What is the basis for paying on-board crew members, i.e. engineer, conductor, etc? Is it hours worked, hours available for work, salary, etc.?
If pay is based on hours worked, what are the trigger points for when the hours begin and end?
According to a recent statement by the CEO of the UP, the railroad may need to hire additional on-board crew persons to meet the work life balance schedules the UP and union(s) have agreed to achieve.
If the railroad hires more on-board employees, what happens to the pay of current on-board employees? Would they work fewer hours to achieve a better work life balance and, therefore, receive less pay?
Class 1 workers are paid by the mile per advertisement. Yd jobs, road switchers and work trains 100 miles basic pay w/overtime paid after eight hrs per hour, which pays a higher rate. Mainline Pool turn board I hold travels 320 miles but pays 346 miles going out, 347 coming back home. Pay is the same regardless if it takes five hrs on a screaming highlighted Z train or 12 hrs on an ugly grain load or mixed freight. The extra pay miles were negoiated when this run-through became activated in 1986 which was long before I washed up on shore. With a 4 1/2% raise that took effect in July, this chings out about $1680.00 roundtrip. On avg, I try to make four trips per half w/out laying off. That half of last month, I stayed marked up making five trips. Ching, ching. Things can pay even more if at the away-from-home terminal over 16 hrs, we begin collecting heldaway pay by the hr at about $45.00 per. First half July, I collected $1200 in heldaway. When that happens, the away layovers can sometimes be longer than at home. That low quality of life sucks but can be offset by taking layoff time (single day vacs, paid personal days & five paid sick days per yr or footing the board where you go to the bottom of the list and still remain marked up). I have 21 months remaining of this grind that no longer is enjoyable. The earnings are great and will set me up for a great retirement but at age 61 this has become zero enjoyable with one eye on the calendar to my birthday retirement day of 5-24-26.
While I was with CSX there were about as many T&E pay schemes as there were local unions across the company that consisted of multiple Class 1’s that all had their own labor agreements that got Grandfathered into CSX. B&O, C&O, WM, ACL, SAL, L&N, SCL, Georgia RR, Gainesville Midland, WSSB and others. Some had ‘assigned runs’ where crews protected specific trains at advertised times. Some had FIFO pools. Some had Home & Home Pool setups. Some had Assigned train/time from home terminals and FIFO pool calling from away from home terminal.
Local Chairmen for the various locations on each prior carrier were very inventive in coming up with Agreement under which their employees desired to work.
At one time on the Georgia RR which had home terminal at Augusta and away from home terminals at Atlanta and Millegeville, GA had in their agreement that a crew that had been away from their home terminal for 14 days could request to be deadheaded Home and the request had to be honored. With the work these crews protected it was not unusual for them to get a succession of jobs that would not take them back to Augusta for 14 days. Note - that agreement was changed by a ‘new’ local chairman.
To expand on what SF said, our pay is mileage based. CN and maybe CP (I don’t know that the KCS has changed over) I think have gone to an hourly rate. When EHH was alive at CSX, he wanted to go hourly but they never came that close to an agreement from what I heard.
For mileage on the class ones, road overtime is paid when the time on duty exceeds miles run divided by 16.25. For runs 130 miles and less, that’s 8 hours. The longer the run, the longer on duty before OT begins. My run is 161 miles, OT begins at 9 hrs 55 mins on duty. Some long runs, unless covered by a local agreement specifying OT, will never see OT except under extreme circumstances.
Some pools, assigned jobs and extra boards have a guarantee. Some are based on a pay half, others by the month.
The 11 on, 4 off rest cycle agreement engineers have will extend the extra board guarantee to pool engineers, like myself, who currently don’t have one. (My location has a dispute over some contract language so it hasn’t been implemented yet.)
The agreement calls for engineers taking mandatory “smart rest” (23 hours off, not part of the dispute mentioned) after the 4th or 5th job start to avoid Federally required 48/72 hours off. This means in addition to 4 off days, one will probably have at least one, maybe two 23 hour rest periods per 11 days on. This restricts how much one could be made compared to the traditional 15 or 16 day half. With only 11 days, when figuring in smart rest, it would be hard to make the extra board guarantee.
The company offered the guarantee to get the agreement ratified. The national agreement only called for “voluntary” rest days and no specific way to implement them. I believe the mandatory rest days UP wanted was to have better control over manpower numbers. They have a better idea of knowing how many will be available any given day. Voluntary would mean some days they might have excess people, other days they might be short people.
To expand on what SF said, our pay is mileage based. CN and maybe CP (I don’t know that the KCS has changed over) I think have gone to an hourly rate. When EHH was alive at CSX, he wanted to go hourly but they never came that close to an agreement from what I heard.
For mileage on the class ones, road overtime is paid when the time on duty exceeds miles run divided by 16.25. For runs 130 miles and less, that’s 8 hours. The longer the run, the longer on duty before OT begins. My run is 161 miles, OT begins at 9 hrs 55 mins on duty. Some long runs, unless covered by a local agreement specifying OT, will never see OT except under extreme circumstances.
Some pools, assigned jobs and extra boards have a guarantee. Some are based on a pay half, others by the month.
The 11 on, 4 off rest cycle agreement engineers have will extend the extra board guarantee to pool engineers, like myself, who currently don’t have one. (My location has a dispute over some contract language so it hasn’t been implemented yet.)
The agreement calls for engineers taking mandatory “smart rest” (23 hours off, not part of the dispute mentioned) after the 4th or 5th job start to avoid Federally required 48/72 hours off. This means in addition to 4 off days, one will probably have at least one, maybe two 23 hour rest periods per 11 days on. This restricts how much one could be made compared to the traditional 15 or 16 day half. With only 11 days, when figuring in smart rest, it would be hard to make the extra board guarantee.
The company offered the guarantee to get the agreement ratified. The national agreement only called for “voluntary” rest days and no specific way to implement them. I believe the mandatory rest days UP wanted was to have better control over manpower numbers. They have a better idea of knowing how many will be available any given day. Voluntary would mean some days they might have excess people,
I would say about 85 to 90% of my tour of duty is spent in the cab. Some days when I deadhead for rest, terminal to terminal, I never get on a train. Unless we are deadheading by train, which they are supposed to avoid due to diesel exhaust issues when riding on trailing engines.
A tour of duty can sometimes may only be 5 or 6 hours, other times 12 or more hours. After 12 hours we are no longer working and either waiting for a ride or already in the van. There have been instances, usually due to extreme winter weather, where i’ve been instructed to violate hous of service.
It seems lately, more of my trips when working a train are closer to 12 hours instead of the 6 hour ones. The other day I was called of my regular pool assignment to go drag in a train tied down because the crew wasn’t going to make it in. I spent 8 hours in the cab once on it before we moved because it worked my home terminal and we were 4th in line to work.
PSR has made this a common occurance. You can get over the road in 4 or 5 hours, only to sit outside of town 4 or 5 hours because other working trains are ahead of you.
When I was working CSX’s Atlanta Divisions in the 1990’s they had auto distribution center at Dacula, Ga. Virtually every scheduled train was given 1 schedule hour for working at the location, which was in the middle of about 18 mile single track segment that had a 30 minute running time WITHOUT working at Dacula, which was not configured with a passing siding. The scheduled trains had a total of 23 hours working at Dacula. Talk about waiting to work !!!