I’m prepared to be laid off here in Kansas City on the railroad at just about any moment. my immediate plan is to take a midnight shift in Topeka on the railroad for as long as I can hold it, which probably won’t be more than a week or so. After that, I go to an auxiliary board which pays me for 8 days a month and preserves my health insurance and retirement service time. Its unlikely i’ll have to actually do any work those 8 days but technically i could get called in in a pinch or for training classes or whatever. as for the rest of the month, its unemployment claims.
Railroad unemployment is run by the Railroad Retirement Board and is funded entirely from railroads. Between that and the auxiliary pay, i’ll net out to about half of what i was making before. which is enough to get by, but it still sucks. I’d much rather be working, obviously. Its difficult to tell how long this might last. maybe 2 months, maybe next summer. Railroad business in general tends to pick up in mid to late spring so that helps some and might be enough to get me back to work. but to get back everyone whose laid off on the railroad, its gonna take a big economic recovery which might take another 6+ months.
Boy, hope those fools in congress that crashed the worldwide economy with the complete mismanagement of federal home loan programs are happy now.
