I don't even want to get too involved with this, but I see that I will have to. In contrast to the way other railroads work, you will quickly find that the amount of hours that LIRR employees put in are equal to what others do. In fact, many Amtrak crews as well as folks who work on CSX, NS, UP, ect... can and do work up to the 12 hours before they are dead on the law. How can a RR possibly be run more efficiently by having employees work a 4 hour shift in the morning, and have to return for another 4 hours in the evening? Companies in Corporate America don't do these kind of things. They may have part-time workers, but not many people will be willing to sacrafice such a huge chunk of their time at work and less at home. We all already do that as the way things are. Factor in times spent commuting and you begin to see how pointless it would be. Flexibility already exists by the fact that you have folks who like to work the early AM jobs that start at 12-2am, morning people who like to start at 4-8am, and then you have folks like me that fall under what we call half night jobs which typically begin after 1pm. Thats plenty of flexibility from employees. The split schedule doesn't work for the RR industry, and infact doesn't work for the most part in the real world. You either have full-time workers or part-time workers. No one needs to waste time in the middle of the day when they could just keep working straight through and leave earlier. People, no matter who they are all have lives outside of work, and most of us would prefer to keep things the way they are.
Again, I don't speak this way as a proud union loving employee. This is the way things have always been, and in no way does this play a role in any problems that you may see with the LIRR or the MTA. The problems that lie here as I said before revolves around politics. Just read today's Newsday report and you begin to see where things stand and who is responsible for the problems. When you speak of problems associated with equipment, well guess what, it happens everywhere, and don't let anyone fool you into thinking that say MNR or NJ Transit or Amtrak don't experience problems with their equipment. Use it in everyday commuter operation racking up hundreds of miles a week and things begin to ware and tare. Then factor in the weather, the abuse the equipment takes (from commuters as well) and you begin to understand how things work. If people want to complain about the increasing cost of taking the LIRR, well then they need to get a better grip on the way things are going on around you in the world as a whole. I don't agree with the higher fares but factor this in: the price of gas has gone up, the price of food has gone up, Property on LI is so astronomical, it feels like that by 2015, a good bargin will be a home of $800,000 to a million dollars! The price of cars have gone up and so have the insurance rates, all the things that your car requires, (tires being one of them). Airfares have gone up with the exception of airlines such as JetBlue and SWA, I can go on and on. Life is getting expensive, yet somehow the LIRR is singled out and is made into everybody's punching bag! Our service is horrible?? really? I've been outside of NY and have ssen how long people have to wait for their commuter trains or subways which most do not operate 24 hours a day or as frequent as the LIRR runs. Amtrak trains are consistently late and passengers pay so much more money to ride than do LIRR commuters. The LIRR will never go down. If it did, the economy would pay the ultimate price. Can you imagine the percentage of the population the LIRR or mass transit in the NYC area transport on a daily basis? Now picture all of those folks on the road at the same time. At that point, LA won't have nothing on us when it comes to traffic jams. Passengers on LI don't have many options. A cab? Would you like to know what a cab will charge you just to go from say Ronkonkoma to NYC? Try $60.00 ONE-WAY. Drive? sure, and make sure to bring plenty of money with you so that you can park your car at those bargin parking lots in the city that charge you $50.00 a day!
You also missed something here. Hiring illegals to work if possible won't solve your problem, for you see, in order to run trains, you have to educate yourself and be properly trained to operate your jobs in a very SAFE and efficient manner. It's kind of hard when you have folks who don't know how to speak english, and who don't want to either. You see, I'm spanish, and I speak it, and I hear all of those illegals talk, and if only you could understand what it is they say, you would then want to ever so quickly ship them off to their foreign lands with no questions asked. Many of them lack ethics and degrade latin americans who have entered legally and busted their buns over the years just to make a life for themselves. The folks you see are trash talking drunks who most are uneducated even in their own native language, so how would a company that relies on 100% safety be able to hire these type of people? You don't think that there will be accidents occuring on a constant basis? You think that these folks care about other people? I really wish that everyone can understand what they say, and so that you will be able to get a better sense for their character. I'm off on a tantrum here, and I need to stop. But one last note, The union issue that some of us speak of is a double edged sword. In my eyes, and I have always been unionized even in my past jobs, unions have a benefit to employees. Sure it has it's bad sides, but in the long run, it is needed to ensure the protection of the employee. It is what acts as a police when power hungry over zealous employers begin to flex their muscle around. Yes, we are gauranteed 8 hours a day, but so are most people in the work place, wether they be part-time or full-time employees, they are guaranteed an amount of hours a day or a week. I would never ever work in a place that is non-union. There is no protection, there is no representation which can greatly affect employee morale. Lets face it, when people like their jobs, and feel safe, production will be efficient. If anyone disagrees with me, well thats fine, your entitled to your opinion, but there is so much more involved in what we do at work than what people see, and It's always easy for someone to just look at us and feel that we are overpaid and that the RR could be run more efficiently. But the truth is, while we get paid well, we still don't get paid enough to deal with the problems that we are faced with everyday, and most of us are not complaining.
