(The following story by Criss Roberts was published in the January 14 issue of The Hawk Eye.)
BURLINGTON, Iowa — All of the railroad’s workers had a premonition job cuts were coming, but at 2:30 p.m. Monday, employees of the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway maintenance shops became certain.
They gathered in clusters and knots outside the building off West Burlington Avenue. A line of grim–faced men carried grocery bags of their belongings and empty lunch boxes to their cars and pickup trucks.
This was the first shift. The second shift was dragging into the building, well aware of the news they were about to hear. It was over. Whatever small bit of optimism there had been for the BNSF shops was gone. As of Monday, 248 of the 388 employees of BNSF’s locomotive repair shops were without a job.
“I think the only thing that surprised us was how deep the cuts were,” said Mike Reusch, a 29–year employee from Burlington.
In the first hour after the announcement, shop workers gathered up what was theirs, called family on cellular phones and said goodbye to people they had worked with — some for nearly 30 years.
As badly as many felt, they felt worse for someone else.
“I know one man who moved here from Colorado. He’s got five or six years in and he’ll have to move his family again,” said Joe Connell, who was laid off after five years of service.
Connell, who had already retired from Caterpillar and was nearing the end of his stint at BNSF, was accepting of what had become the inevitable.
“Hey, it’ll save me 110 miles of driving each day,” he said as he shared a last cigarette with friends outside the shop entrance.
To hear the men talk, the Burlington shops — like most such operations — is comprised of railroad workers who have gone from one closed shop to another. First LaGrange, Ill., then Canada, here and other shops in between.
Many had thought the Topeka shops would get the jobs, but Topeka was getting the bad news at the same time as Burlington. So was Seattle, where 20 of the 105 jobs at BNSF’s Interbay Locomotive Shop were cut. In Topeka, BNSF was eliminating 64 of the 367 jobs at the local shops. But the layoffs in Seattle and Topeka didn’t cut as deep as those in Iowa, and if anything made the workers in Burlington angry.
“Topeka won,” several said, most furious at the perceived loss, a reference to a BNSF study on whether to consolidate shops in Topeka or Burlington. However, BNSF officials insisted the study is ongoing.
Others shook their heads.
Opportunities for a railroading job anywhere are decreasing.
Dan Ysseldyke, 51, has been a machinist at the Burlington shops for 11 years. He has put in 27 years at railroads in Columbus, Ohio; Louisville, Ky.; and Huntington, W.Va.
“The shops in Louisville are a football field now,” he said, apparently resigned to the realities of working for the railroads.
“I think most of the guys are going to stay in the area and try to find something,” Reusch said.
Ysseldyke isn’t one of those who plans to remain.
“Unfortunately, I’m out of this town,” he said.
He likes it in Burlington, though. He would rather not leave.
“What am I going to do?” Ysseldyke said “You’ve got to have money to live.”
Chances of the workers coming back are slim.
“We’re getting ready to work in a morgue Wednesday,” said Mike Mattson, a Galesburg, Ill., employee who just barely hung onto his job.
As the last of the first shift left, West Burlington police and BNSF security officers left with them. They had been called to keep order, but in the end they could only watch the men walk into the cold after what for most would be their last shift.