FROM A1
A12 • HERMISTONHERALD.COM
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3, 2019
LAYOFFS
Continued from Page A1
Staff photo by Jade McDowell
Rick Jewett, left, and Mike Jewett, right, of Hermiston Sanitary Disposal unload mattresses
during Hermiston’s free recycling event in 2018. This year’s will take place on April 13.
SPRING
Continued from Page A1
Umatilla residents will
have their own community
clean-up event to look for-
ward to on April 13. The
day marks the communi-
ty’s annual “Slam Dunk
the Junk” from 9 a.m. to
noon. Waste collection
sites will be located around
the city that morning and
volunteers will move
through neighborhoods to
help clean up properties
and haul unwanted items
from yards. To sign up to
be a volunteer, to spon-
sor a dumpster or for more
information call 541-922-
3226 x108 or email esmer-
alda@umatilla-city.org.
City parks
City staff are already
working on sprucing up
city properties as the
weather gets warm. Jason
Barron, Hermiston’s parks
manager, said his depart-
ment has hired four sea-
sonal workers and is look-
ing for more.
“We’re still a little
short-handed,” he said.
Workers
unlocked
restrooms and put out pic-
nic tables at city parks
around town on Monday
to kick off the spring parks
season. Picnic shelters at
the parks are now avail-
able for reservations by
calling the parks depart-
ment at 541-667-5018.
Barron said staff have
also been edging side-
walks around parks, weed-
ing, landscaping fl ower
beds,
pressure-washing
restrooms and shelters,
scrubbing away graffi ti,
trimming bushes and more
to get parks in shape for
the busy season. They will
be adding mulch from old
Christmas trees to the disc
golf course off of North-
west 11th Street later.
The department con-
tinues to work on the
remodel of Greenwood
Park off Beach Avenue.
They plan to put in the fi n-
ishing touches, including
new play equipment and a
shelter, by mid-June.
Barron said members
of the public can do their
part at city parks by clean-
ing up after themselves,
disposing of litter and
by picking up after their
dogs. They can also report
problems such as broken
equipment to the parks
department.
“We just ask everyone
to try and be a respectful
user,” he said.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
Ben Hill was laid off this month after
four years as a mechanical service opera-
tor. He said he was also concerned about the
workforce reduction’s impact on safety.
As part of the layoffs that have been
occurring, the hump at Hinkle has been
closed recently. The hump harnesses the
power of gravity to separate cars from
incoming trains into different areas of the
yard. Hill said closing the hump and manu-
ally separating cars on fl at ground created a
“nightmare” for the yard.
“Every route to Hinkle is blocked with
trains trying to get in and out,” he said.
Others the East Oregonian spoke to also
said the move had created chaos. In response
to a question about why the hump was closed
and if it was a temporary closure, McMahan
responded that the company’s Unifi ed Plan
2020, which has been rolled out at Hinkle
over the past few months, “streamlines our
operations and impacts the number of trains
that need to be humped.”
He said that safety remains the compa-
ny’s “number one priority and the entire
Union Pacifi c team is committed to operat-
ing a safe, effi cient and reliable railroad.”
Loss of morale
Hill said the multiple rounds of layoffs
across departments in recent months have
created a culture of constant stress and
worry as employees head to work not sure
if they will still have a job by the end of
the day.
“You see people who are normally hap-
py-go-lucky start to sour,” he said. “Morale
is gone.”
Hill said he enjoyed his time with Union
Pacifi c, and worked with a lot of great peo-
ple. He said he felt the layoffs and the prob-
lems coming with them weren’t coming
from local managers but from those farther
up the company who didn’t have “boots on
the ground.”
Others shared similar stories of seeing
high stress and even panic attacks at work
as more layoffs are expected.
Dave Gracia, who retired as an electri-
cian from Union Pacifi c in 2014, said he
still keeps in touch with former coworkers,
and has heard from them that morale at the
yard is “in the toilet” and employees feel
powerless.
Gracia said he was surprised to hear of
layoffs, since the company had avoided lay-
ing employees off in Hermiston through the
recession that began in 2008.
“Before, they were doing everything
they could to hang on to guys,” he said.
People who joined the company since
then, he said, “thought they would be a lot
more secure in their work with the economy
the way it is.”
He said Union Pacifi c is following in
the footsteps of CSX, a railroad operating
on the eastern side of the United States that
in recent years switched to the “precision
scheduled railroading” that Union Pacifi c is
now implementing through its Unifi ed Plan
2020.
In 2018 multiple media outlets reported
that CSX had seen an increase in accidents
after going through a signifi cant workforce
reduction in 2017. Railway Age, an industry
publication, reported CSX had the lowest
accident rate of the country’s seven Class
I railroads in 2013 but the highest in 2017,
increasing by 73 percent.
In an October 2018 announcement of its
Unifi ed Plan 2020, Union Pacifi c chairman
Lance Fritz stated that adoption of precision
scheduled railroading through the Unifi ed
Plan 2020 “is our path forward to secure our
place as the industry leader in safety, service
and fi nancial performance.”
Longtime neighbor
The railroad played an outsized role in
Hermiston’s early history, and Union Pacifi c
has been one of Hermiston’s top employers
for decades. The city’s June 2018 fi nancial
report listed Union Pacifi c as its fi fth larg-
est employer at approximately 500 employ-
ees. McMahan declined to name the number
of employees in Hermiston, but said Union
Pacifi c had 1,506 employees in Oregon at
the end of 2018.
Mayor David Drotzmann said Union
Pacifi c spokesman Aaron Hunt reached out
to him Friday to assure the city that while
the company is reducing its workforce in
Hermiston, it does not plan to close Hin-
kle. He said Hunt explained that streamlin-
ing some operations meant fewer employ-
ees were needed.
“I appreciate he gave us the confi dence
that Hinkle is not going away,” Drotzmann
said.
He said Union Pacifi c has been an
important part of the community for many
years, and a large transfer of employees into
Hermiston in the 1990s helped boost Herm-
iston’s growth.
“They brought a lot of members to our
community during that time,” he said.
Gracia was one of about 100 Union
Pacifi c employees who transferred to Herm-
iston from Salt Lake City in 1998. He said
the railroad has been an attractive employer
in the past, with good benefi ts and an oppor-
tunity to learn a craft.
Some skill sets are easier to transfer than
others. After being laid off, Hill said electri-
cians were being snatched up by area data
centers, but other former coworkers are
struggling to fi nd family-wage jobs in the
area and are instead performing jobs like
part-time pizza delivery driver. Some fur-
loughed workers the newspaper reached out
to declined to be interviewed even off the
record, citing a worries that an interview
would hurt their chances to work for the
company elsewhere in the future.
McMahan said Union Pacifi c has sent
some jobs to its Albina yard in Portland
and to Pocatello, Idaho. Trains Maga-
zine reported that Union Pacifi c closed up
its locomotive shop in El Paso, Texas, in
November and announced the closure of
the Pine Bluff, Arkansas, locomotive shop
in February.
In January, Union Pacifi c reported record
earnings in 2018, with a net income of $6
billion. On April 18 the company plans to
provide an update on its earnings on a call
that will be streamed at up.com.
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Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Flood waters surround a barn last week on Noble Road southwest of Hermiston. A
National Weather Service forecast calls for a slight chance of showers in Hermiston
on Thursday and a 60 percent chance of precipitation on Friday.
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30 miles northwest of Pendleton. The full highway closure at the
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next year, we want your input now before the project design is fi nalized.
To fi nd out more and to provide your feedback, visit our
ONLINE OPEN HOUSE BETWEEN APRIL 1 AND MAY 31, 2019 AT…
HTTP://OPENHOUSE.OREGONDOT.ORG/UPRR-AT-COLD-SPRINGS
We know that bridge and highway closures can be frustrating, that’s
why we are getting the word out a year in advance. We hope you
will take a few minutes to learn what we are planning and to get
involved by providing your feedback and comments.
Questions can be directed to ODOT Project
Leader Grant Matlock 541-963-3177, or by
email at Grant.Matlock@odot.state.or.us