry came about, it was the RR, middle class and autos. It is the middle class that has historically kept the consumer economy alive, and now with all of the dumbsizing in all of industry along with the moving of manufacturing jobs off-shore, that economic engine is fast going away. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

[Anonymous]

THE POINT IS SIMPLE, DOWN SIZE THE WHOLE WORKING CLASS, AND THEY WILL BUY MORE PRODUCTS. THAT IS BUSH ECONOMICS PERIOD

[brilondon]

The Super Bowl tickets are for the most part gifts for their customers who without customers more than 1000 people would be gone as the entire company/corporation would shut its doors. Also they never talk about the people they have to hire over the summer when track maintenance is at its peak and most of the hires are temporary hires to facilitate the maintinance if the infrastructure to keep the railroad running.

[Anonymous]

O.K. Who thinks That CSX Is really low on the favorite railroad lists Right Now. I mean this totally sucks For those employees, I personally think that the 1,000,000 Should go to the workers and I think other people would agree

[MikeSanta]

Those clowns make Union Pacific look respectable. All UP does is try to scam Lionel for making UP trains. Norfolk Southern hassles "foamers"(us, railfans) and BNSF does genetic testing on its employees. That leaves the Canadian railroads and the short lines, I guess.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by emtemt

do we have any ceo comments on this. do they (ceo) have the courage to go up to the families and tell them, sorry with christmas is coming up but watch me from the super bowl.

The CEO's will be much too busy planning their respective vacations (as well as attending the Super Bowl) to leave comments in this forum. Corporate America--always TRUE TO FORM.

[Anonymous]

do we have any ceo comments on this. do they (ceo) have the courage to go up to the families and tell them, sorry with christmas is coming up but watch me from the super bowl.

[Anonymous]

[:(!] This really BITES! The corporate brass at CSX should all be horse-whipped. What an appalling, pathetic story. I hope the 1,000 workers whom were laid off strike it rich and then yell--with great joy--at the Armani-clad head honchos at CSX, " How do you like us NOW, a--wipes???" Pity the average joe in America, just trying to make an honest wage for honest labor.

[Anonymous]

the only reason I chose CN and BC rail is because they are Canadian!

[ironhorseman]

The article says nothing about who will receive the tickets. The article didn't say it was cutting jobs to save money, the jobs were cut to better serve it's customers, what ever that means.

A Superbowl is a big deal for a city. It boosts the local economy. But those tickets would have been bought, with or with out CSX's help. So who's gonna get the tickets? The fired employees as part of a severance package? Or the CEOs so they can sit in their skyboxes? Or will they be donated to radio stations so they can be raffeled off to the 7th caller?

Until we know where those tickets are going we may never know the real motivation or even if the firings and the tickets are related events.

Business deserves what it gets. If they blunder, then that's what they deserve.

[Anonymous]

Pretty tacky on CSX management's part to lay off all those people and then purchase Super Bowl tickets all within a couple of days of each event!

[Anonymous]

Re: The CSX blunder:

One thing actually has little to do with the other. The superbowl tickets given to importsant customers would be a reasonable action. If the tickets are going to management, THEY should be fired.

The lay-offs are not unreasonable if it contributes to the efficiancy of operation. BTW, $1MM is only $1000/ laid-off person. They could of course added the $ to the severance package! The mistake was doing both actions simultaneously. Bad vibes!

Rich Witt

[Anonymous]

the only way that they could buy the super bowl tickets was to cut all those jobs. just goes to show how corporate america actually dosen't care about its employees

[Anonymous]

since the csx are plannigng to cut 1,000 jobs and have the gall to spend billions of dollars to buy super bowl tickets is down right stupid. maybe the money spent for the people attending the superbowls are the ceo's and all his cronies who don't know beans about sport

[Anonymous]

if you figure their average cost per employee is 80K/year (40K year salary + 40K overhead) thats 125 employees. Not a big dent in 1000 people, but still it might have been nicer to say 875 instead of 1000.....

Who needs football anyways?

-- Randy

[Anonymous]

I'd rather watch trains run than trailer trucks. The rails built the nation and it takes a few CEO's to tear down a system that has employed millions(including my grandfather,Joseph Zeppa) since it's beginnings. Kick the CSX CEO's in their collective butts for such a stupid move!

[Anonymous]

"If you want to eat vote Democrate, if you want to starve vote "pub"
Friends don't let friends vote republican." Yeah Casey but, remember a Dem. signed N.A.F.T.A. It is time that us working joes woke up and smelled the coffee. Neither the D.or R. give a hoot about us, just getting re-elected. Our standard of living is NOT getting better. The "SLAVE" owners (read corp C.E.O.'s and Wall St. Exec's) are getting outrageously fat off of our work,while we eek out an existance.

[Anonymous]

If you want to eat vote Democrate, if you want to starve vote "pub"
Friends don't let friends vote republican

[Anonymous]

Well it is just following the foot steps of Dr. Thomas Durant. Some things in railroading never change. Screwing the little guy has its roots deep in rail history. But, it doesn't have to be that way. There was a time when working for the railroad was being part of the team and knowing you'd be taken care of.

[Anonymous]

The story of corporate greed is an old story. The fact that the economy is picking up, seems like much bigger news to me!

[JoeKoh]

Csx has been maintenance"blitzing" here in the area.I dont think a quick fix is the answer for them.
stay safe
joe

[narpterry]

IF employment can be cut by 1000 without impacting the level of service, then previous management has been completely ineffective . CSX does not have great service levels and they have had numerous situations where level of maintenance has caused numerous derailments. Ony time will tell the impact of cutting jobs.

[Anonymous]

I voted for the CN acquisition of BC Rail since I am Canadian and model the CN. A lot of people are protesting CSX's decision to lay off workers and then buy super bowl tickets. These people don't have the full stoy yet..It sounds pretty awful, but we don't have the facts. Maybe the tickets are part of the advertising department's way of enticing or keeping customers to boost their bottom line and laying off employees is another way of another department. As much as we don't like it the bottom line is the real figure to CSX. Some people are making a political statement, but I say lets leave politics out of this forum

[JoeUmp]

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think that continued funding of Amtrak is pretty inportant too.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by ginajim

Wall Street will applaud CSX for Cost Cutting and another 1000 will join the Wal-Mart
employee pool. Good-bye Middle-Class, Hello Third World.


I have never heard it put so well ...short ,conscise & to the point....WELL DONE,ginajim.....I am a conductor w/ BNSF and I'm afraid we're next......[8]