(The Omaha World-Herald posted the following article by Steve Jordan on its website on April 19.)
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah — Union Pacific Corp. faces an uncertain 2003 because of higher fuel prices and a struggling national economy, Chairman and Chief Executive Dick Davidson said Friday during the company’s annual meeting here.
Davidson said the economy may recover now that the war in Iraq is winding down.
He said Union Pacific is paying among the highest prices for its diesel fuel ever, with some purchases of $1.30 per gallon on the high-volume spot-fuel market. Last year’s prices averaged about 90 cents a gallon.
Yet Union Pacific continues to improve efficiency, operations and satisfaction among shipping customers and post gains in most other measures of success, he said. Fuel prices have declined somewhat recently, he said.
Davidson said 108 of Union Pacific’s 47,000 employees are military reservists who were called to active duty, and the company continues their full pay while they are away from their jobs.
Union Pacific hauled 125 trainloads of military equipment in the buildup for the Iraq war, he said, and probably will be returning the equipment to its home base once the conflict is over.
Outside the Little America Hotel here, about 15 people carried signs and handed out leaflets urging the company to let employees’ dependents choose health insurance coverage from the Union Pacific Railroad Employees Health Systems, a Salt Lake City-based insurer operated by the Transportation and Communications Workers Union.
Pat Jensen, director of customer service for the insurance plan, said the company would save costs by letting the dependents use the plan, which she said provides coverage that is superior to insurance plans that now cover them.
But John Marchant, vice president of labor relations for Union Pacific and a board member of the health plan, said the plan actually would be more expensive and would require the dependents to leave another national health insurance plan that has provided coverage for more than 50 years.
Union Pacific traditionally holds its shareholder meeting in Salt Lake City as a nod toward its role in completing the transcontinental railroad near the city.
A golden spike was used in a ceremony in 1869 at Promontory Point, Utah, to join Union Pacific tracks with Central Pacific tracks to link the East and West Coasts by rail.