# Union Pacific Lays Off 500 Managers and 250 Rail Workers



## DennyM (Jan 3, 2016)

OMAHA, Neb. — Union Pacific is laying off 500 managers and 250 other railroad workers to help further reduce costs.
The cuts will eliminate about 8% of Union Pacific's managers. The Omaha, Neb.-based railroad told the affected workers Wednesday that their jobs will be eliminated by mid-September.
Union Pacific CEO Lance Fritz says the railroad decided that eliminating open positions through attrition and improving productivity wasn't doing enough to cut costs.
Most of the layoffs will be at the railroad's headquarters in Omaha, Neb., but they will affect Union Pacific's 23-state network. In the second quarter, Union Pacific had an average of about 42,000 employees.
Railroads have been under pressure to reduce costs because of weak growth in freight shipments overall and a sharp decline in coal shipments in recent years.


----------



## Spence (Oct 15, 2015)

Looks like there top heavy in management, 2 to 1


----------



## Yellowstone Special (Jun 23, 2015)

Evidently Denny, from today's _Washington Post _article?

The article also stated that CSX is laying off 2,300 employees this year and that NS is also working to reduce costs, although no announced layoffs yet. Interesting that there's nothing about BNSF.

This thread could get moved to the Right of Way / North America section, since it deals with real railroads. Right, GRJ?


----------



## DennyM (Jan 3, 2016)

Yellowstone Special said:


> Evidently Denny, from today's _Washington Post _article?
> 
> The article also stated that CSX is laying off 2,300 employees this year and that NS is also working to reduce costs, although no announced layoffs yet. Interesting that there's nothing about BNSF.
> 
> This thread could get moved to the Right of Way / North America section, since it deals with real railroads. Right, GRJ?


This was from USA Today.


----------



## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

Good guess Vern.


----------



## DennyM (Jan 3, 2016)

Yellowstone Special said:


> This thread could get moved to the Right of Way / North America section, since it deals with real railroads. Right, GRJ?


I don't think I've ever seen this thread.


----------



## highvoltage (Apr 6, 2014)

Spence said:


> Looks like there top heavy in management, 2 to 1


500 managers are getting laid off vs. 250 workers. If 500 managers is 8% of the workforce of 42,000, then there are 6,250 managers and 35,750 workers. Management represents about 17% of the workforce.


----------



## Yellowstone Special (Jun 23, 2015)

```

```



highvoltage said:


> 500 managers are getting laid off vs. 250 workers. If 500 managers is 8% of the workforce of 42,000, then there are 6,250 managers and 35,750 workers. Management represents about 17% of the workforce.


That works out to be one manager for about every 6 workers. I don't know if that's really true to scale.

We know how "accurate" the media usually is in reporting numbers.


----------



## Old_Hobo (Feb 20, 2014)

My dad used to call that situation "too many chiefs and not enough Indians".....but now-a-days, someone would find that offensive.....


----------



## highvoltage (Apr 6, 2014)

Yellowstone Special said:


> That works out to be one manager for about every 6 workers. I don't know if that's really true to scale.
> 
> We know how "accurate" the media usually is in reporting numbers.


According to Union Pacific's website they have 42,900 employees, close to the number reported in the first post:

http://www.up.com/aboutup/corporate_info/uprrover/


----------



## mopac (Feb 24, 2011)

Sure seems like rail traffic is down around here. We have UP and BNSF mainlines
running east and west. When I use to railfan more it seems like a train every 20 minutes.
Seems like a train every hour and a half now. Most trains are coal trains and containers trains now.


----------



## D&J Railroad (Oct 4, 2013)

mopac said:


> Sure seems like rail traffic is down around here. We have UP and BNSF mainlines
> running east and west. When I use to railfan more it seems like a train every 20 minutes.
> Seems like a train every hour and a half now. Most trains are coal trains and containers trains now.


Now if I came there to railfan, you would only see maybe two trains a day.


----------



## 1905dave (Sep 18, 2016)

Old_Hobo said:


> My dad used to call that situation "too many chiefs and not enough Indians".....but now-a-days, someone would find that offensive.


A lot of the rank and file jobs have been eliminated through automation. There used to be thousands of clerks. Then came computers and they weren't necessary. There used to be 5 or 6 people on a train, then came diesels, run through trains, unit trains, cabooseless trains and defect detectors, now there are only 2 people on a train.

On some railroads the dispatchers are agreement (union), on the UP the entire dispatching force is management. 

Like many railroads they have consolidated several divisions (eliminating entire staffs) and then reduce forces through attrition (when I retired, my position wasn't backfilled).


----------



## DennyM (Jan 3, 2016)

Old_Hobo said:


> My dad used to call that situation "too many chiefs and not enough Indians".....but now-a-days, someone would find that offensive.....


I've quit jobs because of too many chiefs. Especially when they are all telling you different things.


----------



## Yellowstone Special (Jun 23, 2015)

highvoltage said:


> According to Union Pacific's website they have 42,900 employees, close to the number reported in the first post:
> 
> http://www.up.com/aboutup/corporate_info/uprrover/


True, the total number of employees UP has may have been reported close to correct. 

But the question is, out of all those employees, are there really that many "managers," where there's one manager for every six employees? And that's what the reported numbers indicate.


----------



## Bwells (Mar 30, 2014)

One manager can have six employees and another manager has six. Those two managers have a manager also which has a manager for him and his counterpart. It's the pyramid scheme. It makes sense to axe the managers and not the actual people that do the work. A clerk can do the time and scheduling of vacation days. Reduce the true overhead and see what happens to the bottom line.


----------



## highvoltage (Apr 6, 2014)

Bwells said:


> One manager can have six employees and another manager has six. Those two managers have a manager also which has a manager for him and his counterpart. It's the pyramid scheme...


While it's true that corporate management hierarchy can resemble a pyramid, it's not the "pyramid scheme" that most people are familiar with.

The pyramid scheme involves taking money from new investors at the bottom to pay off older investors at the top.


----------



## DennyM (Jan 3, 2016)




----------

