(The following article by Jennifer Youssef was posted on the Detroit News website on September 22.)
DETROIT — Union Pacific Railroad hopes some of today’s unemployed autoworkers of Michigan become tomorrow’s employed railroad workers of the West.
The nation’s largest railroad company is recruiting thousands of workers to replace its aging work force — 40 percent of which will be eligible for retirement in 10 years. With Michigan’s large supply of unemployed workers, particularly autoworkers, Union Pacific sees a gold mine of candidates here.
The company plans to hire 3,000 to 5,000 new employees each year for the next 10 years to fill the hole that will be left when nearly half of its 50,000-member work force retires. Recruitment efforts include nationwide hiring fairs, direct mailings and media advertisements.
To reach out to Michigan workers, Union Pacific spread the word about its job openings in a news release on Friday — the same day that Ford Motor Co. announced it would cut $5 billion in annual costs by the end of 2008 by cutting 10,000 white-collar workers and offering buyouts to all 75,000 union workers, in the hopes of cutting up to 30,000.
Certainly the pickings are plenty in the railroad’s search for jobless workers in Michigan, which has had one of the worst unemployment rates in the nation for nearly five years.
The historic restructuring in the domestic industry is largely to blame. Thousands of auto workers already have been laid off or taken buyouts from General Motors Corp. and Delphi Corp.
Ex-autoworkers are particularly attractive to Union Pacific because their skills can easily be transferred to jobs on the rails. Desired are mechanics, engineers, managers and sheet metal workers, the company said.
“For many of these auto workers, they will still have to work for whatever reason,” spokesman James Barnes said. “They’ll be too young to retire.”
Taking to the rails
Five years ago, Union Pacific convinced Kathryn Blackwell to take the leap.
After noticing the American car companies were beginning to falter, the former Ford Motor Co. employee moved from Detroit to Omaha, Neb., for a more stable job at Union Pacific.
“I felt that the time was right to try a different industry,” said Blackwell, who is earning more money as an assistant vice president for corporate communications at the railroad than she was as a public affairs specialist at Ford.
Now her “pet project” is recruiting former auto workers, whose strong work ethic she can attest to from personal experience.
“Automakers hire great people; they work hard and would be a good addition to our company,” Blackwell said.
Head west for work
Although the railroad jobs in many cases won’t pay as well, at least to start, and although it means relocating to another state, Union Pacific is hopeful that a weekly check, with health insurance, retirement benefits and some job security, will attract some downsized autoworkers.
Starting pay for many of the rails jobs is $40,000 a year. But pay can grow to $75,000 or more, depending on the job, after a few years. Hourly workers at the auto companies make an average of $65,800 annually with health benefits and retirement.
Union Pacific doesn’t own rails in Michigan, so workers would have to relocate. The most need is in California, Nebraska, Texas, Oregon and Wyoming, the company said.
So far, in the effort to replace the wave of retirements to come, the company has hired 8,100 workers in 2004 and 5,800 in 2005. It expects to hire another 5,800 by the end of this year.
The company wants to bring in new employees now while most of the current 50,000-member work force is still around so they can help train the new hires, Barnes said.
‘Sounds like a good deal’
If Adrian King’s job as an electrician at American Axle and Manufacturing were in danger of getting cut, he’d jump at the chance to work for the railroad.
But the 36-year-old Detroiter and president of the UAW Local 235 believes he’s safe for now because of his seniority at the company. “It sounds like a good deal,” King said of the railroad jobs.
“If I didn’t have a family, I would definitely think very seriously about it, especially with the way things are going in Michigan.”