BNSF Furloughs in May

BoxcabE50 Jun 5, 2015

  1. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    Received this via an email, origin unknown: The BNSF Railway, the largest railroad in North Dakota, is furloughing some 200 employees across its network including 11 in Grand Forks, 40 in Dilworth, 60 in Mandan, and 71 in Minot. "Customers' volumes in the near term have come down somewhat from their prior estimates, as a result we are having to adjust our workforce demand numbers down to match volume and the work required to move that volume," BNSF spokesperson Roxanne Butler said. "As part of that, we are reducing the hiring plans for the next several months and are, unfortunately, having to temporarily furlough some of our employees at different locations across our network."

    Butler said BNSF expects to call the furloughed employees back "as soon as business needs require," though she said the company is not making public the specific figures on affected employees by region. But Jim Chase, the North Dakota legislative director for the Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation union (SMART) said almost 200 operating employees have been furloughed in 4 North Dakota locations ... operating employees responsible for running trains, like engineers and conductors. "I've never seen cuts this deep," he said. Chase added that many of those employees have been hired within the last year. He said the BNSF has offered maintenance work to furloughed employees.

    The workforce reductions coincide with recent decreases in traffic. Total U.S. rail traffic for the week ending May 16 was down 2.9% compared to the same weeks last year, according to the Association of American Railroads.

    Logan Purk, a transportation industry analyst at Edward Jones said, "Rails are good at adjusting assets to normal ebbs and flows of volume but are less successful with sharper moves, which is what we are currently experiencing."

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    At least some of this must be due to Bakken oil field activity reductions.
    Phillip Qualy, a union official in Minnesota, said they didn't have information on the number of furloughed employees there. "We understand that BNSF still has new-hire classes slotted this month. We expect the regional economic slowdown in the rail sector to subside."
     
    SknarfWl likes this.

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