IN BAD TIMES, SENIORITY RULES

Railroad layoffs prompted by the recession have brought more than 120 people, some from as far away as California and New Mexico, to Nebraska rail hubs in Alliance and North Platte as union workers claim jobs held by people with less seniority, reports the Omaha World-Herald.

BNSF and Union Pacific have furloughed nearly 10,000 workers nationwide since late 2008, and union rules allow "bumping," even into other states.

The United Transportation Union has allowed furloughed workers to claim jobs through seniority for years, and the practice increased during the recession, which started in December 2007. When BN merged with Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe, in 1995, the district that includes Alliance expanded to include more states in the West and Southwest.

"This is probably the most significant downturn I've ever witnessed," said Randy Knutson, a UTU general chairman in Denver.

Railroad operations in the West and South were the first to feel effects of the recession, as consumer spending dropped and imports fell, said Knutson, who started working for the railroad in 1973 and has been a full-time union employee for about 17 years.

The deepening downturn eventually hurt demand for other products shipped by rail, such as lumber and coal, and furloughs grew into the thousands nationwide.

Union officials say bumping can cause mild resentment among members, but they are aware of the rules and accept them. Merchants and business officials in North Platte and Alliance say the rule has helped maintain even employment and economic stability in their communities.

"We've noticed a lot of different people," said Caren Stanley, who works at Thiele Pharmacy & Gifts in Alliance, where BNSF has a rail yard and locomotive repair shop. "We're a pharmacy, so they come in to get their prescriptions."

Of Alliance's 9,000 residents, about 1,600 or 17 percent work for BNSF and approximately 240 have been furloughed.

Kenny Preiss, UTU Local 934 chairperson in Alliance, said about 120 railroad employees - including from California, Texas and New Mexico - bumped local workers and moved to the town through last year. Fifty remain, he said.

There was a slight resentment because people lost their jobs, Preiss said. "But there were no fights, no screaming or hollering. Most people understand that we are allowed to move," he said.

When Union Pacific instituted furloughs in North Platte, home of the world's largest switchyard, about 20 workers from there bumped employees with less seniority in Council Bluffs, said Ben Ebmeier, UTU Local 200 chairperson in North Platte.

"At some point everybody can be bumped and everybody can bump," he said.

Approximately 2,600 people work for UP at North Platte's Bailey Yard, or about 12 percent of the town's 22,000 residents.

At the recession's worst point last spring and summer, about 500 people in the North Platte service unit were furloughed, union officials said. The unit includes parts of Iowa, Kansas and Wyoming.

Union Pacific laid off up to 5,300 operating employees across its 23-state system last year, said spokeswoman Donna Kush. Approximately 4,000 still are idled, she said.

BNSF, which operates in 28 states, had a similar fall-off in business, forcing it to furlough more than 3,000 last year. At the beginning of this year, about 1,000 had returned to work.

Recovery has been slow, Kush said, with business about 13 percent below 2008 levels.

"We'd love to get people back to work, but it depends on volumes," she said.

More union members from distant states moved to Alliance to work than to North Platte, because the agreement with BNSF allows engineers and conductors to move across a wider swath of territory, Knutson said.

The union's seniority district that includes North Platte is smaller under Union Pacific, said Rich Mohr, who is Local 286 chairperson in North Platte. A few people from Cheyenne, Wyo., bumped workers in North Platte, he said.

Most Alliance residents bumped by out-of-state workers tried to stay in the area, said Dixie Nelson, director of the Alliance Area Chamber of Commerce.

"They get railroad unemployment and work with lending institutions here. They talk to the bank or the credit union, who try to work with you as much as possible," she said.

Furloughed rail workers with less than 10 years experience receive $320 a week from the Railroad Retirement Board for approximately three months. Workers with more experience receive an additional three months of benefits. The federal stimulus bill passed last year provided another three months of payments.

Nonetheless, unemployment benefits replace only about a third of an average worker's salary, and some workers laid off for more than a year have exhausted their benefits.

Jeff Fisher, 50, a BNSF conductor and switchcrew foreman in the rail yard in Alliance, said he was laid off for more than three weeks in January this year.

Believing the layoff could last as long as four months, he borrowed money from a bank to make house payments and meet other needs and put his name in as a substitute teacher.

"It took some planning," Fisher said. "Jobs are hard to come by here in Alliance."

Finding full-time, temporary employment is difficult because employers know furloughed railroad workers will quit if called back.

"Decent, full-time work?" Ebmeier said in North Platte. "That can be tough. "Most people around here know that if you are on the railroad and you're called back, you will be out."

Mohr said 88 Union Pacific workers in North Platte are on a special waiting list that allows them to work two days a week for the railroad and retain their medical benefits. They also can find work elsewhere without giving up their spots on the list.

The company likes the arrangement because when business picks up people on the waiting list are better prepared to return to work more quickly than regularly furloughed workers, Mohr said.

"Benefits are the key thing," Mohr said. "If you can provide for your family and get them to the doctor when they need to, that's huge."

BNSF doesn't have a similar waiting list, but it does provide four months of health insurance for furloughed workers.

Alliance and North Platte appear to have survived the furloughs relatively unscathed.

"Things are kind of status quo," Nelson, the Alliance chamber of commerce official, said. "I think through Christmas businesses kind of held their own. It was not what people feared it might be."

Dan Mauk, president and CEO of the North Platte Area Chamber of Commerce, said most small businesses remain open, and city sales tax revenue is stable.

(The preceding article was published by the Omaha World-Herald.)