I just finished reading a post in the BNSF Today site and I was saddened by what I read. The article I read was about the decline in injuries and fatalities on the railroads in 2006. That part was good to read, but there was something missing and has been missing for several years now. When I worked for the ATSF and then the BNSF, each year when the company would post their figures for the past year they would list who had died; it was a memorial. Today, the railroads treat their own employees like they were a liability to them if they lose their life on the job. There are no more memorials, just statistics. The management at BNSF and others has grown colder and colder each year. They have lost the concept of human life and what it means; the hard work that countless men and women have poured into their jobs.
And they wonder why so many employees hate them (management) today; why morale is non-existent. The worst part though is that it doesn't have to be that way.