Lou’s Point

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — The Alaska Railroad has laid off 127 employees.

Railroad CEO Pat Gamble announced the move in a company letter late Tuesday afternoon.

The layoffs affect everyone, from high-level managers to workers on the front lines, and include people across the state.

A weakening economy, production cuts at Flint Hills Refinery and less passenger traffic are blamed.

Last week the board said the railroad needed to cut staff to avoid a $10 million deficit next year.

“This downsizing does not, by itself, solve our financial problems … the challenge is not one seen before in the railroad’s history of state ownership,” Gamble wrote in his letter to employees.

“The size of the cuts is surprising for me,” said Jeffrey Davies, the president of the Alaska Railroad Workers Union Local 183.

Davies says his bargaining unit experienced the largest hit, and that 26 of his members are being let go.

“It’s been difficult, the anxiety and not knowing. Now we know and we have to try and understand what that means for the rest of the employees,” said Davies.

One casualty was Anchorage Assembly member Patrick Flynn.

A senior railroad officer who has been with the corporation since 2001, Flynn blogged about how he offered himself up, but hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

“I felt the remaining people were simply too important to daily railroad operations,” Flynn wrote in his blog.

Reflecting on the last few weeks, Flynn says cuts were being made, but suddenly the situation became dire and he was told the process was “too little too late — we needed to make plans for quicker, more significant cuts,” his blog reads.

State labor economist Neil Fried says the cuts are significant, and he emphasized that they are quality jobs that no longer exist.

“So we are talking about high quality jobs being lost so the quality is also a factor because these are good paying jobs in Alaska labor force,” said Fried.