Union Pacific CEO defends safety practices without mentioning key critic

FreightWaves03-14

Union Pacific CEO Vena defended the company's safety record at a J.P. Morgan conference. (Photo: Jim Allen/FreightWaves) Jim Vena’s opening remarks Wednesday at the J.P. Morgan 2024 Industrials ...

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Morgan 2024 Industrials ...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://finance.yahoo.com/news/union-pacific-ceo-defends-safety-191059896.html\">Source Link</a>\n\n</div>\n","source":"yahoofinance","html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>Union Pacific CEO defends safety practices without mentioning key critic</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nUnion Pacific CEO defends safety practices without mentioning key critic\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2024-03-14 03:10 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://finance.yahoo.com/news/union-pacific-ceo-defends-safety-191059896.html><strong>FreightWaves</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>Union Pacific CEO Vena defended the company's safety record at a J.P. Morgan conference. (Photo: Jim Allen/FreightWaves)\n \n\nJim Vena’s opening remarks Wednesday at the J.P. Morgan 2024 Industrials ...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://finance.yahoo.com/news/union-pacific-ceo-defends-safety-191059896.html\">Source Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","isBrief":false,"type":0,"news_type":1,"symbol":"BK4581","symbol_name":"高盛持仓","start_time":0,"source_url":"https://finance.yahoo.com/news/union-pacific-ceo-defends-safety-191059896.html","article_id":"2419741652","we_media_id":null,"thumbnails":["https://s.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/SxznFkGAma8j00MbisXN7A--~B/aD02NzU7dz0xMjAwO2FwcGlkPXl0YWNoeW9u/https://media.zenfs.com/en/freightwaves_373/eb3aac1e7c1e63a8dcd179aa4c41e3a3"],"rights":null,"url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=2419741652","pubTimestamp":1710357059,"sourceInfo":{"source_id":"yahoofinance","name":"雅虎金融"},"weMediaInfo":null,"summary":"Union Pacific CEO Vena defended the company's safety record at a J.P. Morgan conference. . Jim Vena’s opening remarks Wednesday at the J.P. Morgan 2024 Industrials Conference could easily be seen as a rebuttal to one man: Amit Bose, the chairman of the Federal Railroad Administration.Bose wrote a letter to the Union Pacific  CEO Feb. 29, responding to reports of extensive furloughs at the Class 1 railroad that serves the Western half of the U.S. “The [FRA] has previously communicated our concerns to UP regarding the potential risks of reducing staffing levels in critical departments such as mechanical operations,” Bose wrote. “Despite FRA’s warnings and recommendations, and at a time when Class I freights should be prioritizing ways to improve a decade-long record of stagnant safety performance, it is disappointing to see that UP is actively disregarding the federal government’s concerns.”Bose’s criticism was not the first directed at Vena by a federal official. In November, at the Rai","collect":0,"end_time":0,"defaultTopTitle":"yahoo.com","property":[],"viewcount":null,"language":"en","relate_stocks":{"BK4581":"高盛持仓","IE00BD4GTW91.USD":"LEGG MASON CLEARBRIDGEINFRASTRUCTURE VALUE \"A\" (USDHDG) INC","LU0354030511.USD":"ALLSPRING  U.S. LARGE CAP GROWTH \"I\" (USD) ACC","BK4504":"桥水持仓","LU1978683503.SGD":"Blackrock Sustainable Energy A2 SGD-H","LU2098885051.SGD":"JPMorgan Funds - Multi-Manager Alternatives A (acc) SGD","LU0354030438.USD":"富国美国大盘成长基金Cl A Acc","LU0661504455.SGD":"Blackrock Global Equity Income A5 SGD-H","LU1668664300.SGD":"Blackrock World Financials A2 SGD-H","LU1989772840.SGD":"CPR Invest - Climate Action A2 Acc SGD-H","LU1303367103.USD":"摩根大通多经理另类基金 A (acc)","IE00BBT3K403.USD":"LEGG MASON CLEARBRIDGE TACTICAL DIVIDEND INCOME \"A(USD) ACC","BK4127":"投资银行业与经纪业","IE00BD4GTV84.USD":"LEGG MASON CLEARBRIDGEINFRASTRUCTURE VALUE \"A\" (USDHDG) ACC","IE00BLSP4452.SGD":"Legg Mason ClearBridge - Tactical Dividend Income A Mdis SGD-H Plus","IE00BMG7P587.USD":"LEGG MASON CLEARBRIDGE GLOBAL INFRASTRUCTURE INCOM \"A\" (USD) INC","LU1074936037.SGD":"JPMorgan Funds - US Value A (acc) SGD","BK4016":"铁路","BK4532":"文艺复兴科技持仓","LU0742534661.SGD":"Fidelity America A-SGD (hedged)","LU0949170772.SGD":"Blackrock Global Equity Income A6 SGD-H","LU0106831901.USD":"贝莱德世界金融基金A2","MS":"摩根士丹利","LU1551013342.USD":"Allianz Income and Growth Cl AMg2 DIS USD","LU0312595415.SGD":"Schroder ISF Global Climate Change Equity A Acc SGD","LU0098860793.USD":"FRANKLIN INCOME \"A\" INC","LU0124384867.USD":"贝莱德新能源基金A2","LU0738911758.USD":"Blackrock Global Equity Income A6 USD","BK4534":"瑞士信贷持仓","BK4585":"ETF&股票定投概念","LU1162221912.USD":"FRANKLIN INCOME \"A\" (USD) ACC","IE00BMG7P694.USD":"Legg Mason ClearBridge - Global Infrastructure Income A Mdis USD Plus","IE00BD4GTT62.SGD":"Legg Mason ClearBridge Infrastructure Value A SGD-H (mdis) plus","LU0820561909.HKD":"ALLIANZ INCOME AND GROWTH \"AM\" (HKD) INC","SPI":"阳光动力","LU0820562030.AUD":"ALLIANZ INCOME AND GROWTH \"AMH2\" (AUDHDG) H2 INC","LU1551013425.SGD":"Allianz Income and Growth Cl AMg2 DIS H2-SGD","LU0251142724.SGD":"Fidelity America A-SGD","LU0320765646.SGD":"FTIF - Franklin Income A MDIS SGD-H1","LU1989772923.USD":"CPR Invest - Climate Action A2 Acc USD-H","LU1363072403.SGD":"Fidelity Global Financial Services A-ACC-SGD","IE00BZ1G4Q59.USD":"LEGG MASON CLEARBRIDGE US EQUITY SUSTAINABILITY LEADER \"A\"(USD) INC (A)","IE00BMG7P819.SGD":"Legg Mason ClearBridge - Global Infrastructure Income A Mdis SGD-H Plus","BK4141":"半导体产品","LU1861214812.USD":"Blackrock Future of Transport A2 USD","IE00BMG7P926.USD":"Legg Mason ClearBridge - Global Infrastructure Income A Acc USD","UNP":"联合太平洋","LU1861219969.SGD":"Blackrock Future of Transport A2 SGD-H","LU0868494617.USD":"UBS (LUX) EQUITY SICAV - US TOTAL YIELD SUSTAINABLE \"P\" (USD) ACC","LU0943347566.SGD":"安联收益及增长平衡基金AM H2-SGD"},"translate_title":"联合太平洋首席执行官为安全实践辩护，但没有提到关键批评者","themeId":null,"isJumpTheme":false,"ttsUrl":null,"symbols_score_info":{"UNP":1,"SPI":1,"MS":0.73},"content_text":"Union Pacific CEO Vena defended the company's safety record at a J.P. Morgan conference. (Photo: Jim Allen/FreightWaves)\n \n\nJim Vena’s opening remarks Wednesday at the J.P. Morgan 2024 Industrials Conference could easily be seen as a rebuttal to one man: Amit Bose, the chairman of the Federal Railroad Administration.\nBose wrote a letter to the Union Pacific (NYSE: UNP) CEO Feb. 29, responding to reports of extensive furloughs at the Class 1 railroad that serves the Western half of the U.S. “The [FRA] has previously communicated our concerns to UP regarding the potential risks of reducing staffing levels in critical departments such as mechanical operations,” Bose wrote. “Despite FRA’s warnings and recommendations, and at a time when Class I freights should be prioritizing ways to improve a decade-long record of stagnant safety performance, it is disappointing to see that UP is actively disregarding the federal government’s concerns.”\nVena shot back a day later, saying Bose’s letter made an “inaccurate correlation between natural workforce fluctuations and safety.” “Your letter … combines different types of workers and paints an incorrect and incomplete picture of the natural role workforce fluctuations play in operating a railroad year-round,” Vena wrote.\nGiven that the back-and-forth took place less than three weeks ago, it wasn’t hard to hear in Vena’s presentation a public response to Bose’s safety concerns without mentioning Bose by name.\nThe opening slide Vena showed at the J.P. Morgan conference cited statistics about UP’s recent safety record: no work-related deaths in 2023, a 15% year-over-year reduction in serious injuries, a 28% drop in derailments in the past 10 years and a 26% improvement in derailments since precision railroading — the efficiency-driven management system that has been blamed by critics for a variety of railroad ills — was implemented in 2019.\n“Union Pacific as well as the entire industry has made significant progress over the years,” Vena told conference attendees. The railroad ended 2023 “with good momentum,” he said, citing last year’s zero deaths.\n“But we understand we still have work to do, especially to reach our goal of industry leadership,” Vena added.\nHe cited an initiative at UP to identify the primary causes of injuries, saying the company had found six key “choices that individuals make each day” that cause an outsize percentage of injuries. He did not name the six but said they are called “Go Home Safe” choices within the railroad, “and we rolled out new policies and training to all employees to prevent these potentially life-threatening behaviors.”\n“The key message is that the right priority has been placed on the safety of our network,” Vena said.\nBose’s criticism was not the first directed at Vena by a federal official. In November, at the RailTrends conference in New York, Surface Transportation Board Chairman Martin Oberman also criticized Vena by alleging he was favoring shareholder returns over safety. \nObservers of the rail system in the U.S. recently have been noting improvements in service and incremental gains in market share after years of standing still and hearing endless criticism of performance.\nVena said in response to questions from Brian Ossenbeck, a senior analyst at J.P. Morgan and the investment bank’s lead transportation analyst, that internal performance metrics at Union Pacific had largely ignored customer satisfaction. The previous metric measured “success against our trip plan that we had built,” Vena said during his roughly half-hour presentation.\nMeasuring customer satisfaction \n“The standard was driven by what we needed to do,” he said, but it could never get to 100% satisfaction because “it wasn’t reflective of what the customer wanted.” It also could easily be manipulated, he said, noting that the number of hours needed to get a train out of the yard and on to the Union Pacific system could just be extended in the plan, making compliance easier.\nThe old system has been replaced by the Service Performance Index (SPI). In a letter to customers last month, Kenny Rocker, the company’s executive vice president for marketing and sales, spelled out the measurements built into SPI.\nFor manifest and intermodal service, Rocker said the comparison will be between the service a customer is receiving now and “the best monthly network performance over the last three years.”\nFor a unit train hauling one type of good or a lineup of an identical type of cars, the measurement will be on a monthly basis to determine how well those trains are “achieving their demand and cycle times on a monthly basis.”\n“What SPI is, it measured what we’ve sold our customers,” Vena said at the conference. The measurement is at a “high level,” he said, and it ultimately is “a consolidation of everything, but in fact we have specific measures and specific [key performance indicators.]”\nVena did not specifically address the furloughs that Bose referred to in his letter. But he did talk about the company’s current workforce, as did CFO Jennifer Hamann, who also addressed the conference.\nUnion Pacific is in the midst of implementing the terms of the landmark agreement it made with its engineers last year, which provided for a schedule of 11 days on call and four days off.\nHamann said as the implementation proceeds, “right now you’re seeing us carry a few extra employees.” Along with healthy volumes on the railroad, “we want to maintain a buffer,” she said. “We want to be ready to serve our customers and provide them the service they need, and we’ve got to have a little bit of slack in the system to deal with that.”\nCapacity can be added\nVena said that slack extends to locomotives. About 500 Union Pacific locomotives are “ready to go” if there were demand for more service, while access to an additional 1,000 would take “a little bit of work” to secure. “We have as many units parked that some of the other smaller Class 1s have operating,” Vena said. “We don’t have an asset problem. Our infrastructure is in place to be able to move and increase business if we have to.”\nWhile an uptick in service might require some investment in capital, “overall the railroad was built to handle more traffic than we have today,” Vena said.\nRecent performance numbers do speak to a railroad serving more customers. The company’s fourth-quarter earnings release reported that quarterly volume was up 3.5% from the fourth quarter of 2022, and the operating ratio improved to 60.9% from 61%.\nFor the full year, OR improved to 60.1% from 62.3% for all of 2022. Volume was up anywhere from 3% to 4% for the full year, depending on product category.\nMore articles by John Kingston\nNorfolk Southern fires back at Ancora, gets Wall Street analyst’s support\nSettlement of case involving BNSF’s use of trucker biometrics set at $75 million\nIf truckers haul bread and cakes, is their business baking or trucking?\nThe post Union Pacific CEO defends safety practices without mentioning key critic appeared first on FreightWaves.","kind":null,"is_publish_news":null,"is_publish_highlight":null,"is_publish_live":null,"is_publish_wemedia":null,"editions":null,"symbols":[],"gpt_button":1},"commentList":[],"isCommentEnd":true,"newsSizeData":{"likeSize":0,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"favoriteSize":0,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false},"APP":{"userAgent":"Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; ClaudeBot/1.0; +claudebot@anthropic.com)","isDev":false,"isTTM":true,"deviceId":"web-server-community-laohu8-v3","version":"4.22.4","shortVersion":"4.22.4","platform":"web","vendor":"web","appName":"ttm","isIOS":false,"isAndroid":false,"isTiger":false,"isTHS":false,"isWeiXin":false,"isWeiXinMini":false,"isWeiBo":false,"isQQ":false,"isBaiduSwan":false,"isBaiduBox":false,"isDingTalk":false,"isToutiao":false,"isOnePlus":false,"isHuaWei":false,"isXiaomi":false,"isXiaomiWebView":false,"isOppo":false,"isVivo":false,"isSamsung":false,"isMobile":false},"href":"/m/news/2419741652"}