UTU on strike against BNSF in Tulsa, OK

[joesap1]

Thanks Ed and all the rest who explained why they were striking in Tulsa.
It certainly makes sense to me why they are at a work stoppage.

Ah, but it is the nature of man to make rules and then see if they can get away with violating them.

[edblysard]

BNSF,
Most likely it will die out, if it hasnt already.
The same thing happened at UP a while ago...and it went to arbitration, UP lost...They claimed it was a tempoary condition(an emergency) but even after they hired up, it continued on and off.
The Labor Board ruled in the engineers favor, UP had to pay a lot of timeslips!

BNSF will not make the same mistake...you can view this as a testing of the waters, they tried it, to see if the unions would let it slide.

Ed

[Anonymous]

This sounds like a hot topic that is not gona cool down any time soon.
BNSFrailfan.

[Anonymous]

The engr to condr flowback has been in effect on the Santa Fe side on BNSF for quite a few yrs now. As stated in the above reply, when you hire on the rr as condr you are given a ground seniority date. After becoming an engr, you have your eng service date but still retain the ground date and can flowback to work as condr under certain conditions. At this time of yr with business really picking up coupled w/vacation season just around the corner, all working boards are at full capacity and all engrs are working as engrs and not as condrs.

[edblysard]

Joseph,
The contract was designed so that, as engineers leave service, due to natural attrition, death and retirement, the next senior engineer moves up in seniority, as does all the ones under him/her, and thus creates an open engineer position at the bottom of the engineer’s roster.

The contract also states that when an engineer position becomes open in this manner, the highest seniority conductor who has engineer training is promoted to fill the vacancy.

If the engineers roster become so full that there is a excess of engineers, the lowest seniority engineer can exercise his seniority over conductors, and place himself on the conductors roster, (because he cant hold a engineers position) in what ever position his seniority allows him to hold.

Your hire/initial mark up date is your seniority date.

Example.

At my railroad, I refused engine service training...so a few guys lower than me in seniority are now engineers.

If we end up with too many engineers, the lowest seniority engineers will go back to the ground, as conductors.
(Last hired, first fired)
You never lose your seniority on the conductors (trainmen) board.

You do get a "new" seniority date as an engineer, but only for purposes of job position on that (engineman) roster; your conductor date stays the same.

Because these guys are less senior than I am on the conductors board, they can not move me (bump me)from my job, I am still senior to them, so they have to bid on jobs less desirable than mine.

On the other side of the coin, if I had accepted engineer training, and a slot on the engineer’s board opens, I should be "promoted" to fill the slot.

This allows everyone under me on the conductor’s board to gain a "notch" in seniority, (but puts me at the bottom of the engineer’s board in seniority)

The whole concept is to make the progression up the ladder fluid, and guarantee promotion to the most qualified and senior people.

What happened is BNSF ran out of conductors...they are still hurting for them.
They also lost quite a few engineers due to the change in retirement rules.

Had they followed the contract, the engineers board would be filled from the list of qualified conductors, the conductors board would be short handed, and they would have to hire new employees to fill in empty slots on the conductor’s roster, or run the conductors extra board into the ground filling the slots.

They didn’t want to do either of these, so...
Instead of promoting the conductors next in line for engine service, they left them on the ground as conductors, and used operating officers, trainmasters and road masters, to fill the vacant engineer’s slots.

This is a direct violation of the national contract.

Company officers are not part of the T&E (trainmen and enginemen) services,
You give that, and your seniority, up as a condition of becoming an officer, along with your operating union membership, and the contract states that all engineer and conductor positions must be filled with union T&E employees.

There is nothing ambiguous about that part of the contract; it is quite plain and simple.

The carrier will say they did so only because it was an emergency, the UTU will point out (correctly) that no, the UTU had warned all the carriers in writing two years ago this would happen, (same thing on the UP last year) and the carriers should have hired sufficient new employees to fill the gaps.

The BLE has also warned, in writing, all the carriers that a shortage of qualified engineers will happed.

Here a tidbit...in the end, BNSF will have to pay, at engineer’s rate, all the conductors that should have been promoted, for all the days they were held out of engine service.

Clear as mud, huh!
Ed

[spbed]

Sounds to me like relations between BNSF management & labor is pretty dicey. [:o)][:p]

Originally posted by richardy

Living nearby to MP 186 of the UPRR  Austin TX Sub

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