Somehow, like everything else it seems, railroad labor agreements have become politicized.
And, it seems most people who have an opinion, are ignorant of how it works.
This is a brief - super simplified - explainer. WARNING - I'm simplifying, glossing over and ignoring A LOT!
You have a railroad that goes from A to B to C. You run four trains a day in each direction. Two of them stop at B. You need an engineer for each train. Each engineer can only work 12 hours a day and then has to have 10 hours off. That's 10 hours uninterrupted. And, you have to give at least 2 hours notice for the next job.
It takes 10 hours, normally to get from A to C without stopping. The train that stops at B takes 13 hours, so needs two crews to get from A to C.
The trains that run across the railroad get their engineers from pools. There will be so many slots in each pool.
Lets use the A to C train to figure out how many slots we need in the pool.
There are two pair of trains. Lets have train AC1 leave A at 8 AM and arrive C at 6 PM. Train AC2 leaves A at 8PM arrives C at 6 AM. Lets have the return trains running on the same schedule. Train CA1 leaves at 8AM, Train CA2 at 8PM.
The first engineer takes train AC1 at 8AM on Monday, arrives at 6PM. Gets 10 hours of rest and is ready at 6 AM, and takes train CA1 back on Tuesday and is ready for AC1 again on Wednesday.
It appears I can run both pair of trains between A and C with two engineers. So, I'll put two slots in that pool for that train. Similarly, trains AC2 and CA2 need two slots.
But, wait! What happens if something goes a bit wrong. What happens if one day, I can't start train AC1 on time because a locomotive broke down or there was a connecting train from another RR that arrived late? If one train gets a late start, then that engineer won't be ready on time for his train coming back after his rest. Better toss another slot in the pool, just to be safe.
So five slots for that pool.
Over two weeks, if everything happens by plan. Pool slot #1 highlighted.
Here's what it looks like to the person who "owns" pool slot #1
Some things to look at here.
1) notice that the person goes to work two times at 8 AM, then the next two at 8 PM. This is worse than having to work a week of "nights" and then a week of "days". People have natural circadian rhythms of awake and sleep. This kind of work schedule goes against nature.
2) notice that there are 26 hours every time the person is at home. That's a "day off". So this person works two days, then has a "day off", then works two more. Every time at home, his job start alternates between 8AM and 8PM
3.) notice that there are 12 trains operated ("starts") every two weeks. So, the person will get paid for 12 trips every two weeks and have two "days off".
The extra board
What happens if one day, there are too many cars for train AC1 and you have to run a second AC1 today? Or if the CEO shows up with his special train and needs to go from A to C?
What happens if this person gets sick, has to go to the dentist or schedules vacation? Or just plain needs a personal day off?
The railroad will hire, qualify and keep enough engineers to fill all the pool slots plus staff an "extra board". That's a pool of engineers than can fill in for any pool slot or work any engineer job in yards A, B and C.
You call a person from the extra board to work these irregular occurrences.
"Marking off" - taking a day off
The assumption always has been that engineers want to make as much money as possible, so they would "mark off" relatively infrequently. The railroad would let them do it as needed - generally as long as it wasn't "excessive". If it was, the Road Foreman - the engineer's management supervisor - would have to have a talk with the engineer.
Time "marked off" wasn't paid - except for scheduled weeks of vacation - which had to be planned ahead and approved.
The way it was.
This simple plan outlined above would have been a perfectly legal work schedule 20 years ago.
It isn't now.
The hours of service law was changed about 15 years ago to require two days off after 5 in a row. A day is any part of a calendar day. So this person is working every day.
To be legal, it would have to look like this: (strike thru for days required off)
So, now this person only gets 8 starts every two weeks instead of 12. The railroad now need to fill this pool with 3 people where it used to need 2. So, instead of 5 slots, they need 7 or 8.
In the "real world" there are trains that don't run 7 days a week and trains that run irregularly depending on demand, like coal trains, so pools rotating with required 2 days off every 5 probably don't need as many extra slots as this example.
You can also see that a person might be able to predict their days off, but in practice things happen and prediction more than a day or two ahead really isn't possible.
Since the person now gets two days off for every 5 worked, the railroad became VERY RELUCTANT to allow people to "mark off" when they needed. Many implemented strict attendance policies and enforced them harshly.
But, the Budget and PSR!
So, let's review. The hours of service law changes imposed a cost on the railroads - they had to create and fill more pools slots. It also made it difficult to fill yard positions that are 6 or 7 day a week jobs.
No more 7 day a week jobs and just fill with extra board when the person needed a day off. Crew scheduling became more difficult and expensive.
But, there was great pressure to NOT let it be more expensive. You're running the same amount of trains, but you need more people, and people have a fringe cost that's pretty high - health care and paid vacation being the top two. So, the railroad managers trimmed their pools and extra boards to fit the "top down" budget they were given. As long as things ran fairly smoothly, this worked out okay.
But! ...and this is a big But! Something called PSR appeared. It stands for Precision Scheduled Railroading. The goal of PSR is to create an operating plan that requires the fewest resources - crew, locomotives, yards, etc. - and then run that plan rigorously. It includes trimming those resources to just fit that plan.
The railroads laid off all the "excess" engineers.
This can reduce costs a good deal more, but leaves very little slack for when things go wrong.
To the employees, no more "marking off" as needed. You had to work when you were called. Period.
Everyone is unhappy
What happened next is a mess. Railroads could not execute their PSR plan reliably - that would take a whole 'nother blog post to explain. But, it caused congestion, slow operation and meant the railroad was short of engineers just to be able to operate in congested mode and way short of what would be needed to dig out. But, even in this condition, the railroads were generating tons of cash and somewhat reluctant to increase spending.
But, the congestion made the railroad customers very, very unhappy and management reacted. The RRs went to call back the engineers they laid off at the start of PSR. Few came back. Why? Who wants a job where you work uncertain start times, have uncertain days off and are away from home half your nights? Many found other jobs they liked better.
Operating way off plan made the engineer's jobs even worse and they became supremely unhappy. It took them longer to get over the road with their trains - with no extra pay. It meant start times and predicting days off were nearly impossible. Need a day day to go to the dentist? It goes on your attendance record!
Negotiate. Time for the next contract.
Railroads are weird when it comes to labor relations. They negotiate nationally, not by each railroad company. It is written into law this way because there used to be hundreds of railroads and EVERYTHING used to move by train. One RR going on strike could gum up the whole works, national agreements were the only way. Congress made it law.
The railroads form a "National Carrier's Conference" to negotiate with the national trade unions.
There were occasional national strikes, but the law also allowed Congress to mandate the solution, so the strikes were never longer than a few days.
The latest round of talks was against this backdrop of congested, under-staffed, hugely profitable railroads and rail employees with longer work days, almost no control over their start times and no control at all over their days off.
The current round of negotiation got stuck on the issue of days off.
Since the "five days on, two days off" law the employees had moved from being able to "mark off" almost as needed to never really knowing when their days off would be much in advance. With less control over the amount of work they could do, it was more of a hardship to take an unpaid "mark off" day - even if management didn't have a strict attendance policy.
So, the employees wanted some paid "sick days".
The railroads, who were still "hand to mouth" trying to operated trains to their plan, couldn't afford more days off from employees.
And, there is sat. Until the unions and railroads agreed on one day a year, paid time off. ONE.
The engineers (and conductors) who were already supremely unhappy, weren't exactly thrilled and said NO! But, they knew it was really a long shot that anything would change. They knew there was little chance they'd be allowed to strike very long, if at all, and that Congress would most likely impose the agreement they just voted down.
Is it fair? There's lots that's unfair and stupid about how RRs and labor and government go about things. I'll save that for later.
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