Below are some revised Q&As that hopefully clear up some of the questions generated by the10 hour UDR Agreement out for ratification.
Fraternally,
Gil Gore
Q1. Who is affected by the new proposed Undisturbed Rest Rule?
A1. All engineers working in pool freight service or road/combination extra boards.
Q2. How much rest is mandated in the agreement?
A2. At the home terminal 10 hours Undisturbed Rest (UDR) is mandated by the agreement. At the away from home terminal for the first 45 days 10 hours undisturbed rest is mandated by the agreement. After that initial 45 day period each pool will have the authority to reduce their rest period at the away from home terminal to 8 hours Undisturbed Rest if they choose to do so. That rest period can be changed from 8 – 10 or from 10 – 8 hours UDR every 6 months by notifying the Carrier of the change.
Q3. Are assignments with a regular start time (yard jobs, traveling switch engines, local) impacted by this UDR agreement?
A3. No, regular assigned employees will not be impacted by this UDR agreement. Extra employees working these assignments will get the 10 UDR at the home terminal after each tie up. This UDR agreement will have no impact on extra employees protecting local service at the away from home terminal.
Q4. Dose this UDR agreement change the current 1996 On Property Rest Agreement providing for 8 – 10 – 12 hours UDR under certain conditions at the employees option?
A5. This agreement mandates 10 hours UDR at the home terminal every trip and a minimum of 8 – 10 hours UDR at the away from home terminal. Any rights to UDR rest periods that exceed the provisions in this agreement remain in full force and effect and if qualifying criteria are met can be taken at the employee’s option.
Q6. Do I have to be rested to deadhead out of the home or away from home terminal?
A7. You don’t have to be rested to deadhead out of the away from home terminal. You do have to be fully rested for a deadhead out of the home terminal. If you have kicked for the voluntary UDR under the 1996 agreement you should not be called to deadhead or to service until the UDR period is up.
Q7. Can an engineer be contacted during his UDR period?
A7. Contact is allowed for notice of annulment, abolishment, set back of call time, successful application for a new assignment, emergency situations, and other notices required by the agreement. The FRA considers this type of contact as incidental and it would not trigger a new rest period. Extended calls with questions regarding train handling during the previous trip or work preformed on line of road would be inappropriate under this rule.
Q8. Will the UDR mandated in the agreement offset any labor protection, pool or extra board guarantees?
A8. No, rest mandated under this new agreement will not trigger any deductions from labor protection, pool or extra board extra board guarantee.
Q9. Does the UDR mandated rest in this agreement impact an employee’s right to any bonus incentive payments guaranteed to engineers who remain available for service the entire half?
A9. No, however, we remain in dispute with the Carrier regarding engineers electing to take additional UDR at their option for a greater period than the UDR mandated in this agreement. If you elect to exercise that right, they will not pay your bonus day and you will have to appeal that denial through your Local Chairman.
Q10. Engineers already have a UDR agreement, why do we need to ratify this agreement?
A10. While we have enjoyed the ability to take UDR at our option at both the home and away from home terminal, certain conditions must be met in order to exercise that right. The following conditions apply to the 1996 UDR agreement.
You have to be on duty 8 – 10 hours to qualify for either 8 or 10 hours UDR.
If you are on duty less time, the UDR is not available to you at all.
If you are deadheaded you are not entitled to UDR.
You have to be on duty 12 hours in order to qualify for either 10 or 12 hours UDR.
You are prohibited from taking any UDR on the day before and day of a legal holiday
Under the new proposed rule you get 10 hours UDR on every tie up at the home terminal with no qualifying criteria. You will get 8 – 10 hours UDR at the away from home terminal depending on the option selected by your Division to apply to the pool under its jurisdiction every trip. You are automatically qualified for the UDR per the agreement even on legal holidays.
Q11. Are there any conditions in which an employee can waive the right to UDR under this proposed agreement?
A11. Yes, if you are notified of a displacement at the home terminal and the additional rest mandated by this agreement is going to cause you to lose a trip or work event, then you can notify CMS when they call to notify you of your displacement and they will suspend your mandatory rest period. You will drop back to the rest period mandated by the HOS Act.
Q12. Why is the union supporting this agreement, we already have a rest rule available to all engineers?
A12. This agreement provides for a consistent reasonable rest period for employees working a varied work schedule. As an example, we have an engineer in the DFW Hub tying up at 000 hours for an 8 hour rest period. It takes him/her 45 minutes travel time to get from the yard office to his/her home. It takes him/her an additional hour to shower and get something to eat and wind down from the trip. Best case scenario he/she is in bed sleeping by 0145 hours. With the three hour call mandated by the DFW hub agreement this engineer’s phone is going to ring at 0500 for an 0800 call to duty. We have an engineer subject to a 12 hour tour of duty who has only been provided a 3 hour and 15 minute sleep cycle. Under the new proposed UDR rule, he/she would get an 8 hour 15 minute sleep cycle prior to being subject to a call for duty. Both the Union and the Company receive constant complaints from employees about working fatigued, This agreement mandates a specific rest period and insures that every employee subject to variable call times will have an opportunity for a minimum of 8 hours sleep prior to each tour of duty. Continuing to subject our members to working on 3 – 4 hours sleep is simply unsafe and unacceptable. That position is unsustainable in any scientific or legislative arena.
Q13. Can the agreement be canceled?
A13. One of the best features of this agreement is that it is experimental and can be canceled by either party. A 60 day notice of cancellation is required and the agreement mandates negotiations to fix the problems leading to the cancellation notice during that 60 day period.
Q14. What happens if we reject this agreement?
A14. The current UDR rule remains in effect. However, we have two choices here, we can either be proactive and implement an agreement that provides the necessary sleep to safely perform our duties and provides us some protection against lost work opportunities (going to 8 hours UDR at the away from home terminal at our option, waiving the UDR period in the home terminal if displaced and losing a work opportunity, not being required to be fully rested to deadhead from the away from home terminal,) or we can sit back and wait for Congress to mandate a new rest schedule for us. In the face of the recent accidents across the country, fatigue countermeasures are coming. It is simply a matter of time. If Congress mandates a new law governing rest, they won’t care about any impact to your earnings. They won’t care if you lose earnings via displacement. They won’t care if you spend 12 hours at the away from home terminal waiting to take a two hour van ride home. They won’t provide you any options nor will they give you a right to cancel their legislation. We will be delivering our fate to a third party who doesn’t really understand what our job requires or entails. Past history has shown that involving third parties to mandate resolution to our problems has not worked very well.
Q15. What is meant by a 4 hour interim release in this UDR Agreement?
A15. A 4 hour or more interim release is provided for in the HOS Act and requires that your hours of service be aggregated or combined from your previous service trip. As an example, you are called to deadhead to the away from home terminal to man a train back to the home terminal on continuous time. The deadhead trip takes you 2 ½ hours to complete. Upon your arrival at your away from home terminal, it is discovered that the train you have deadheaded to protect has laid down due to mechanical problems. Prior to your tie up, UP can notify you that they are going to return you to service with a minimum 4 hour rest period, however, the previous deadhead time (2 ½ hours) will be included or aggregated with your remaining time left to work (9 ½ hours) to determine your maximum 12 hour on duty period for the service. In other words, you would only have 9 ½ hours left to work on the working trip back to the home terminal. This agreement requires that they give you specific notification prior to your tie up that they intend to bring you back on an interim release. An interim release can only be given at a designated away from home terminal into which the pool operates.
Click Here to view a PDF copy of the agreement.
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