senator istook

[frenchie]

dear one and all gunn is using taxpapers money to pay upper management a 3.5 pay increase as of the first of the year and still matches all their 401k contributions in their entirety but yet cannot give his hourly employees a raise after a labor impasse of nearly six years on time performance is under 85% and he finds this acceptable as of the march employee advisory he is again looking for 1.8 billion for fiscal year 2005 poor productiving poor first line management decisions and general apathy run rampant.

 

[onewhoknows]

Your statement is rife with falsehoods. There is no salary increase in the works for management, and the 401K match for management is limited to a 5% of total income cap.

 

[AlanB]

Frenchie,

I would also concur with "onewhoknows". For starters David Gunn now sends monthly financial reports to Congress. Reports that have impressed one of Amtrak's greatest critics, John McCain. He still may not like Amtrak and want to see it dead, but he's not complaining about hidden numbers anymore or mismanagement. If there was a huge increase in the works for management, it would show up in those reports and someone would call him on it.

Secondly your statement flies in the face of David having canned close to 200 managers, including one of the most senior managers at Amtrak, Stan Bagely. He's not giving anyone money, but in fact trying to bring Amtrak's expenses under control.

Third, from all info that I've seen lately David is willing to talk money if and when the unions are willing to talk about some rule changes. So far all reports suggest that the unions won't even consider talking about rules changes.

I don't wish to appear harsh here, as I do realize that Amtrak workers are amoungst the lowest paid workers within the RR industry. But life is full of give and take. Both sides have to bend or the system doesn't work.

Finally, I have to ask what does anything discussed in your original post have to do with Senator Istook? :blink: You mention Senator Istook in the title, yet I for the life of me can't figure out what anything discussed here has to do with Mr. Istook.

 

[PRR 60]

Some of the non-union employees of Amtrak have not seen a raise in ten years. Many of the best technical people simply left in disgust.

By the way, when did Congressman Istook get promoted to Senator?

 

[AlanB]

By the way, when did Congressman Istook get promoted to Senator?

That never even occured to me when I was typing things up. I just saw the title of "Senator Istook" and repeated it. :lol:

You're quite right though, he's a Congressman.

However, I still don't understand why his name is in the title in the first place, not that I'm expecting that you know either PRR60.

 

[PRR 60]

However, I still don't understand why his name is in the title in the first place, not that I'm expecting that you know either PRR60.

Probably just to get our attention. It worked!

 

[AlanB]

However, I still don't understand why his name is in the title in the first place, not that I'm expecting that you know either PRR60.

Probably just to get our attention. It worked!

Could be.

 

[F59 PHI]

Maybe frenchie IS congressman istook trying to give Amtrak a bad name.

 

[Amtrak OBS Employee]

dear one and all gunn is using taxpapers money to pay upper management a 3.5 pay increase as of the first of the year and still matches all their 401k contributions in their entirety but yet cannot give his hourly employees a raise after a labor impasse of nearly six years on time performance is under 85% and he finds this acceptable as of the march employee advisory he is again looking for 1.8 billion for fiscal year 2005 poor productiving poor first line management decisions and general apathy run rampant.

As far as I can tell, this is a bunch of crap! There has been a reduction in managers since Mr Gunn took the helm. In my opinion, more managers should be cut, however, I am not in that position to have that kind of say, thank goodness! And btw for your information, as far as union hourly wage employees are concerned, OBS employees are being asked to review and ratify a new agreement right now. To my knowledge nothing happened in this respect while Warrington was at the helm (at least in my time here with the company). We in OBS have been working without a "current" agreement (in other words a really outdated) for a long time. Now as for my feelings on the agreement, that is a different subject, and that information is personal on my end! B)

 

[Amtrak OBS Employee]

In other words, I am seeing results under Mr Gunn!!!!