(The following article by Adam Eventov was posted on the Press-Enterprise website on December 15.)
RIVERSIDE, Calif. — For more information about railroad jobs, visit the Union Pacific or Burlington Northern Santa Fe Web sites at www.UP.com or at www.BNSF.com
Rail yards in Colton, San Bernardino and throughout the country are seeing a massive turnover in staff as the nation’s railroads scramble to replace retiring workers.
Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroads together expect to hire more than 300 workers in the next year for their Inland Empire rail yards and more than 2,000 workers nationwide to replace a wave of retiring engineers, conductors and other employees, railroad officials said Friday.
“You have an industry that is graying,” said Tom White, spokesman for the Association of American Railroads, by phone from his Washington, D.C. office.
Since January 2002, there has been a rush to retire by railroad workers, who are taking advantage of new retirement rules that allow them to get a full pension and benefits at age 60 after 30 years of service. Under the old rule, workers had to wait until they were 62 years old before they could retire with full benefits.
“It has had a fairly significant impact on us,” said Union Pacific spokesman John Bromley.
Last year, the Omaha-based company hired 2,000 workers nationwide to replace retiring staff. The company expects to hire 2,200 in the first half of 2004, Bromley said. In Southern California, Union Pacific and Burlington Northern railroads employ about 1,300 workers.
The changed retirement rules is only one reason for the loss of staff, said Bromley. The railroads, particularly in the West, have been hiring to replace retiring workers, but also to keep pace with the growth of intermodal cargo and an economy that bounced back stronger than the railroads anticipated.
Intermodal traffic is when cargo containers, usually carrying consumer goods shipped from Asia, are put on rail cars and shipped to the rest of the country before being transferred to trucks and driven to their final destination.
Some historical influences have also led to the wave of retirements.
In the 1980s, railroads began restructuring and cutting their workforce. In the early 1980s, the industry employed about a half-million workers; now it employs fewer than 200,000, he said.
Those that survived the cuts typically were older workers who had more seniority than those who were laid off, White said.