Stupidest lie you've ever heard from an amtrak employee

[Ryan]

Might I suggest that if you find a topic's drift to be objectionable, use of the "report" button at the bottom right of each post to notify the staff of your objections may be more effective than snarky links back to the OP?

 

[Karl1459]

The power of Amtrak's unions has been seriously exaggerated here and elsewhere. The ability of Amtrak management to determine who is a good employee and who is a bad one has also been seriously exaggerated here and elsewhere. In a disciplinary hearing, the Union serves as the employee's "lawyer". Sometimes he gets good representation & sometimes he gets bad representation. If the Company's Charging Officer can't make a case that the Hearing Officer accepts, then it either means that the employee was not guilty of the charges, or that the Company presented a poor case. And if that's what happened, whose fault is that?

A voice of reason in a chorus of conflict. This is on the lines of what I suspect is reality. Well said.

Great leadership (And I am a fan of Boardman's in that positive changes are happening, be it slowly) will facillate an organization which both labor and management does not tolerate inefficency or poor service.

 

[neroden]

Don't get me wrong. The treatment of workers in most cleaning, fast food, food processing, and warehousing jobs right now (for example -- also adjunct college teachers and a dozen other industries I could name) is appalling and unions seem to be the only sensible way of getting some representation and voice for them. There's a reason SEIU (and the union locals which split from it to form their own unions!) and UNITE HERE have been booming, UCFW has been on a comeback, and various other unions have been making inroads into those industries. Restaurant workers are often treated even worse.

Nobody is founding new "craft unions" (where each class of jobs at a company has its own independent and squabbling union, as opposed to "industrial unions", where the entire shop is organized under one union). There's a reason for this. Most railroads, for some historical reason, are stuck with a completely archaic craft union structure. This seems to discourage holistic thinking and encourage "I got mine, bub" thinking.

Where an union which thinks in terms of solidarity will often focus on eliminating the most dangerous work hazards and raising the pay for all employees, a union which thinks in terms of "I got mine, bub" will often fight to maintain obsolete make-work jobs for senior employees in the "craft" while screwing the new guys. Most of LIRR's unions just agreed to this sort of "screw the youth" deal last week, and they disgust me.

 

[jis]

The best way to make things work is for the rail unions to evolve to an "industrial union" setup encouraging a holistic approach. Amtrak has such an example sort of on the Auto Train. In addition, management and union need to buy into and work towards the same common goals more cooperatively than confrontationally. Not clear how one gets there from here specially when one of the factors in the discussion is reduction of resource requirements to provide the same service. It is a challenge which a good management team should be able to tackle. It is to be seen whether such is in place. Of course some of the necessary changes may still be painful and not liked by many. Of course the established craft unions will hate any such change because it will completely upend the apple cart of the union leadership involved.