First off, I don’t work for UP (I have a relative that worked for UP that left for better employment and I visit this site because I am interested in the dynamics of organizations that downsize). I don’t understand why the employees stay with this company as they obviously don’t value your service or care about you and your families. The reasons for still working for UP may vary; maybe you have a cushy job and don’t want to risk taking a job where you will have to work harder. Maybe you are not qualified for employment outside of UP. Maybe you just are afraid of trying something different. Everyone still working for UP should take a long, honest look at themselves and determine if they are happy. If not, then why are you not doing something about the situation? If you are waiting for someone else to fix this for you it’s not going to happen. You are responsible for your own happiness and job satisfaction. Coming on this site and complaining isn’t going to help you (it may make you feel better to let off steam but it’s just putting a bandaid on the wound). Everyday you stay in a unhappy situation is a day in your life you will never get back. Life is too short to be unhappy, sad, or frustrated when you can do something to correct the reason for your unhappiness.
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Where I work, over 20 have quit in last year and a half, some with over 16 years seniority.
People are spent, and tired of never being able to do anything but work.
Boards are shot, guys are not coming back because they know there's nothing to come back to, except more furloughs, January vacation, if they get 165 starts, and an attendance policy that was designed for normal mon-fri type jobs.
I've got 14 years and am actively looking for another job because I know I'll never work as an engineer again, and I'm not working like this for the rest of my life.
To each his own, but things will NEVER get better.
To believe they will, is a total fantasy.
One has to do what's right for themselves and their families.
When furloughed guys asked me if they should come back, I ask them how ready are they to come back to working on their rest every day, until they're furloughed again.
It's not about how much money the "railroad" made, if it was the "railroad" wouldn't have borrowed money nor buy back stock (which used to be illegal by the way). It's about the people who tell Fritz when to jump and how high. It's about how much money THEY made.
How much money do you think the UP actually made with PSR? Their total revenue has gone down. Their total revenue used to be a little over 2 billion. The total revenue is now around 1.6 billion. Now if you factor in derailment clean ups, fines, equipment and structure repair, bridge replacements, and evacuation costs, then their actual free cash is way lower. If you like conspiracy theories, then go have a look at the UP employee stock program, and ask yourself "why is that being offered now"? What's wrong with people clinging to hopes of better times? Absolutely nothing that I can see. The thought of the RR giving a damn about its employees is totally irrelevant at this point. The thought of the RR losing many more employees due to the way the business is run should be much more concerning for the RR. The good ones that leave or get laid off are much more likely to not return. If any company wants to constantly sh1t on its employees, then that company will be the one that suffers the most when they don't have enough manpower. So if you think about it, who actually the most hope? Is it the employees hoping they'll be called back, or is it the RR hoping the employees will come back when called? Just something to think about
People on here clinging to "Hope" that things get better are not being honest with themselves. I worked at UP starting in 2008 and just left. Every year it got a little worse for the employees. Rules, discipline, contracts. What makes you think that after they've made all this money that they give a rats as5 about you? After what they've done to thousands of employees? You might not want to face it, or you're afraid of change, but you really should get out of there on your own terms, instead of being blindsided and broke panicking to find another job on short notice.
How many UP hot dogs did your uncle fit in his mouth before he quit?
I quit and got a job at Dollar General since their employees are happier.
@lvg That was spot on. Now let's move on to the OP. I'll try to not plagiarize what may have already been said, but here it goes. There's employees that don't have the option to move elsewhere because of their location. Then there's some that can't move because of the families and the personal issues with that. If just quitting was that easy, then most would've done it already. If you're disgusted with people getting on here and complaining, then maybe you should QUIT coming to this site. You have the right to correct the situation for your unhappiness, remember? What about the people that were blindsided by the layoffs? Where's their recognition for achieving record profits before the layoffs? Did they have a decision in that matter? No they didn't. The CEO had a choice to keep the people they had, and keep making record profits. The CEO had the choice to not implement PSR. Instead he chose to layoff thousands of people to cater to the investors. They are indeed the running the show. The CEO is just a puppet with a hand up his a55, forcing him to do what the investors want. The current and former employees have no choice in the matter whatsoever. The derailments have indeed gone up, as well as the injuries. What do you think is the cause of that? How many of the managers have actual experience on the ground? All of these college railroaders are the ones making all the decisions with ZERO experience, and threatening the people with experience when their plans turn to sh1t. How do those employees do something about their "unhappiness", when they didn't cause it? Oh yeah, they should just quit and make their problems potentially worse for themselves. There's quite a few people that still work for the railroad who are very skilled at what they do. Some even have actual degrees from actual colleges(me!). I was never a manager. I was just another person that was let go for profit. I didn't have a choice to do something about my unhappiness. I had to deal with it. You need to think about the possible situations that some people are going through before you post something that's encouraging people to quit their job at the UP. Quitting any job simply isn't an option for people that are risking much more than a paycheck.
I seriously doubt your objective study of "downsizing" being the primary reason of why you posted to this site. More likely to think you have an agenda of possibly wanting more employees to quit or you desire to try and trick employees to find some gratitude in these current predicaments. There is nothing wrong with hope, agreement employees to varying degrees hope things will improve w/ a CEO change, a merger, or govt regulators will FORCE managers to hire and supply employees so everything can be fixed or replaced. We are a skilled workforce that is very much needed. Only thing holding us back is lying managers who focus only on budgets, lying, threatening employees, and saving their own lazy a$$es paycheck. Managers NEED to manage the work that needs to be done. Managers NEED to demand every needed resource to fix & replace everything that needs repair or replacement. Ever find it funny how track inspectors never write up defects that don't get handled within 30 days? But derailments increase and every time the FRA comes out they find defects the inspectors missed? It's not the inspectors, it's the managers forcing the inspectors with threats and intimidation to only write up a defect workload that their skeleton crews can handle. It's amazing how cuts happen but ON PAPER things are being kept in compliance? No cuts anywhere resulted in a defect increase? But derailments went up and are getting worse. Also I'm shocked at how many locomotives I've seen break down or actually catch on fire while in service. Last one, listen for all the flat spotted wheels on railcars, nope those don't need to be fixed either right? To summarize we stay cuz we are needed, we're hoping to help train the next railroad generation, and unlike the managers we want to leave this railroad in better shape than when we started.
I didn’t even read all of it. But from what I skimmed…First of all, I’m sure you actually do work at UP. But if you don’t and you come here and wrote that long a-s war and peace essay and don’t work here then perhaps you need a girlfriend. Also, work on brevity because no one is going to read all that.
It all depends on if you are willing to put up with the bs for the pay. Some are some aren't. It's a personal choice.
It’s not always that easy to just find a new job. Think of it like a bad marriage.