ST. LOUIS — The Union Pacific Railroad is hiring dozens of new engineers, conductors and brakemen to keep up with the workload in St. Louis and elsewhere, but one union official questions whether it will be enough, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
Omaha, Neb.-based Union Pacific, the largest railroad in North America, has seen a rapid rise in retirements this year and shipping volumes on some corridors that defied flat economic forecasts.
This double-whammy has forced Union Pacific to import workers from other parts of its system to keep up with traffic demands, said spokesman John Bromley.
But Charles R. Rightnowar of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers said the situation also has forced Union Pacific engineers to remain available for work with minimal breaks between shifts. Train crews in St. Louis and other Midwestern hubs are working themselves into a state of exhaustion, he said.
“What we have is budgetary forces versus safety forces,” said Rightnowar, general chairman for the central region that encompasses St. Louis. “It’s money. This whole issue is money and profits for the Union Pacific.”
Worse, Rightnowar said, some engineers have faced disciplinary action for absenteeism if they don’t make themselves available to work often enough.
Some workers’ families have responded by starting a group — Railroad Employee Safety-Quality, or RRES-Q — to draw attention to the personnel shortage and their claims about the railroad’s recent treatment of employees.
Bromley said the railroad has told the group that it is “working on alternatives to some of the traditional … approaches to discipline.”
But he added that the life of a railroad worker can be tough for some people to handle, and “it takes a special type of person to do it.” Union Pacific tells recruits up front that they may have to work holidays, nights and weekends, he said.
Union Pacific employs 593 engineers and trainmen, who operate about 100 trains a day in the St. Louis area. The average annual pay for an engineer is $68,000; trainmen earn about $58,000.
“They are among the higher-paying blue-collar jobs in the country,” Bromley said.
The company hired 53 people in its multi-state St. Louis service area so far this year, and 12 current trainmen were selected to start engineer training earlier this month, Bromley said.
Typically, new engineers are promoted from the ranks of conductors and other employees.
Staffing increases are not unusual, he said, as the railroad keeps pace with business cycles. The flip side of the process is furloughs.
Rightnowar said Union Pacific is not adequately staffing the “extra” backup pool, forcing regular engineers on certain lines to back one another up in the event of illness or vacations.
The new engineers will barely keep up with normal attrition, he said, and represent just a fraction of the need.
In the meantime, Rightnowar and others say crews are suffering from fatigue that could endanger the health of employees and increase the risk of accidents.
“You are out on your feet,” said Rightnowar, a 28-year railroad veteran.
Engineers have been known to drink caffeine-filled soft drinks or coffee, hang their heads out the window in 20-degree temperatures or do jumping jacks to keep themselves alert.
Bromley said the railroad takes the fatigue issue seriously and even developed a pilot program in North Platte, Neb., that would have permitted scheduled time off — only to encounter opposition from some employees. It never got off the ground.
The federal hours-of-service law requires minimum rest intervals between shifts. But union officials say the unpredictable work schedules make it difficult to get adequate sleep.
Union Pacific’s staffing crunch has several causes. Among them:
— The railroad lost an unexpectedly large number of veteran workers after passage of the Railroad Retirement Reform Act last year. Engineers and other employees with 30 years on the job now can retire at age 60 instead of 65.
— Railroad management told the engineers’ union in a letter this summer that traffic volumes “are up substantially” over last year, despite forecasts that a lackluster economy would mean minimal growth this year.
The introduction of remote-control technology in a number of railroad yards “will generate sufficient numbers of surplus engineers” to help address manpower shortages, the letter states.
Other railroads say they are making do with the staff they already have on board.
Forth Worth, Texas-based Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad — which has operations in St. Louis — has adequate staffing to handle the current Midwest shipping demands, said spokesman Steve Forsberg.