Pre-Arrangement of Compensated Time Off Update
As many of you know, I have been working for some time to reach agreements with the UPRR addressing issues with the administration of vacations, getting access to pre-arrangement of PL & Single Vacation Days, and adjusting the preponderance of service/local chairman vacation float agreement. The process has been ongoing since the vacation administration agreement proposal failed to ratify in late 2014. It has been compounded by the action of CMS to develop a first-come/first-served method for providing access to pre-arranging PL and Single Vacation Days and by the general difficulty of reaching any final agreement with the folks at CMS. That being said, on Tuesday of this week I met with Ms. Wilderman and CMS staff all day in Omaha regarding these proposals. We made further progress toward reaching agreement on the proposals listed above and are very close to finalizing them. There are less than a handful of items to resolve to reach a settlement.
I realize that the lack of a dependable method to access our compensated days is a hardship on our members. I also realize that many of the other general committees of both organizations have accepted the first-come/first-served model (EAMS) that has been forced on us by CMS. I believe strongly that the EAMS as currently administered violates our seniority based system and am concerned that it may set a precedent for later Carrier efforts to go to a computer based system for administering weekly vacations. That being said, I can reasonably advise that – subject to reaching final agreement – the Carrier has agreed in principle to run a 180 day pilot to test a system on our committee that will allow an initial bid by seniority process which will be followed by a first-come/first-served method for applying for comp days. Our local chairmen will administer the bidding-awarding of comp days process and provide a list to the engineers who will have 7 days to input their days into the EAMS. After that, unused days remaining in the time period will be available on a first-come/first-served basis. The time available to pre-arrange will be 4 months (120 days). We have also reached tentative agreement for a minimum of 4%per day availability of compensated days for each EAMS group. One of the differences with EAMS is that it is tied to the jurisdiction of our extra boards and not to vacation groups. In most areas, this will have little effect, but it will have some effect in the Salt Lake and Ogden area as well as possibly in the La Grande-
Hinkle area.
Regarding the vacation administration proposal, I can reasonably advise that – again, subject to reaching final agreement – many of the items that were in the proposal that failed ratification will be in that proposal but that crew scheduling and pool regulation will not. Pre-arrangement will not be part of that agreement either as it is part of the separate pilot. As far as a time line for getting all this to you for ratification – since Tuesday, I have had further discussions with both Ms. Wilderman from Labor Relations and Ms. Deines General Director from CMS and we have made further progress. We are continuing to work toward resolution of outstanding issues. I will advise as soon as we reach that resolution. When that happens, I will advise you and submit the proposals to President Pierce for approval. Upon receipt of his approval, the proposals will then come out to you for ratification under Section 41(b) of the General Committee Rules of the National BLET Bylaws.