DON'T MAKE AMTRAK WAL-MART ON WHEELS

[Save Our Trains Michigan]

“The proposal to sack assistant conductors would mean leaving up to 600 passengers in seven separate coaches to fend for themselves in the event of an accident, fire or terrorist attack,” Thompson said. “I was shocked that Gunn and Laney referred to assistant conductors as ‘ticket collectors,’ even though they know full-well that assistant conductors are responsible for passenger safety and are the front-line of defense against terrorist threats.

“Repeatedly, the National Transportation Safety Board has cited the efforts of assistant conductors in saving lives following passenger train accidents,” Thompson said. “The conductor has a responsibility to assess accident damage, give instructions to the engineer and communicate with the dispatcher. The assistant conductor leads passengers to safety and helps the conductor coordinate assistance from emergency responders,” Thompson said.

“The Gunn-Laney attack on FELA follows a similar attack by freight railroads – and both will be beaten back by the UTU,” Thompson said. “FELA creates a powerful incentive not to cut safety corners. Safe railroads need not fear FELA.

“The attack on Railroad Retirement is reckless, unprovoked and an especially mean-spirited assault on working families,” Thompson said. “The Railroad Retirement Board has warned that without Amtrak participation, Railroad Retirement benefits to hundreds of thousands of current and future beneficiaries would have to be cut by 16 percent.

Full Story

 

[engine999]

This is very suprising to me that Gunn is supporting an initiative like this one. Unfortunatley it looks like this is the only solution the board can somewhat agree on. It seems reckless to cut workers and slash wages.

My opinion is amtrak should cut management, and get rid of poor employees.

 

[haolerider]

This is a one-sided report of the testimony and, of course, it is slanted toward the union employees. Employees doing their jobs and giving the company a full days work for a full days pay don't have anything to worry about.

Changes need to be made - for example the fact that union employees would continue to be paid for 5 years after the closure of routes is obsolete and simply does not make sense in these days. This is nothing but "feather-bedding" at its worst.

As Gunn has said - "Business as usual isn't working and needs to change."

 

[AmtrakFan]

I am very Angry at this propsal.

 

[AlanB]

My opinion is amtrak should cut management, and get rid of poor employees.

Amtrak did cut management considerably over the last two years.

As for getting rid of poor employees, the unions make that almost impossible.

 

[Ray L. Nutz]

I think this Amtrak person makes a very well stated case:

Re: UTU: Don't make Amtrak Wal-Mart on wheels

Author: 4merroad4man

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Let's review:

When Amtrak took over operation of trains, the standard railroad crew for a long distance train was a TBM (train/baggageman) who was not obliged to go on or off duty with the rest of the crew. A flagman was standard equipment as was a Conductor. In the locomotive cab were and Engineer and Fireman. All crews were provided by the host carrier. If the train consist exceeded a specific number of revenue cars, an additional crew member was required. These crews were paid by the mile on a passenger service mileage basis with overtime after eight hours.

When Amtrak took over, the carrier demanded concessions and such were agreed to. More concessions were agreed to and finally more. Granted, the organizations won some carrier concessions, for agreements are not hammered out by one side alone, but the carrier recieved much more than did the organizations. The 100 mile day was the first to go, replaced immediately by an hourly wage, unheard of at the time Amtrak implemented crew takeovers. The hourly wage remains, and is accompanied by frequent inaccuracies or shortages in pay (yes, one engineer I know did not receive a correct paycheck for over 11 months. This went on until he got a lawyer).

Today, a single engineer works on any segment less than 6 hours, regardless if the trip occurs during night or day. A Conductor is assigned to trains with less than a specific number of revenue cars and an Assistant Conductor is assigned when the number of revenue cars exceeds that threshold. The flagman is long gone, TBM's have gone the way of the do-do and these short crews now are required to dog-catch their inbound trains for crews which have expired under the hours of service act, switch trains on arrival, sometimes right up against their 12 hour limit and a host of other "generosities" which the Carrier frequently takes advantage of by cutting extra boards, working those left without much consideration for rest or other needs. Pay has not been increased (except mandated Cost of Living increases each year or so...a few cents cents here, a few cents there) since the last agreement, so long ago I can't remember even when it expired. Engineers and Conductors have worked without a contract for a significantly long period, understanding that our jobs depended upon tolerance of a Congress which merely provides life support and 30 years' worth of upper management which mishandled renovation work, train operations, invented glidepaths to self sufficiency and a host of other money pits.

An Engineer or Conductor in Amtrak service makes far less than his or her freight counterpart, and while the jobs are different in many aspects, the need for safe train operations and the accompanying skill sets remains the same. And whether in freight or passenger, it is every bit as easy to be fired, disciplined or even killed.

I make no opinion about the Wal-Mart analogy, but I fail to understand why it is so difficult to accept that increased responsiblities and the increasing demands placed upon rail workers simply demands compensation equal to the rigors placed upon said employees. This query also goes for field managers as well, since they too are being placed in unteneble positions, with demands placed upon them which are sight-unseen by many employees and the public.

We all accept the demands of our jobs without complaint, and do understand that they are good jobs worthy of our protection. That is why we have been most tolerant of Amtrak's position over the past many years, and why most professional railroaders on this board know exactly where I am coming from and why we, for the most part, are so shocked that Amtrak's "plan" basically mimic the President's attempts to write us off, especially given the fact that HR1631 provides time to work out something reasonable over the next 3 years.

You know, if it was just me, maybe I wouldn't be so vocal, but this affect innocents like my family, and others in the amtrak system. For them, it simply isn't fair.

 

[GG-1]

My opinion is amtrak should cut management, and get rid of poor employees.

Amtrak did cut management considerably over the last two years.

As for getting rid of poor employees, the unions make that almost impossible.

Aloha

Unions only make the employeer prove his complaint. As a union rep I have had way to many times when a worker shoud be dissaplined but the company rep couldn't be bothered, lead to the repeated poor performance. Both side need to work together.

Team work gets it done.

United we stand, Divided we fall.

enough cliches

 

[Save Our Trains Michigan]

If Amtrak was to go all railroaders will be screwd we will have a hell of a lot less in RR Retirement and all the laws that were put into place when amtrak was formed.I sure as hell don't want non union people running trains on the tracks i work on for 1 reason if you don't make money you don't give a sh^% what youre doing. :angry:

 

[AlanB]

I sure as hell don't want non union people running trains on the tracks i work on for 1 reason if you don't make money you don't give a sh^% what youre doing. :angry:

Matt,

As I mentioned in another topic on the forums, Amtrak's proposal specifically states that Congress must require any other entity to comply will all existing labor laws, which means that any competitor would have to use union workers.

That of course assumes that Congress adopts Amtrak's proposal. If Congress goes off on some tangent, well then who knows. However, under no circumstances does Amtrak's proposal advocate using non-union workers to run the trains. I quote from the proposal.

Make all intercity passenger rail operators subject to the same labor laws.

If Amtrak was to go all railroaders will be screwd we will have a hell of a lot less in RR Retirement and all the laws that were put into place when amtrak was formed

Now if Amtrak were to fold, then yes this would be a possiblity, however I can't imagine Congress letting a failure of the RR retirement happen, much less a failure of Amtrak.

As for Amtrak's proposal, I'm sorry but the UTU is simply crying wolf on this issue. Amtrak is not proposing to pull out of the RR retirement program abruptly. They are proposing that all new hires not be made members of the RR program and instead will go into the regular SS programs that every other worker in the US is in.

Amtrak will continue to pay for the existing former Amtrak workers who have retired, and they will continue to pay for those currently employeed who are already in the RR program. Yes eventually the freight RR's might have to kick up their contributions to the plan 10 - 15 years or more down the road as Amtrak will eventually have less and less workers to pay for.

However, I for one consider the fact that the freight RR's will have to pay more as fair. After all for the last 30 years, Amtrak has been paying monies for workers who never ever worked one day in their lives for Amtrak. Amtrak got saddled with something like 5 Billion dollars or more paying for the retirements of workers who were never employed by Amtrak.

People are crying about the $29 B given to Amtrak over the last 30+ years, but right off the top of that is more than $5 B that Amtrak paid out for no reason, except the greed of the freight RR's. Those monies should have been paid for by the freight RR's, but they sweet talked Congress into saddling Amtrak with those monies.

IMHO, it's about time that Amtrak, in conjuction with Congress, saddled them back and forced them to pay the correct amount for all of the freight RR workers past and present. Of course the freight RR's will fight this tooth & nail and I have no doubt that you and your brethern will have to fight them over this, if indeed Congress accepts Amtrak's proposal.

But again, Amtrak won't suddenly depart from the RR fund under this proposal. It will be a gradual fade out, giving the freight RR's plenty of time to step up to the plate and do the right thing. Or failing that, being forced to do the right thing by the union's and Congress.

 

[AlanB]

Aloha
Unions only make the employeer prove his complaint. As a union rep I have had way to many times when a worker shoud be dissaplined but the company rep couldn't be bothered, lead to the repeated poor performance. Both side need to work together.

Team work gets it done.

United we stand, Divided we fall.

enough cliches

I'll cite just two examples where sadly that's not true.

One occured in NYC, where a school teacher was discovered to have lied on his application about criminal convictions. He was fired for that. Despite the fact that he had plead guilty and served time for his crime in another state, the union fought for him and got him his job back.

It took about two years, before he got his job back. Six months later, he commited the same type of crime again. His crime, rape of an underaged student. Both times. Yet the union fought for and placed a convicted rapiest back in the school. Thankfully this guy is still in jail at present.

Next, I'll cite an example from Amtrak since that's what we're really discussing here. This goes back about 4 or 5 years ago, so perhaps things have changed since then, but I'm not so sure.

An attendant who worked coaches on long distance trains was fired for theft. Not theft from the company, but theft from the passengers. A passenger returning from either the lounge or the diner (it escapes me right now), found the attendant going through his bags. This was witnessed by yet another passenger in the car, not related or in any way associated with passenger #1.

Amtrak police were called and upon searching said employee's personal baggage, found jewels and money from several other passengers. Said employee was terminated. Six months later, the union got him his job back.

In addition to the theft issue, this employee was also very abrupt if not rude to the passengers. About a year and a half after his reinstatement, an undercover Amtrak officer on the train witnessed the employee once again stealing from a passenger.

This time he was hauled off to jail and convicted. AFAIK, he's still in jail. Hopefully the union won't require Amtrak to hire him back upon his release.

 

[AlanB]

Now, having been a bit harsh perhaps in my last two posts about the union, I will add one thing.

The post made by Ray does highlight one area where Amtrak is without a doubt at fault. All union employee's, not just engineers, have been working for years without a contract. Now while I do understand that it is hard for Amtrak to negotiate, since they never know how much money they are going to get from Congress, that nonetheless does not diminish the fact that the workers deserve a fair contract with fair wages.

It is a well documented fact that every Amtrak worker, from engineer to attendant to cafe car worker, could make more money if they went elsewhere to do a similar, if not identical job.

I'm not sure about some of the work rules issues, since I'm not privy to all of those details. However, the fact remains that Amtrak workers have been working for years now, without a new contract. Other than minor cost of living increases, they have not seen a real raise in years.

This is a situation that must be rectified and soon.

 

[IceColdMintJulep]

Unions need an overhaul as bad as Amtrak does. I don't know much about the TY&E part of it, but there are a bunch of people in maintenance getting a free ride thanks to the union. Definately not a full days work for a full days pay. Unions have the potential to become great, but are held back by corrupt leaders and lazy employees. I having worked as a union employee for BNSF and now am under AFGE feel I can say this. I hope I don't offend anyone, because there a alot of good hard-working union folks out there, just not nearly enough---at least in my experience.