Good evening, I have noticed that conductors on Metra trains seem to change every six months or so. Why is this? For example I take the five ten forty seven train out of downtown and the regular conductor was not there instead it was someone ells, when I asked what happened he said he was bumped. And this was Late March/early April. Could some please enlighten me and explain what bumping/bidding is. Thanks and happy 2013
A railroader’s seniority is established by/on his or her hire date.
Railroads don’t hire one or two people at a time for T&E service, (train and engineman service), they hire groups.
These groups all go through training at the same time, and once they finish training, within that group they “draw numbers from a hat” to determine seniority in that class.
Everyone in that group will have the same hire date, this date established your seniority or placement on your respective roster, by drawing numbers they establish their rank or seniority in that small group.
Let’s say there were 10 guys in a new hire class, they draw numbers of one through ten, and the guy who draws #1 will be assigned the lowest employee number open, the guy with #2 gets the next number so forth and so on.
Your employee number, also known as your work number, determines your seniority on the overall roster of employees in your type of service.
An example would be mine work number, 7283.
That means, on my railroad, that in T&E service, I am the 7283rd employee hired since the railroad was established.
Anyone with a number lower than mine can displace me from my current position, and I can displace or bump anyone with a number higher than mine, because I was hired before that person, and have more seniority than they have,
To “Bump” someone is railroad slang for exercising your seniority and displacing them from their position or “job”.
Guys bump one another simply becaus
Interesting, now how would seniority apply to pool service are pool service slots awarded by seniority?
An interesting question, I anxiously await Ed’s answer.
I enjoyed Ed’s earlier answer, but I wanted to add one more point. Different seniority dates will apply to different aspects of a persons RR career. When my Dad hired on to the CPR, you were hired one man at a time.
His date as a Dispatcher was in August of 1965. This was not the first date he worked as a trainee dispatcher, it was the day he wrote the rule book that qualified him to be a Dispatcher. Before that he had been a Station Agent, and before that he was a Operator. Those positions used the same rule book qualification date, which was May of 1948. This meant he could take any dispatching job held by anyone who had a seniority date later than August of 1965, but in the unlikely event he wanted to go back to being an Operator, he could have taken the job of any man that had been hired after May of 1948.
But he first hired on to the CPR as a Telegrapher in the Commercial Telegraph Department, in October of 1947. So when it came to matters of Pension and Health Care benefits, that was the date the clock started ticking. Dad retired in November of 1985.
Bruce
P.S. The date you wrote the rule book was known as the date you were “set up”. Mom and Dad always used to get a good laugh out of the following: Queen Elizabeth II’s father, King George VI, died in 1952 and she au
The individual pool turns are awarded by seniority. Where those turns place on the board is not. When a person bumps a junior person or bids into a vacant turn, that person assumes the position on the board where the turn is at the time. If the turn is 15 times out (15th place on the board) the person taking that turn, no matter their seniority will be 15 times out on the board. When new turns are added they are placed at the bottom of the board and work up in the normal rotation.
Most pools and most extra boards, work first in-first out like Ed said. That means at a terminal, arriving turns place on their respective boards in the order they arrive, not the order they are released or rested. Turn 1 can arrive at 12 midnight, do 2 hours of work and be released at 2am, rested at 12 noon. Turn 2 can arrive at 1230am and be released at 1am, rested at 11am or one hour before Turn 1 is. Turn 1 is ahead of Turn 2 on the board. If the board turns slow enough, Turn 1 will go out in order ahead of Turn 2. If the board turns fast and Turn 1 isn’t rested for a job but Turn 2 is, Turn 2 will go out ahead of Turn 1. If there are no pool crews rested, they can use an extra board person on what they call a make up turn. It’s a temporary pool turn that’s only active for the trip (out one day/back the next) or tour of duty if it’s a job that returns to the home terminal.
There are some boards, I’ve heard them called “hog boards,” that the individuals working them place in seniority order. When person A ties up (released from work) he places on the board in his seniority standing on that board. We don’t have any like that where I work so I don’t know much more than that about them. Also some pools are “blue printed” at one or both ends. This means no matter arrival time, the turns will stay in the same order.
Your&
Your mileage may vary from what Ed reported. CNW couldn’t afford a hat when I hired out. There were close to 20 people in my training class. A few didn’t pass the initial rule test. Those that were left were given a choice of division they could work on: Chicago Freight Terminal or Wisconsin (I chose the terminal, just because I liked the prospect of hourly pay rates). Then, our order of placement on the extra board was determined by the date of our application (I was second in my class of at least six). Seniority was established by when we took our first call…mine was the day after I finished the class, and I think everyone from our class got out that day.
I got new seniority assignments every time I qualified for a new job. I was third of three people in a training session for car retarder operators; the other two training had higher yard seniority (only two of us made it; the third was disqualified because he showed up late for his first training class). My date was then determined by my qualifying officer. When I bid on a yardmaster’s position, my seniority took effect on the day I was awarded the job.
In all cases, I retained seniority as a yard employee, and could move freely from my CRO job to a ground-pounder (depending on such factors as whether all CRO jobs were filled).
Bumping is a normal part of the job–if someone with higher seniority wants your job, it’s his, subject to the rules (if you initiated the bump, it had to be 24 hours; if you had been bumped yourself, you just needed to get on the job 3 1/2 hours before it went to work). Some people would do a lot more bumping and moving around than others, an
On NYCT they hold PICKS two or three times per year That is the only time a person with seniority can bump anyone. Indeed ALL JOBS go up for pick, and if you are lucky, you can pick the one you had, if you liked it. Sometimes jobs disappear completely (such as when the (V) train merged with the (M) train. and other times new jobs are added. Of course on NYCT all jobs are scheduled, and the schedules worked out far in advance, and you are bidding on a JOB not a train or a run. And of course, sometimes the MTA re-packages all of the jobs because of some shifts elsewhere on the railroad. The MTA will but two or three runs together and combine that with a different weekend schedule and call that a “JOB” . You cannot walk in and say I’ll take these trains on Monday Tuesday and Wednesday, and those trains on Saturday and Sunday. You will be lucky to pick a job with pleasing regular days off. Your Pick will determine what terminal you will work from, and what shifts you will be working on. You cannot volunteer for overtime at a different terminal or outside of your shift hours thus to prevent fatigue.
After Hurricane Superstorm Sandy the whole system was and in some places still is in turmoil. The (1) Trin is turning on the old South Ferry Loop instead of using the new Terminal which was a complete washout. This may make the job more or less desirable. Out in the Rockaways the (A) does not go, an (H) shuttle is in its place. In cases like this a supplemental pick is frequently held.
Of course in a disaster or under a snow plan all bets are off, and you will work where you are told, when you are told, but always on at the terminal and on the shifts that your are assigned. The Idea is to keep the service running if possible. If you cannot get into work because of the weather (ie the trains are not running) you must call your terminal, and then you may be assigned to a terminal closer to your home during the storm. (Not likely, of course, but worth a try… They will be just as ha
The UP has used a few different ways to determine seniority order for new hires. Part of that may be because of prior union contracts with the various railroads the UP has merged with. Even though I work in Iowa on the exCNW, I was originally hired for North Platte on the original UP because there weren’t any openings in Iowa at the time. Out there, they used the score of your final rules test in class. The better you scored, the higher on the class roster you were placed. I’m sure there was a back up plan in case people scored the same, but they didn’t say what that was.
Before I started training at NP, openings happened in Iowa and I was allowed to transfer. (I lost two weeks seniority due to the time it took to move the paperwork.) At that time here, your seniority rank in class was determined by your birthday. Older guys went on the roster ahead of younger guys. They were also placing transfers from other UP crafts ahead of guys hired off the street. (That is, until someone looked up the contract and found no provision for doing that. They stopped that practice and may have changed the seniority order for that class, but not previous ones that had already been set up. There is a time limit for challenging seniority.) Now they go by the last 4 numbers of your social security number. The lowest number placing first, etc.
Jeff
There are as many different ways of ‘starting’ seniority as there are labor contracts - everyone that negotiates contracts think they have a ‘better way’ than any that they know have gone before. Where thing start to get hairy is when, for whatever reasons, seniority districts get merged, trying to figure out which of two or more with identical seniority in their original districts is senior can be fun.
On my carrier, in all the crafts I am familiar with - Seniority does not start until the person works the craft for pay and not in a training status - the order between a training class will be determined by other means - means which are generally different in each craft.
MONKS are on a seniority basis. The man who joins at the 10th hour is senior to the man who joins at the 12th hour. This in turn dictates one’s position in Statcio and in the places where we sit in church. It dictates who bows to whom at the kiss of peace during mass. This order is printed in the Ordo. If monks from other monasteries move to our monastery, they keep their date of entry, and are merged into our Ordo at that position.
You do not get better jobs because you are senior, you do not get worse jobs if you are junior (although that does help!) We do not put monks in formation into high responsibility jobs. We do not want them to become disheartened. They need to be able to feel free to leave if that be their calling.
The Abbot is always #1, the Prior is always #2, the sub-prior is always #3 and the novice master is always #4. Beyond that, and without number change the members of the Senior Council as elected by the Community are #s 5, 6, 7 in the rank of “command” in order elected. When your term of office ends, you go back to the number you held before you were elected or appointed to office.
ROAR
What railroad has Monk’s as a craft?
Bumping on BNSF, just like any other carrier, depends on what location one is working at in regards to labor agreements in place. ATSF engrs have a 30 day bump. Which means if someone has not bumped to a job in that time period, they can simply call Topeka and bump a junior worker on a board they want to place to. Not sure what BN engrs have. As for trainmen this is where it gets whacky. ATSF guys do not get a 30 day bump but on some areas of the BN they do and I’ve also heard that C&S trainmen get like a 7 day bump which has to be totally insane. This is on the same playing field as a 30 day bump. Some ATSF trainmen on Eastern & Western lines get a bump when coming off a 7 day vac but it again depends on what terminal one is at. La Junta & Newton guys get this but just down road @ Wellington, they do not. Coast Lines crews also do not get a 7 day vac bump either.
So, this system works by promoting employees only by their date of employment, not by their skills, upgrading, attitude, mentality or ambition, so don’t improve your status, don’t work too hard, do only what asked, do not try to improve the company you work for and you will be promoted- - seems fair to me.
All local agreements are unique, remember the major carriers were formed from hundreds if not thousands of railroad companies dating from the 19th Century - as the mergers of these carriers took place over the years and decades, rules were developed locally to give ‘equatable’ work among all the employees of all the merged carriers - and virtually no two are the same, and even where the wording may be the same - the local interpretation of the wording may be different. These same principles of giving all merged employees ‘equatable’ work on the ‘new’ carrier still apply to all carriers today.
In days gone by, certain industries were served by multiple carriers, however, only one crew could operate in the industry at any time. One of the solutions was to apportion the year between the carriers. Carrier A would service the industry January
What?
There’s plenty of opportunity to be promoted in the company that have NOTHING to do with hire date. Once you get to the non-agreement side of things, seniority is basically nothing.
An item that many of our readers would like to see. --------
What are the seniority rules for new hire on each RR now ?
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What rights do old timers on each preceeding RR have on their preeceding RR ?
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What if an old timer goes outside his preceeding RR ?
3… are crafts seniority system wide on your RR or is there some other geographic division ?
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realize that each of the RRs now probably have different rules.
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any special rules if a new hire is furloughed off his division ?
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What are rules if there is a sudden increase in traffic on a crew distric needing temporary voluntary crew members from other districs ?
Need an encyclopedia to explain all that.
As one reader, Streak, what has already been said boggles my mind. It’s a good thing I never worked for a railroad because I would never have been able to figure out seniority. I can understand why it is important to people who do work for railroads but it is Greek to me.
John
Believe me, it can be greek to many of us in the company as well. I think they keep it vague to get away with a lot.
Where ever there is a large organization with rigid rules some people will always try to understand those rules in order to use them for personal advantage. I worked for a Federal bureaucracy and I saw that happen many time. Of course, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing from the organization’s point of view. For example, I saw guys who wanted to work overtime deliberately structure the situation so that they would. Clearly some management officials wanted the overtime to be worked. However, those guys could have equally well done the same amount of work within normal business hours so the overtime pay did not result in added work done.