Title: Privatizing Amtrak | Downsizing the Federal Government
Headings: Privatizing Amtrak
Privatizing Amtrak
Amtrak's Failures
Advantages of Privatization
Notes:

Content: For the overall system, only about three-quarters of Amtrak's trains are on time, with its long-distance routes having a particularly bad record. 4 Amtrak loses more than a billion dollars a year, with its operations are so inefficient that it even loses money on its food service. 5
Amtrak has an expensive and inflexible workforce. It has 20,000 employees earning an average $105,000 a year in wages and benefits. 6 The company pays a huge amount of overtime, a substantial amount of which appears to be unnecessary and improper. 7 More than a dozen collective bargaining agreements cover 86 percent of the workforce. 8 Unions undermine efficiency by protecting poorly performing workers and pushing for larger staffing levels. They resist innovation and create a bureaucratic workplace. Former Amtrak head David Gunn complained that at Amtrak's maintenance facilities, workers from different unions were not allowed to share work on projects outside their narrowly designated specialties. 9
With late trains and endless losses, Amtrak's management has been subject to much criticism.