(The following story by Kenneth Hard appeared on The Daily Independent website on December 20.)
RACELAND, Ky. — Already reeling from the effects of the meltdown of the nation’s economy, northeastern Kentucky received another piece of bleak financial news on Thursday.
Progress Rail announced that it would furlough 71 hourly employees — roughly half the work force — at its Raceland Car Shops for an indefinite period.
The affected workers received their notices on Thursday, exactly one week before Christmas, said Woody Lane, chairman of Brotherhood of Railway Carmen Local 6634, which represents hourly workers at the car shops.
Rail workers are no strangers to holiday furloughs, Lane said.
“It seems like every time we get a layoff notice, it’s either at Thanksgiving or Christmas,” he said. “It’s been that way the entire 32 years I’ve been with the railroad.”
Lane said the cuts at Raceland were entirely the result of the grim national economic picture. The layoffs came, he said, after Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad terminated a major car-repair contract with Progress Rail.
“They did have work for next year, and for the year after,” he said. “But (Burlington Northern Santa Fe) pulled the plug.”
Progress Rail purchased the car shops from CSX in 2006. Work at the facility had been steady ever since it reopened in 1995 following a prolonged shutdown, Lane said.
Lane said he was hopeful that the furloughs would be short-lived. He also said he did not anticipate any more layoffs at the facility.
Laid-off workers with less than one year of service will receive one week’s severance pay, while those with more than a year will get two weeks’ pay, Lane said.
Also, since they do not work for a railroad, Progress Rail employees are not covered by the federal Railway Labor Act. That means they will be eligible for regular, rather than railroad, unemployment benefits, Lane said.
“My heart just goes out to these people,” he said. “This really came at a bad time. I hated to see it.”
Lane also said he hoped the local business and financial communities would extend “the same respect and courtesy” to laid-off Progress Rail employees as it has to the workers who were furloughed as a result of the shutdown at AK Steel’s Ashland Works.