(The following report appeared on the Omaha World-Herald website on November 14.)
POCATELLO, Idaho — Union Pacific is transferring a tenth of its Gate City, Idaho, work force by mid-February to boost slumping profits.
The nation’s largest railroad is moving 65 of 650 Pocatello Union Pacific Fruit Express unit jobs to its North Platte, Neb., and De Soto, Miss., locations.
Union Pacific is reorganizing the Pocatello business after third-quarter earnings slipped more than 30 percent, dented by higher fuel prices, costs to train new employees and rail congestion.
“We have to take whatever actions are necessary,” spokesman John Bromley said. “It’s our obligation to operate this business as efficiently as possible.”
Pacific Fruit Express is keeping 12 positions in Pocatello to inspect refrigerated cars before they’re cleaned and reloaded in Nebraska.
Workers can transfer to keep their jobs, Bromley said.
Railroad union officials said the transfer is merely job cuts in disguise.
“With the transfers, we always lose jobs because people aren’t willing to move 800 miles,” said Kevin Anderson, local chairman for the Carmen’s Union in Pocatello.
He thinks the railroad will subcontract those positions to people willing to work for less money and no insurance benefits. Anderson is also angry he wasn’t told about the moves until Friday afternoon.
The railroad “didn’t even have the decency to let me know what was going on ahead of time so I could be with them (workers) to answer questions,” he said.
Bromley said shifting to the larger facility in North Platte, where the railroad operates the world’s largest rail yard, will lower turnaround time for the refrigerated box cars headed West, because it will eliminate an unnecessary stop here.
But the move may hurt the railroad’s ability to fix freight cars, Anderson said, because the cars often need repairs before reaching North Platte.
According to UP’s Web site, the Omaha, Neb.-based railroad handles more than 48,000 shipments of refrigerated and frozen products a year. It’s the nation’s largest owner of refrigerated box cars, with more than 5,000 in service.