Thread regarding Union Pacific Corp. layoffs

Yeah, right.

@OP I don't think the UP leadership is taking suggestions. As far I know they never have.

I was in management when I was there (brief pit-stop). I upset more than one person by asking why there were so many layers of management and redundancy in senior leadership positions. The inflation of senior management is literally costing the company millions of dollars.

I thought the mowing yards example was about as simple as you can make it without adding a coloring book. I know we have some dumb managers but i don't think any of them will make you go home.
Your welcome to sit in the locker room until tomorrow if you want. Stay as long as you want just don't expect the guy with a life that carried your slow a$$ and did twice as much in half the time to sit with you. Now back to suggestions for leadership. Keep cutting from the top down. I mean we're used to it but at least it's going both ways now. They need larger territories because their always in the yard blocking the road telling some guy working what he already knows. If you want the white suv and the ability to break every safety rule under the sun in order to fire a guy working you have to earn it.

I quit early all the time. I just stay at work. The railroad doesnt want me to do my job anyways. Win/win

that is a very dumb response to what I just typed out. and that stuff only started after managers tried to start hiding "early quits" from their own bosses because of the pressure put upon them to not allow them. that's basically where you don't tie up and go home and call it in or have one guy tie everybody up with passwords they are given which is something you aren't supposed to do anyway.

here's a better idea. just let people tie up when they're done and don't hide an "early quit". that's what they used to do. then you won't have people going on while still on duty. you can tie up before 8 hours and still get paid for 8 unless you tie up in like 2 hours. if you are tying up in 2 hours then yeah cut the job.

Here’s another scenario. An early quit guy gets k–led in a car accident on the way home. His wife sues the c-ap out of the railroad. He was on duty. She wins. Another. Guy gets an early quit. He stops and pours three quick drinks down, hits and k–ls a jaywalker. The jaywalkers family sues and wins. Because he was on duty. A railroader sues the company for his paralysis from being shot while on an early quit. He was on duty. All three of those examples are true stories. Just because you went home doesn’t change the fact you were on compensated time during your regular workday.

Yes, there are bigger fish to fry right now than early quits. However, since you and others mentioned it, I'll beat the dead horse a little more and join in. I'm assuming we're only talking about yard jobs because "early quits" doesn't really apply to the road.

Hunter at CSX also complained about "early quits". Both on the union side and nonagreement.

If you just say "hey this guy is paid to do 8 hours work and he wants to leave in 7", then it makes the person sound lazy. However, some of you have never actually done work in the field or been a field manager and it shows. Most shifts in the yard have their own set trains to build at certain times. Night shift, morning shift, and afternoon shift. What ends up happening is a lot of times is a certain shift ends up building a lot more during their shift than they were supposed to by plan. For instance, maybe you got some slow guys on the night shift, so the morning shift finishes the night shifts trains, then builds their own trains for the morning. Now, some yardmasters/managers get greedy and then want the morning shift to do some afternoon trains too. Now one good crew is doing the work for 3 shifts. Maybe not all the work, but they're touching the work of all 3 shifts. Naturally, they're going to slow down a little and pace themselves where they're not doing the work for the entire yard.

What used to happen would be a shift would come in and knock out their work and go home. The guys that are fast would get rewarded and it would give an incentive for the other shifts to pull their own weight. Imagine you are paid to mow 4 yards and you get it done in 4 hours and it looks perfect, but then someone says "hey you got that done so fast but the other dude that mows yards on this street didn't do his job. go ahead and mow those too but you won't get paid any extra."

Now you can say, hey we got too many employees the morning shift is able to do more trains than they do now by plan. Well, when you lay off union employees, you don't get to pick the ones you lay off, you either cut a board or a job. If it is in the middle of summer, those guys working the morning shift might be lower seniority than the afternoon shift. So, you cut one shift, and then your best guys in the yard can't hold the job anymore. Also, the two shifts remaining are now doing twice the work, so you perhaps lose them too and they go on the road or to another yard. Now you get two new crews in the yard and you are potentially less productive than ever.

I understand that being furloughed causes an interruption in income and that causes anger, haste, and stress because I am one of you. I enjoy reading and posting stuff on here also but to argue over early quits? Once you accept that your lifestyle needs to change because of this situation your happiness will come back.

So let me get this straight. You get burned out staying busy for eight hours. To the extent you become to prone to injury. I suggest you see a doctor.

Keep using that flawed logic of less employees equals more productivity you’ll be a great manager even if you aren’t one. All less employees does is increase burnout, which increase injuries and accidents because those employees take shortcuts to get the job done because we have to increase productivity or they will lay us off. Doing the job right takes time and employees both you apparently think are a waste. Take the productivity bonuses away from the managers and directors but you probably think they deserve those.

Ok manager, send what few are left that are still actually working home. Not sitting in an office barking orders on a radio or phone, or at home on your laptop. Then you can get out in the rain,cold, and nasty slop and actually move a train or locomot ive, clean a cab, twist a bolt,etc. Let’s see how well that works. Six figure leaches, keep bashing the ones that are earning your bonus, (extra money that you received without lifting a finger or any extra effort) . Spreading lies and BS for a living, yep, you sure are very important to moving freight. But wait, we are not in the business of moving freight anymore, we are in the manipulating numbers to push share price higher business. Store and sell it all, then you can achieve you numbers quota for a quarter, then you all can sell out and we can move beyond all of this foolishness.

My logic says paying employees for early quits proves there’s too many employees. My logic also says an employee trying to sell early quits is lazy.

When has anyone at any of the mechanical facilities ever given an 8 hour day except management. What a joke that is.

Ok explain how you do eight hours of work at mechanical facility when everything is bottle necked and you can’t pull work pits/load the service track because the ramp facility movers are moving the rails at the ramp facility or work the rails at the ramp because you can’t move the rails at a ramp facility because the service track might be moving blocking your ramp movers. what about days there is no power for 8 to 12 hours because the yard is bottled up and can’t bring trains into the yard. Or any of the other situations listed in my previous post that you failed to address. You still pay the same people to work the same amount if they sit for 4 hours of their 8 hour shift. early quits don’t affect productivity in these cases. Also early quits does not cause the decrease in bodies needed to do the work assigned. by your logic if the workers aren’t working they don’t get paid which goes against the contracts that we sign after the union and the company sit down every 4 years and take 2-3 to agree on.

8 hours of pay for 8 hours of work. Would you run a business paying employees for 8 hours when they only work 5 yeah I didn’t think so. Probably why we’re in this position anyway. Hey all these early quits maybe there’s not enough work for 6 guys maybe we just need 4 or 2. Trump 2020!

Here’s the thing about early quits you can only build so many consist to pull freight and wait hours for them to be picked up after they’ve been worked from the outbounds, then once consits are picked up it might not free up enough space to build another consist. then go to building the trains yards have so many outbound rails to build trains and when you start building mile and a half to two mile trains those rails fill fast so once they are built that’s it everyone sits and waits until the crew gets the power from the service track, hooks it up to the train doubles or triple over does an air test they hope it passes, hooks up the dpu units if they link up does the air test again, set out anything that needs to be set out, does another air test or re hooks up the dpu units, and if they don’t run into issues then the train finally leaves town. then cue the starting to build more trains if they don’t have to wait on another train to leave town. At some point everyone from the te&y to mechanical has been sitting for a few hours. A company can’t be productive when it’s always bogged down by something at some point, it’s an 8 hour shift in the shops and most te&y yard jobs had shifts unless that has changed which means they worked 8 hours then left. Yes get rid of all the unnecessary managers like all the assistant Vice Presidents and other redundant positions that pretty much do the same job. Also when you lay-off because productivity is low that doesn’t increase that productivity it means less people to do the jobs you already had combined and cut to only have to combine and cut again, by that logic after every lay-off they have done productivity should have increased even a small amount because less guys to do the same amount of work but it either stayed the same or decreased more. less people working their asses off only increases injuries, accidents, and stuff breaking due to shortcuts to increase the productivity.

It’s amazing people don’t understand that choosing to be unproductive or less productive unless they’re incentivized with early quits is what has led to layoffs more than anything. If you didn’t notice, there is much more focus on individual productivity than ever before and it’s going to get turned up even more. And as productivity stays below expectations the more layoffs will continue. So keep your smarter than them attitude and watch people continue to get sent home. You flat out tell the company you can do more work in less time and you’re making their argument for them. Be careful what you wish for. You’re not as smart as you think. And by the way, I’m not management and I don’t have a cubicle. I have a locker and a bag of tools. And it’s people like you that are costing people their jobs.

Yes we’ll work harder for early quits. If there is no incentive then there is no motivation. We don’t get bonuses the quit is our bonus. If you motive your employees they will work harder just common sense. The non quit guy should have his or her bonus check eliminated and the well talk about not needing incentives to work harder. I thought the educated types were smarter than this.

The non agreement jobs are a joke! Way too many doing absolutely nothing, but standing around with arms crossed. You ask them to show a more efficient way to do something.. Oh yeah the incompetent manager doesn’t know how to do my job

It’s not full time wages for part time work but full time work in part of the time. It may sound crazy but they work. It’s a cheap and easy way for a company to incentivize a goal or job with labor hours already factored into a budget. You would think the PSR tribe would have used this by now. It’s human nature to want to finish quick and efficient if there’s a end in sight. Of course some of the miserable managers who can’t stand the thought of a happy worker enjoying their job will not be a fan of this type of nonsense. Lol. Oh i could ramble about the early quit phenomenon for days. Some things work as good today as they did back then. It’s ok if you want to rename it or say you came up with it, just utilize it and sit back and watch the magic happen.

I think the production/safety bonus should have gone away the same! No one needs motivation to do their jobs well, they are compensated through salary and time away from families enough to force union members to work harder!

You’re obviously a union blogue. Your plan is nothing but a recipe to punish management and benefit the employee. It’ll never happen. Early quits? Really? You admit you can be more productive but choose not to be? Really? You want full time wages and benefits for part time work? Really? You suggest you’re a benefit to the company by sitting at home? You‘re hurting, not helping your cause.

My suggestion would be for Lance to resign and wipe that stupid grin off his face. The most incompetent and despised CEO in modern American history.

It's funny because we have eliminated 30% of the jobs below the foreman and the company hasnt noticed.

Yep, gotta protect the $ucka$$e$ Sitting around the coffee pot.

And bring back the “early quits” if you wan’t to see a lot of work done in the shortest time possible. Get it done and gone.Employee makes more per hour with more time off, company meets goals quickly, and him/her at home is no longer a “liability’. Everyone wins.

You could eliminate 50% of the jobs above foreman, and the company wouldn’t notice

A Sr Director reporting to an AVP who reports to a VP who reports to EVPO who reports to a COO. What do these people do? Vena seems to be the one talking about the Operating plans for what are all the rest of them doing? Are they part of the 8% that will be gone? Gonna go with no cuz these inbreds all protect each other.