Holly Gibson Wrote:
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> You'll notice airline pilots don't have cameras
> aimed at them while they're flying a plane.
> Surgeons don't have cameras aimed at them while
> they're operating on a patient. Is it just
> because they have strong unions?
>

I think I have to agree with Bob on this one. Airline pilots and surgeons are far more professional than most railroaders. They go through years of military and or higher education just to be employed in their fields. The requirement for and engineer (I include myself in this)is a high school diploma, fourteen weeks of conductor training and maybe 6 months of student trips and engineer training. Cry all you want but that speaks volumes for maturity and professionalism. I work with people who actually take pride in how poor of a job they can do. I couldn't even sleep at night if my work ethic was that poor. You would be very hard pressed to find a surgeon with that attitude.

The unions are a huge problem in this area. They promote a society where esteem and preffered postions are decided purely by seniority. That just enables people to be horrible at their jobs. If the best runs, hours, and days off were decided by how many merits you were awarded for hard work you would be hard pressed to find a lazy, "train-killing" employee.

As far as the "big brother" idea goes, that doesn't hold sway either. Your employer can implement whatever processed he or she wants. You accept that as a term of employment if not then find the door.

-Kyle