750 jobs down the drain...just imagine if they could have just fired 20 big wigs that combined make $110million/year and replaced each one with 35 of the hard working individuals that just lost their jobs...hell...dedicate 100 of those employees to a new division specifically aimed at streamlining business and cutting costs in other ways...companies always cut labor instead of utilizing the labor to find other cost cutting strategies.
OT: Union Pacific
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Along the lines of cutting labor, public school administration is a bloated behemoth, but all we ever hear about is cutting teaching and support positions. A better solution would be to cut administrative positions.
I don't like to see millennials lumped into a group and criticized by the Get Off My Lawn crowd, because the millennials I work with are smart, ambitious and hard-working. Sorry to see that this affliction is now spreading.
Some good people run big companies, and some a-holes run big companies. This has always been true and always will be.
Some good people run big companies, and some a-holes run big companies. This has always been true and always will be.
Nor do I like to label a generation as "boomers" as there's a mix in all crowds...but the majority of our management is from that era so by default they'll get scrutinized just like any coach...young or old
Probably low skilled workers being replaced by intelligent automated computer systems written by 20 programmers, half of which, are in India.
Yeah, I get that. Just keep in mind that every generation since the cave man has been saying, "Things will be different when we're in charge!"
And they're not.
Same thing is happening with Nebraska after we landed Bookie...do they call it "processing"
Actually it sound like 2/3 of the job cuts are to management and administrative employees and the other 1/3 are hourly wage workers.
I am 31 and I think what happens is the stubbornness of management unwilling to make changes due to ignorance that benefits their selfishness burns me out so there's no more fire or fight when I'm now evolved as an educated slave. Kind of a why try mentality sets in
Looks like UP's cuts are mild compared to others, plus a better outlook for workers being let go:
Union Pacific, which employs about 8,000 people in Nebraska at the Omaha office and in the field, isn’t alone among railroads searching for ways to lower expenses. CSX Railway announced 2,300 job cuts earlier this year, and Norfolk Southern said it would cut costs by $650 million by 2020.
Other industries have instances of profitable companies cutting jobs. Nike had a $2.1 billion profit this year through June, when it said it planned to eliminate 1,400 jobs. GM tallied $4.3 billion of profit through June, and $9.4 billion last year, but has eliminated 5,000 jobs since November. Kraft Heinz, a large stock holding of Warren Buffett-led Berkshire Hathaway, has a company goal of cutting 5,150 jobs in coming years; the company last year had a profit of $3.6 billion.
For those facing unemployment next month in Omaha, the job picture is promising, said Nebraska Labor Commissioner John Albin, with the economy “in a good position to absorb” the coming wave of to-be-departed U.P. employees.
“Everywhere we look there is a shortage, or employers tell us they’re having trouble finding qualified people,” Albin said. “These people with a long track record with U.P. are obviously good performers, so I think the Omaha market could absorb them pretty easily.”
Union Pacific, which employs about 8,000 people in Nebraska at the Omaha office and in the field, isn’t alone among railroads searching for ways to lower expenses. CSX Railway announced 2,300 job cuts earlier this year, and Norfolk Southern said it would cut costs by $650 million by 2020.
Other industries have instances of profitable companies cutting jobs. Nike had a $2.1 billion profit this year through June, when it said it planned to eliminate 1,400 jobs. GM tallied $4.3 billion of profit through June, and $9.4 billion last year, but has eliminated 5,000 jobs since November. Kraft Heinz, a large stock holding of Warren Buffett-led Berkshire Hathaway, has a company goal of cutting 5,150 jobs in coming years; the company last year had a profit of $3.6 billion.
For those facing unemployment next month in Omaha, the job picture is promising, said Nebraska Labor Commissioner John Albin, with the economy “in a good position to absorb” the coming wave of to-be-departed U.P. employees.
“Everywhere we look there is a shortage, or employers tell us they’re having trouble finding qualified people,” Albin said. “These people with a long track record with U.P. are obviously good performers, so I think the Omaha market could absorb them pretty easily.”
If you are a non-office type that is getting cut from UP, we have job openings available. Construction superintendents, foremen and laborers. Travel is required. Let me know and I will get you some info.
Why would anyone in management want to make changes...those guys are set!
The simple way to fix the problems is to not talk about them in a message board but to put yourself in a position to make changes - meaning you will need to become management. I worked in schools for many years wondering what it would be like to be a superintendent and a principal or even a state board of education person. There is always opportunity to move up, I have not seen many businesses that are not looking for top management people. So do something about it and I think you will find out the world looks differently from that perspective.
I don't know if you can accurately compare working in a public school system to working for a private sector company. Running a company off of profits and revenue is completely different than running an agency off of tax revenue. Budgets actually mean something for private sector companies.
Completely different? I guess there are no people to manage, no decisions to make, nothing to accomplish in publicly traded companies. I admit I have never run a publicly traded company but I have run businesses both for profit and non-profits. It is not always as easy from the outside as it is when you get to the top - in spite of all the advice everyone has when they are looking up.
Could be worse, we are turning over our entire IT staff in favor of Indians brought to us by the sham H1B visa program. Nothing like get fired in your own country for a worker from another country all with the approval of the federal government. It's why I voted for Carly, she correctly identified the problem, big business in bed with big government.
What wasn't reported...atleast not initially is that Union Pacific is offering a pretty solid severance package or retirement package if you are eligible. Currently, it's voluntary attrition and the goal is to reach the target number thru applicants looking to retire or move on.
Budgets don't mean anything for public schools? I'm guessing you don't have many friends who are principals and certainly superintendents in the public school system. Most of their day revolves around budgets.
One sector is focused on cutting their budget to create larger profit margins. The other is focused on spending all of their budget so it doesn't get cut next year. That is what (I assume) ridge meant.
No, superintendents don't sit around trying to figure out how to spend all their budget so it doesn't get cut next year. That's silly. They do have what most consider as limited money to achieve a huge mandate--the education of our children. I've worked in schools, churches, and law offices and I can tell from my experience that discussion of budgets are much more prevalent in the public and even non-profit sector than the private.
P.S. Much of the reason for this is that everyone thinks they should have a say. Parents, teachers, tax payers, politicians, etc. Also, because the process is so onerous, having a solid budget is more important to a school functioning well vs. a business who can make changes somewhat on the fly. Finally, the budgets are open for all to see. You better have your ducks in a row when every Tom, Dick, and Harry can look at the budget. Businesses don't have to worry one iota about transparency.
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I too have worked with government offices/departments, schools and churches (not sure why you included churches). And yes, most schools are hamstrung on budget. But I cannot tell you how many times I have replaced equipment on a government project that doesn't need to be changed due to the spend it or lose it budgetary model government organizations use. Many times we replace equipment on schools/government building and then resell it as used equipment. Which is almost unheard of in our industry.
I literally just got word yesterday that we will be getting an order for $250k(ish) of platforms around equipment on a military hospital. These platforms are completely unnecessary. They could have spend around $50k and gotten the exact same ability. But 'the maintenance guy had money to spend' (direct quote).
Why how dare you suggest that anything related to the military could be a frivolous expenditure. Surely you must hate America and secretly long for the bootheel of King George...
I lean pretty libertarian, so most government spending, including the military, gets my piss hot.
I'm whatever you call it when somebody thinks we need more revenue AND less spending to eliminate the debt.
I don't doubt there is waste particularly for those directly in the gov't sector. Those groups are far removed from accountability. However, local schools and non-profits (particularly churches) are accountable to people who either attend or are participants in the local community. When you add to the fact that their budgets are public information (the best churches make these available publicly), one can understand why they are so tied to following their budget. While there may be a few suburban schools that have bloated budgets with department heads spending frivolously, the vast majority of public city schools and rural schools do not have that luxury. To use a church analogy, schools are being asked to feed 5000 with a few fishes and loaves. You can bet budgets are important to them.
P.S. Why mention a church? I listed the places where I worked. I spent a few years as an administrative assistant in a church.
Churches aren't relevant to the conversation though. We are talking about the public and private sector budgets. You are mixing churches in with tax payer funded organizations. So it isn't pertinent.
You can say that schools don't have enough money all you want, but the US spends more per child on education than any other country on the world (outside of like Liechtenstein or some other country smaller than our state). The money is being spent. But due to the way the government budget system works, it is inefficient and ineffective compared to the private sector. Which is the whole argument that was being made originally by Ridge.
Nationwide averages can be deceiving. You have "public" schools like Westside (where I went) that voluntarily override tax caps to ensure big funding. That gets mixed into an average with other schools that really are drastically underfunded and can't get basics like paper, pencils, textbooks.
I don't begin to know how to solve public education. There are so many problems from funding to teaching to parenting. Sadly education is not the priority it was once. Many people are in open contempt of learning these days, and I don't know WTF you're supposed to do with that.
You live in IL, correct? I really don't envy your states situation with the educational system. The state is bankrupt, they have no budget and they are taking out bonds to pay for teacher pensions. Not for new schools or necessities, but to pay retired teachers pensions. Ouch. I agree with you there on not knowing WTF to fix that.
The issue is whether or not budgets actually mean something to public schools. The answer is absolutely. The reason lies with the issues of accountability that are not found in business.
I think we are not far off. It would be better to have a streamlined budget system. In a small company the owner sets the budget. In a bigger one a board of directors sets it. They can make changes at any point. Businesses don't have to worry about transparency. And the biggest issue is in their budgeting process they don't have near the gov't regulation AND gov't mandates. (I know businesses love to cry about the costs of gov't regulation. That is magnified 20 fold in a school.) The point is that the budget means something to a public school system. To say otherwise is ludicrous.
Ridge is the one that said budgets don't mean anything in the public sector. I tried to clarify what I thought he meant, which is not that budgets mean nothing to schools. But rather that the government budgetary system is not predicated on a profit margin and there is a spend-it-or-lose-it system in place. If Ridge meant something different, I will let him speak for himself.
The point I was making was not that budgets mean nothing to the government or schools. But they are just horribly inefficient and wasteful based on the way they are set up.
The bad end in IL is really bad. In my township the schools are excellent and the property taxes are high and I chose it that way. In fairness, there are plenty of rural schools that are in dire straits right now all across the country. It's not just a city thing or some states.
There are, believe it or not, some good public schools to be found in Chicago proper. But there are some horrid ones, too. I feel for the parents who are trying to do right for their kids in an area with bad schools. It becomes a negative feedback loop where the neighborhood starts to go, and it gets harder to do right in that area even if you want to, and it deteriorates until hardly anyone lives there. Then someday places get bought up, bulldozed and then suddenly it's new and full of vitality and you can't recognize the place. Just happened in the West Loop where I used to work, I haven't been there in 2 years and I couldn't believe how different it is. When I worked there, we made sure to walk the girls out after the night shift. Now it's full of young professionals and great food, it's crazy.
Again, there's not really a "camp" for this sentiment but I think IL needs to admit they can't pay the pensions people were promised AND keep their revenue intake high. But neither party wants to make that much sense. There's a bridge right by my office that was found to be structurally unsafe, it sat closed for months and literally the week they finally passed a budget they started work on it.
Are you implying that those "big wigs" aren't hard working or aren't as hard of workers as the labor force?
When you do the math on how many hundreds of times more the "big wigs" make, it does make you wonder if it's possible to work hundreds (or even thousands) of times harder than the guys putting your products into boxes.
As was I! I know it was stated that budgets are posted publicly and they are I understand that. I looked at the LPS budget for last year and when something to the tune of 89% of that goes to salaries, benefit and pensions in a 482 million dollar annual budget it should be published. For me this is not limited just to schools it is widespread across government agencies and I don't care if it is republican or democrat run.
If it is funded with taxpayer money there had better a high level of accountability. It is the same with private sector companies, there accountability is to stockholders.
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I get questioning and it should be in some cases. But I hate the narrative; "Fat cats are sitting around not doing much, while the poor labor force who are all hard workers keep getting the axe."
Clearly I'm being a little hyperbolic, but I hope I'm making my point. Maybe "hard working" was a bad term, but a better term is valuable or productive. Not that the labor force isn't valuable or productive, but I'm sorry, some positions are more valuable and productive (in terms of creating a profit) than others and sometimes those positions are held by the "big wigs".
I guess in my business I'd be considered the "big wig" as I make much more than my staff and unfortunately I've had to let good people go (obviously on a much much smaller scale than UP). It would just be ridiculous if one of the people I had to let go made a statement that I personally had to cut back so they could keep their job. Many times, unfortunately, it doesn't work that way.
... well, by and large, we don't live in caves anymore, so we've got that going for us!