The irrationality of capitalism
Freight backed up but railroad won't hire
By G. Dunkel
In this era of outsourcing and automation,
when the drive to reduce the number of workers in the
production and distribution of goods has been relentless, even
the Wall Street Journal is forced to admit that workers and
their skills are essential to the functioning of the
economy.
The lead story in the July 22 Journal was headlined, "Woes
at Union Pacific Create a Bottleneck for the Economy." UP is
the largest railroad in the country, moving about 13 percent of
all the freight by volume.
This is not even the peak season for railroads. Grain
harvests are not yet ready to move, demand for the coal used in
electric generation is low, and goods for the holiday season
are just reaching U.S. shores. The Journal says the main
problem facing the UP is that the "railroad has found itself
without adequate staffing to handle the extra freight"
generated by the "unexpected" growth in the U.S. economy.
It is not until the last third of the article that it quotes
unnamed spokespeople from the Brotherhood of Locomotive
Engineers and Trainmen and the United Transportation Union as
saying "the company's problems stem from not hiring enough
conductors and engineers."
Even in an era in which locomotives--at least those in
freight yards--can be remote controlled, they need more
workers.
According to railroad management, it officially takes at
least 14 weeks to train a conductor or a brake person and six
months to train an experienced conductor to become an engineer.
However, they do acknowledge that it takes much longer to
prepare "train and engine employees." Even after taking the
training classes, railroad worker Steve Millies told Workers
World, the employee needs additional time on the job to "post"
jobs and get qualified on the "physical characteristics" of
track--memorize the location of signals, speed, restrictions,
etc.
The railroad companies themselves admit that it takes five
years in most jobs to become fully qualified. So, even if they
started hiring today, it would be years before they had a fully
qualified workforce.
The Union Pacific started shedding highly qualified workers
under the reign of Drew Lewis, who was the company's CEO until
1996. Lewis set the general outlines of UP's employment
practices. As Ronald Reagan's secretary of transportation
before that, this scab herder broke the PATCO strike of air
traffic controllers in 1981.
Labor creates all wealth
UP reduced its work force by 11 percent from 1999 to 2004.
Most of its cuts were in its operating staff.
But it's not only UP that has this staffing problem.
According to the July 14 St. Louis Dispatch, "Rail employment
among the five biggest operators totaled nearly 177,000 in
March 1999 and stood at about 147,000 in March 2004, reflecting
a 17 percent reduction."
The railroads point to derailments and bridge collapses as
another cause of the bottlenecks created in the movement of
goods. But certainly if the railroads hired people to maintain
tracks and bridges, this source of slowdowns would be at least
reduced.
The slowdown on the rails has other effects.
The West Coast docks, especially San Diego and Los Angeles,
are also jammed. In Los Angeles, during the week of July 10, 58
ships were unloading, 17 were at anchor waiting for dock space,
and 37 ships were expected within a few days.
Part of the congestion comes from the fact that the
railroads and the trucking industry--which is having trouble
finding drivers--can't clear the containers. The longshore
companies want to hire at least 2,000 more workers. But the
bosses want to hire "casuals," who get paid $10 to $14 an hour
less than enrolled longshore workers. In general, only about 60
casuals a week can be trained.
It is the labor of workers that creates profits. But the
instability of the capitalist economy, with its ups and downs,
inhibits the bosses from putting on more workers when they need
them. If the bosses, in their drive to increase profits and in
disdain for planning and the overall economy, cut too many,
their decisions have dire consequences. This is what the
Journal, a capitalist tool if there ever was one, has
documented.
Reprinted from the Aug. 5, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyrighted
under a Creative
Commons License.
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