Everybody with a finger in the tragic Lac Megantic pie has agreed a settlement.
Everybody, that is, except the US hedge fund Pershing Square which managed to hijack the iconic Canadian company with a mere 10% share-holding.
According to CP Rail, the race to the bottom in railroad safety had nothing to do with them.
They had nothing to do with the small-time operators like "Fast Eddie" Burkhardt, the guy who owned the train that destroyed Lac Megantic.
Fast Eddie is the guy who figured out a crew of two in a railroad locomotive was a safety hazard, because when you got two guys in the locomotive, by golly, they just gonna be distracting one another.
Two mile long tar-sludge tanker trains just gonna be safer with one guy in the cab, not two.
For their part, CP Rail likes to brag about how they revolutionized rail transport in Canada by making trains longer, running them faster, and firing thousands of employees.
Yup, can't see no safety issues there...
Meanwhile, the hedge fund shit-bags who were allowed to rape this iconic Canadian company are going full steam ahead on their share buy-back plan.
Share buy-backs are about as useful to a company as lighting a boxcar full of hundred dollar bills on fire. It's using company cash to artificially pump up earnings-per-share and all that other stuff the money geeks fret over. The intent is to goose share value.
In the case of CP Rail, the share price has tanked about 20% since the Ackman crew started the buy-back.
Luckily, they've still got a few dollars left over to pursue appeals of the Lac Megantic settlement.
Showing posts with label E. Hunter Harrison rail safety. Show all posts
Showing posts with label E. Hunter Harrison rail safety. Show all posts
Monday, July 27, 2015
Monday, March 2, 2015
CP Rail boss Hunter "Hitman" Harrison wags terror threat
It's not two years since a rail accident caused by criminally negligent railroad managers killed 47 innocents in Lac Megantic, but Hunter Harrison is not afraid of accidents.
He's afraid of terrorists!
Yup, those dastardly terror types could blow up a train-load of Bakken crude any time, any place.
True enough. Yet this potential terror threat he sketches out seems to be strictly imaginary. Those 47 dead in Lac Megantic were totally real.
If there were actual terror cells active in North America, one would expect they might have struck by now. Yet, before and after 9/11 they've done exactly nothing. I think it's safe to say that they don't exist.
Sure, we get the regular headlines about the FBI/Homeland Security/CSIS/RCMP busting up some half-brained terror plot or another, but on close inspection these can uniformly be filed under "informers gone wild." You pay informers millions to lure dim-witted Muslim kids, or even more reprehensible, actual home-grown Canadian kids who have fallen through the massive cracks in our mental health-care infrastructure, into talking stupid shit into the ubiquitous police recording instruments, and voilà, you've busted another terror plot!
But Harrison wants rail traffic re-routed around major urban centres, just in case. This will of course be paid for by the public, not by the railroad that Harrison and his hedge fund bosses are busy looting. That will minimize the chances of a terror attack utilizing a "Bakken bomb" in the downtown core of a major city.
Good thinking, Hunter.
But think about this; we send tractor-trailer loads of highly explosive propane and gasoline and myriad other concoctions into urban cores every day, all across North America, with absolutely no security. Never has there been a terror attack on a single one!
What that tells me is that these terror cells we're supposed to be so afraid of simply don't exist.
Nevertheless, that's what Hunter Harrison felt compelled to talk about in his speech to the Canadian Club today, and it sure made good press!... completely took the eye off the fact that CP Rail's recipe for success since the Ackman putsch consists of nothing other than running longer trains faster with fewer employees.
That's a far greater threat to our safety than the imaginary "terrorists" he's waving around.
He's afraid of terrorists!
Yup, those dastardly terror types could blow up a train-load of Bakken crude any time, any place.
True enough. Yet this potential terror threat he sketches out seems to be strictly imaginary. Those 47 dead in Lac Megantic were totally real.
If there were actual terror cells active in North America, one would expect they might have struck by now. Yet, before and after 9/11 they've done exactly nothing. I think it's safe to say that they don't exist.
Sure, we get the regular headlines about the FBI/Homeland Security/CSIS/RCMP busting up some half-brained terror plot or another, but on close inspection these can uniformly be filed under "informers gone wild." You pay informers millions to lure dim-witted Muslim kids, or even more reprehensible, actual home-grown Canadian kids who have fallen through the massive cracks in our mental health-care infrastructure, into talking stupid shit into the ubiquitous police recording instruments, and voilà, you've busted another terror plot!
But Harrison wants rail traffic re-routed around major urban centres, just in case. This will of course be paid for by the public, not by the railroad that Harrison and his hedge fund bosses are busy looting. That will minimize the chances of a terror attack utilizing a "Bakken bomb" in the downtown core of a major city.
Good thinking, Hunter.
But think about this; we send tractor-trailer loads of highly explosive propane and gasoline and myriad other concoctions into urban cores every day, all across North America, with absolutely no security. Never has there been a terror attack on a single one!
What that tells me is that these terror cells we're supposed to be so afraid of simply don't exist.
Nevertheless, that's what Hunter Harrison felt compelled to talk about in his speech to the Canadian Club today, and it sure made good press!... completely took the eye off the fact that CP Rail's recipe for success since the Ackman putsch consists of nothing other than running longer trains faster with fewer employees.
That's a far greater threat to our safety than the imaginary "terrorists" he's waving around.
Wednesday, October 8, 2014
Canada determined to host major rail disaster
And we're talking MAJOR here.
Apparently the sacrifice of 47 lives in Lac Megantic last year was just something we're to expect in the "business as usual" department, because mere days ago former CN boss Hunter Harrison was standing in front of a Senate committee crying about the government's over-reaction to that disaster.
So now we have a new disaster, at the great Canadian railroad that Hunter gutted before he gutted the other great Canadian railroad, and from all accounts it is only a matter of dumb luck that this didn't turn into another Lac Megantic.
Neither Lac Megantic nor this latest close call will silence the de-regulators and privatizers in their campaign for zero oversight of railroads. Sooner or later, one of these Bakken bombs will go off in the downtown of Winnipeg, instead of the outskirts of some out-of-the-way non-entity like Wadena.
Then we'll have hundreds or even thousands of deaths, instead of the mere dozens fried in Lac Megantic.
And you can bet that the Hunter Harrison types who have pocketed vast fortunes in making Canada's railroads less safe, will continue whining about over-regulation.
Apparently the sacrifice of 47 lives in Lac Megantic last year was just something we're to expect in the "business as usual" department, because mere days ago former CN boss Hunter Harrison was standing in front of a Senate committee crying about the government's over-reaction to that disaster.
So now we have a new disaster, at the great Canadian railroad that Hunter gutted before he gutted the other great Canadian railroad, and from all accounts it is only a matter of dumb luck that this didn't turn into another Lac Megantic.
Neither Lac Megantic nor this latest close call will silence the de-regulators and privatizers in their campaign for zero oversight of railroads. Sooner or later, one of these Bakken bombs will go off in the downtown of Winnipeg, instead of the outskirts of some out-of-the-way non-entity like Wadena.
Then we'll have hundreds or even thousands of deaths, instead of the mere dozens fried in Lac Megantic.
And you can bet that the Hunter Harrison types who have pocketed vast fortunes in making Canada's railroads less safe, will continue whining about over-regulation.
Friday, October 3, 2014
Uber-douchebag Hunter "Hitman" Harrison blasts gov't for overreacting post Lac Megantic
You remember Lac Megantic?
That was the sleepy Quebec small-town that was literally blown off the map last year when one of Fast Eddie Burkhardt's single-crew oil trains exploded in the downtown.
Hardly a year has passed, and CP Rail Boss Hunter Harrison is busy whinging about government over-regulation. Harrison just doesn't get why the busy-body government regulators need to fiddle with the free market, and impose draconian communistic rules about everything from speed limits for trains carrying dangerous goods, to mandating that a mile-long train loaded with dangerous goods should have more than a one-man crew!
Well Hunter, let me 'splain it to ya; the reason the government needs to regulate greedy twats like you and your acolyte Burkhardt, is because your logic, your procedures, your unregulated over-weening greed, killed 47 people in Lac Megantic...
...yet nobody is facing murder charges!
The reason Hunter is lobbying for less regulation is obvious. The entire Ackman/Harrison strategy for boosting CP Rail's obscene profits going forward hinges on making trains longer and running them faster with smaller crews!
Fuck safety!
Fuck sleepy small towns everywhere!
Profit uber alles!
That was the sleepy Quebec small-town that was literally blown off the map last year when one of Fast Eddie Burkhardt's single-crew oil trains exploded in the downtown.
Hardly a year has passed, and CP Rail Boss Hunter Harrison is busy whinging about government over-regulation. Harrison just doesn't get why the busy-body government regulators need to fiddle with the free market, and impose draconian communistic rules about everything from speed limits for trains carrying dangerous goods, to mandating that a mile-long train loaded with dangerous goods should have more than a one-man crew!
Well Hunter, let me 'splain it to ya; the reason the government needs to regulate greedy twats like you and your acolyte Burkhardt, is because your logic, your procedures, your unregulated over-weening greed, killed 47 people in Lac Megantic...
...yet nobody is facing murder charges!
The reason Hunter is lobbying for less regulation is obvious. The entire Ackman/Harrison strategy for boosting CP Rail's obscene profits going forward hinges on making trains longer and running them faster with smaller crews!
Fuck safety!
Fuck sleepy small towns everywhere!
Profit uber alles!
Thursday, January 30, 2014
How Bill Ackman and Hunter Harrison are destroying CP Rail
Financial media in Canada and beyond are singing the praises of CP Rail CEO Hunter "Hitman" Harrison after the stellar Q4 results posted yesterday.
And while the results may be stellar, the overall tone of unbridled adulation is unwarranted. Spend five minutes with a pencil and a scratch-pad and you'll see there are essentially two factors that account for Harrison's stellar results.
One is that Harrison is running the railroad with roughly 4,500 fewer employees. That's an annual payroll saving of somewhere north of $300m/year.
Harrison isn't the first business leader to come up with the idea of making fewer people do more work. What was quintessentially Canadian about previous CEO Fred Green was that he could have done the same thing but chose not to. I don't want to over-generalize and make this a contrast between US and Canadian management philosophies; there are certainly American entrepreneurs who have stopped short of squeezing the very last nickel out of every employee, just as there are Canadians who do, but on the whole, the slash and burn mentality is more American than it is Canadian.
The other factor is the exponential rise in crude-by-rail. Crude traffic has absolutely exploded for CP Rail, pun intended. That scratch pad should tell you that at 700 barrels of crude in a tank wagon at ten bucks a barrel for the average trip times the increase in crude traffic is good for another half billion or so per year.
You just solved the Ackman-Harrison miracle.
So Canada has 4,500 fewer well-paying jobs and CP Rail has a record cash hoard on hand of about $500 millions. Judging by the stories out there, the Ackman-Harrison management team intends to solve that problem with either a share buy-back or a special dividend. Either way, it's a gift the shareholders are giving themselves, and the biggest shareholder is Ackman's Pershing Square hedge fund.
While they're looting the cash reserves, Canada's rail infrastructure needs tens of billions of dollars in upgrades. A responsible corporate citizen would be investing the surplus in upgrading the infrastructure, not lining its own pockets.
Instead, Harrison, the guy who got a $50 million signing bonus for agreeing to do Ackman's dirty work, and Ackman, who was permitted by the government to rape this iconic Canadian company with a mere 14% shareholding, are roundly applauded by the sycophantic business media.
It'll be a great success story till one of those exploding crude trains takes out the downtown of a major city.
And while the results may be stellar, the overall tone of unbridled adulation is unwarranted. Spend five minutes with a pencil and a scratch-pad and you'll see there are essentially two factors that account for Harrison's stellar results.
One is that Harrison is running the railroad with roughly 4,500 fewer employees. That's an annual payroll saving of somewhere north of $300m/year.
Harrison isn't the first business leader to come up with the idea of making fewer people do more work. What was quintessentially Canadian about previous CEO Fred Green was that he could have done the same thing but chose not to. I don't want to over-generalize and make this a contrast between US and Canadian management philosophies; there are certainly American entrepreneurs who have stopped short of squeezing the very last nickel out of every employee, just as there are Canadians who do, but on the whole, the slash and burn mentality is more American than it is Canadian.
The other factor is the exponential rise in crude-by-rail. Crude traffic has absolutely exploded for CP Rail, pun intended. That scratch pad should tell you that at 700 barrels of crude in a tank wagon at ten bucks a barrel for the average trip times the increase in crude traffic is good for another half billion or so per year.
You just solved the Ackman-Harrison miracle.
So Canada has 4,500 fewer well-paying jobs and CP Rail has a record cash hoard on hand of about $500 millions. Judging by the stories out there, the Ackman-Harrison management team intends to solve that problem with either a share buy-back or a special dividend. Either way, it's a gift the shareholders are giving themselves, and the biggest shareholder is Ackman's Pershing Square hedge fund.
While they're looting the cash reserves, Canada's rail infrastructure needs tens of billions of dollars in upgrades. A responsible corporate citizen would be investing the surplus in upgrading the infrastructure, not lining its own pockets.
Instead, Harrison, the guy who got a $50 million signing bonus for agreeing to do Ackman's dirty work, and Ackman, who was permitted by the government to rape this iconic Canadian company with a mere 14% shareholding, are roundly applauded by the sycophantic business media.
It'll be a great success story till one of those exploding crude trains takes out the downtown of a major city.
Friday, September 13, 2013
CP Rail charms Calgary with yet another "oopsie"
That's railroad jargon for when a train laden with highly flammable petroleum products derails in an inner city neighbourhood.
CP Rail seems to have had quite a spate of those since Wild Bill Ackman and his $50 million sidekick Hitman Harrison deigned to free up "shareholder value" by firing thousands of CP Rail employees.
Luckily, this time round there was no leakage, no explosions, no deaths, and no major headlines. But if you have a close read from about paragraph eleven on you can see that the next Lac Megantic is just a matter of time.
The good luck CP Rail enjoyed this week is what's known as "sound management practices."
When a downtown Calgary neighbourhood eventually blows up it'll be known as bad luck.
Those thousands of unemployed CP Rail employees put out to pasture by Hunter and Bill will know better.
CP Rail seems to have had quite a spate of those since Wild Bill Ackman and his $50 million sidekick Hitman Harrison deigned to free up "shareholder value" by firing thousands of CP Rail employees.
Luckily, this time round there was no leakage, no explosions, no deaths, and no major headlines. But if you have a close read from about paragraph eleven on you can see that the next Lac Megantic is just a matter of time.
The good luck CP Rail enjoyed this week is what's known as "sound management practices."
When a downtown Calgary neighbourhood eventually blows up it'll be known as bad luck.
Those thousands of unemployed CP Rail employees put out to pasture by Hunter and Bill will know better.
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
The unAmerican way to run a railroad
We know the American way.
Fast Eddie Burkhardt nickle-and-dimed his workers half to death his entire career. Even after the horror of Lac Megantic, Burkhardt was arguing that single operator trains are safer because there are "fewer distractions."
E. Hunter Harrison got a $50 million signing bonus courtesy of Bill Ackman to work his slash-and-burn magic at Canadian Pacific. Does anyone dare question if there is a connection between Harrison's goal of slashing a quarter of the workforce and the fact the rate of accidents at CPR has gone up by 26%?
Believe it or not, there's another way to treat employees. Here's an excerpt from the website of German rail operator DeutscheBahn:
What we do for our employees
For a secure future – and a lifetime career
We accept responsibility for our employees. It begins with first-class training and continuous education, followed by fair wages based on collective bargaining agreements, down to comprehensive social benefits.
What the hell is wrong with those people?
Burkhardt and Harrison would die laughing!
Security?
A lifetime career?
Training?
Comprehensive benefits?
Get outta here!
Canadian Pacific Railway sees 26% surge in accidents
That's the headline the pros at the Globe and Mail and the Financial Post forgot to write.
When CP Rail released their Q2 results a few weeks ago the business press was full of adulatory twaddle over the phoenix-like rebirth that the genius Bill Ackman and his hired gun, Hunter "Hitman" Harrison have engineered at the railroad.
Revenues up! Net income up! Earnings per share, up up and away!...
Hallelujahs abounded and champagne corks popped as the journos outdid themselves lavishing praise on the "activist investor" and his hatchet-man.
In fact, they were so busy praising the results that they entirely forgot to mention the other item that's taken an impressive leap; The FRA train accident rate.
Right there on page 20 of the Q2 report; the year-to-date accident rate per million train-miles was 1.51 in 2012 and 1.91 this year, an increase of over 26%.
Given that this stat came out barely two weeks after the Lac Megantic disaster, one would think that the newshounds would be all over the revelation that CPR's accident rate has gone up 26% while thousands of employees were being pink slipped.
An accidental oversight, I'm sure.
When CP Rail released their Q2 results a few weeks ago the business press was full of adulatory twaddle over the phoenix-like rebirth that the genius Bill Ackman and his hired gun, Hunter "Hitman" Harrison have engineered at the railroad.
Revenues up! Net income up! Earnings per share, up up and away!...
Hallelujahs abounded and champagne corks popped as the journos outdid themselves lavishing praise on the "activist investor" and his hatchet-man.
In fact, they were so busy praising the results that they entirely forgot to mention the other item that's taken an impressive leap; The FRA train accident rate.
Right there on page 20 of the Q2 report; the year-to-date accident rate per million train-miles was 1.51 in 2012 and 1.91 this year, an increase of over 26%.
Given that this stat came out barely two weeks after the Lac Megantic disaster, one would think that the newshounds would be all over the revelation that CPR's accident rate has gone up 26% while thousands of employees were being pink slipped.
An accidental oversight, I'm sure.
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