THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, November 3, 1995 TAG: 9511030540
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY CHRISTOPHER DINSMORE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Short : 41 lines
A Norfolk Southern Corp. spokeswoman said Thursday that 272 of the 475 employees, or about 57.2 percent, of its salaried workers who were offered early retirement in September accepted the early-out.
The program is designed to improve the Norfolk-based railroad's efficiency. According to preliminary estimates, the early retirements will save it about $16 million a year, said David R. Goode, Norfolk Southern's chairman, chief executive and president.
Norfolk Southern will take a yet-to-be-determined charge against its fourth quarter earnings to pay for the retirements, Goode said last week during a conference with analysts.
The early retirement will reduce the railroad's nonunion employment by nearly 6 percent to about 4,500. It employs about 28,000 people throughout its railroad network in the Southeast and Midwest.
Employees 55 or older this year were eligible for the early retirement.
In Norfolk, at the railroad's headquarters, switching yards, coal pier and cargo docks, 19 of 62 eligible workers accepted the retirement, spokeswoman Magda Ratajski said.
This was the railroad's third general early retirement offer since 1987, when 999 of 1,249 workers accepted it. In 1993, 381 of 680 eligible workers took the offer. Two smaller early-out programs were offered in specific departments in 1990.
To be eligible for the latest offer, employees must have worked at least five years at Norfolk Southern so they are vested in the pension plan.
Workers who accepted the offer can start drawing their retirement benefits with no penalty as if they retired at age 65.
Among other inducements offered to workers were a waiver of required payments for post-retirement health care and payment for 1996 vacation time. by CNB