Cutoff / Furloughed / Bumped trainmen information=
As more and more of our members are disappearing from Klamath Falls
boards, here is some information about what to do, what your options
are, etc. when notified you are out of a job in town...
UPDATE CONCERNING HEALTH INSURANCE BENEFITS FOR FURLOUGHED EMPLOYEES=
According to the most recent plan booklet for the NRC/UTU Health and Welfare Plan, if you have qualified to begin receiving health insurance coverage, AND you have rendered compensated service for THREE MONTHS before being furloughed, you will continue to receive your insurance benefits.This coverage will continue for FOUR MONTHS following the last month in which you rendered compensated service (EXAMPLE: You last worked December 12, 2006; your insurance for you and your dependents will continue in effect until April 30, 2007). PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS COMES FROM THE PLAN BOOK DATED JANUARY 1st, 2006!!! THEY MAY HAVE DECIDED TO START IGNORING THIS PROVISION LIKE THEY IGNORE ALL THE AGREEMENTS! IF THEY REFUSE TO ADHERE TO THIS, IT IS NOT MY FAULT!!!
BEING DISPLACED OR "BUMPED"-
Crew Management is required to notify you as soon as possible when you have been displaced, or "bumped" from your current assignment. You can be displaced for three different reasons.
First, and most common, is someone with a higher seniority date has
chosen to take your assignment. In our area, (Klamath Falls, Roseville
Seniority Hub, and therefore the SP Western Lines Agreement territory)
a trainmen can ONLY displace you from your job if that person has a
live bump themselves. Trainmen (as opposed to switchmen, who have a
different agreement within the SP Western Lines territory, and
currently who there are none of in Klamath Falls) cannot arbitrarily
decide they want your job, and simply take it from you. They must have a live bump.
Second, your position can be "abolished". This can be done by the
Local Chairperson in the case of pool assignments when the pool's
registered miles do not justify the current number of assigned turns,
thereby requiring a turn to be cut from the board. CMS, usually through
a division known as manpower planning, can abolish extra board, local,
and supplemental positions as they see fit, within the limitations of
your union agreements (currently the only agreement affecting this is
that which requires the company to keep protecting extra boards at a
level no less than 20% of assigned jobs. Example= 50 regularly assigned
positions requires 10 extra board positions minimum).
Third,
your position can be re-bulletined. This means something on
your current assignment has substantially changed, such as your regular
on duty time, the limits of your run, or the work that must be
performed. When your job is re-bulletined, you remain temporarily
assigned to the job until the bulletin expires, at which time the
senior employee bidding on the job is assigned to it. If that employee
is not you, you are displaced.
Once you are displaced, you must be notified by CMS. You are not
required to constantly check the boards to be sure you still have a
job. With the introduction of CMTS into the Klamath Falls area in
September 2006, there are now two ways you can be notified- First is
via a phone call from CMS. This call may come from an actual human or
from the AVR system. The second way is to receive a "broadcast message"
screen on the computer whenever you try to log into CMTS via the
internet or on a UP terminal. Before you can proceed into CMTS to look
at boards, your pay, etc., the system requires you to acknowledge you
have been displaced.
Please note that according to the agreement, the company views you "as
having been notified when UP first attempts to contact the employee at
the telephone number(s) on record with UP, leaves a message, if
applicable, on his or her telephone answering machine/service, attempts
to page the employee or utilizes any other available means to contact
he employee when the employee is at his or her home terminal." Bearing
this in mind, the CMTS broadcast message function will no doubt be
considered a notification. Notice too CMS can ONLY apply this agreement
WHEN YOU ARE AT YOUR HOME TERMINAL. Furthermore, as the agreement now
also gives you 10 hours UNDISTURBED REST when returning home off an
extra board or pool freight assignment, you CANNOT be notified (legally
and per agreement) until you are no longer in UR status.
Once you are notified of being bumped, you have FORTY-EIGHT HOURS to
decide what you want to do... You have two options... One, you can
utilize your bump, and take a JUNIOR employees' position ANYWHERE
WITHIN THE ROSEVILLE HUB. The Roseville hub where your seniority is
good at includes the following work locations, which are listed in
order of distance from Klamath Falls, nearest to furthest, along with
the Circ-7 you can use to see what jobs are located there=
OZ314 - Klamath Falls, Oregon
OZ209 - Dunsmuir, California
PX751 - Oroville, California
RV185 - Sparks, Nevada
UX426 - Winnemucca, Nevada
PX637 - Portola, California
RV323 - Roseville, Claifornia
RV390 - Martinez, California (called Ozol Yard)
PX862 - Stockton, California
PX868 - Lathrop, California
PX881 - Tracy, Calfornia
????? - Modesto, California
PX949 - Oakland, California
PS707 - Fremont, California (called Warm Springs Yard)
PS717 - Milpitas/San Jose, California
JQ292 - Fresno, California
JQ181 - Bakersfield, California
CO242 - San Luis Obispo, California
BE SURE YOU NOTICE WHAT TIME YOU ARE NOTIFIED, AND ASK THE CALLER FOR
THIS INFORMATION. If you check your status after being bumped, you will
notice a date and time next to your name. THIS DATE AND TIME IS CENTRAL
TIME ZONE, NOT PACIFIC. If the time says 2230, this means 10:30 pm
OMAHA TIME; you only have till 8:30 pm KLAMATH FALLS TIME!!! Also, DO
NOT WAIT till the very last minute to call CMS to make your move. You
will probably end up waiting on hold to speak to someone, and, if your
48 hour deadline passes while listening to the UP's terrible hold
jingle, TOO BAD FOR YOU, YOU HAVE LOST YOUR BUMP..
Your second choice is to do nothing. If you choose to do nothing, here
is what can happen, assuming CMS chooses to abide by the agreement.
ONE,
you may sit on the "cut off" board (which the company is required by
agreement to have at each terminal) until there is an open extra board
position at Klamath Falls and you are the senior cut off person, or
until there is a vacancy on an assigned position at Klamath Falls, and
you are the senior person with a standing bid requesting that position.
If either of these situations arise, you ARE REQUIRED TO RETURN TO WORK
if you want to keep your job.
TWO, if the company needs to fill an EXTRA BOARD at a different
location in the Roseville Hub, and there are no cutoff persons in that
terminal, the company is allowed to force assign the JUNIOR cutoff
person from the NEAREST TERMINALS to that location. YOU ARE REQUIRED TO
RETURN TO WORK if you want to keep your job in this circumstance as
well. HOWEVER, as of 01/20/07 the company HAS YET TO ADHERE TO THIS
AGREEMENT PROVISION. CMS so far has forced employees who are NOT the
junior cutoff person to NON extra board positions in terminals where
there are cutoff persons available in NEARER terminals than Klamath
Falls. If or when CMS will either be forced or will choose to abide by
this agreement remains to be seen.
If you are contacted by CMS to be forced to another terminal to work,
you have FIFTEEN DAYS TO REPORT FOR YOUR NEW ASSIGNMENT. If you CANNOT
make it to your new assignment within fifteen days, you can request an
extension of this time from CMS, and they can choose to grant it or
deny it. IF YOU DO NOT REPORT TO YOUR LOCATION WITHIN THE ALLOWED
FIFTEEN DAYS OR BY THE DATE OF THE EXTENSION GRANTED TO YOU, THE
AGREEMENT STATES YOU WILL HAVE FORFITTED YOUR SENIORITY ON ALL JOBS IN
THE ROSEVILLE HUB. You are allowed to go to investigation over this,
and you can be reinstated if you win, HOWEVER the agreement states that
if SIXTY DAYS passes with no response from you, you are terminated with
no recourse. This means you are voluntarily quitting the UP forever.
FURTHERMORE you are entitled to a daily per diem payment of $35, as
well as company paid lodging FOR UP TO FIFTEEN DAYS at the new location
you were forced to. The amount of days you will actually be paid and housed
DEPENDS ON HOW LONG YOU TAKE TO REPORT TO THE NEW ASSIGNMENT AFTER
BEING PROPERLY NOTIFIED YOU ARE BEING SENT ELSEWHERE. If you report for
work by the SECOND DAY after being notified you get FIFTEEN DAYS
LODGING AND PER DIEM. THIRD DAY=TWELVE DAYS, FOURTH DAY=ELEVEN DAYS,
FIFTH DAY=TEN DAYS, SIXTH DAY=NINE DAYS, SEVENTH DAY=EIGHT DAYS, and if
you report AFTER the SEVENTH DAY, you get NO per diem or lodging.
To make sure you will be back home as soon as you possible can, you
should place standing bids into CMTS FOR EVERY POSSIBLE ASSIGNMENT
AVAILABLE IN YOUR HOME TERMINAL. You may not get the job you want to be
on, but at least you will be back home again.
If you choose to do nothing, and you are NOT recalled to work in some
remote location, you now are free to sit and rot. Congratulations, the
company's spiel to you when you first applied for the job about how
you'd have to work so much and make so much money and never be home
with your family has just become a lie. Seeing as you are a newly hired
person, your options for income have pretty much just dried up as far
as the railroad business goes. As a railroad employee, you no longer
qualify for State Unemployment benefits, although you MAY have some
still owed you from a previous job you held before workng for the
railroad; you will have to check with the unemployment office in the
state you worked before being hired by the UP. The unemployment offered
you as a railroad employee is handled by the federal government's
Railroad Retirement Board. The number for the Portland, Oregon office
which handles claims for the Klamath Falls area is (541) 883-6972. Yes,
this is a Klamath Falls number. How nice that they help you out with a
local number. Too bad the UP won't help you out as well. Now, the
continuing bad news. Railroad Retirement Board unemployment pays very
well compared to state programs, but you are probably not eligible for
it yet. The basis for eligibility is figured by calender year, with
benefits payable starting the following July. So, if you worked enough
in the period from January 2006 through December 2006, you are eligible
for benefits ($$$) BEGINING IN JULY 2007. So for you to receive money
right now, you would have had to have worked enough between January
2005 and December 2005... I am guessing you were not employed by the
railroad then... When you DO become eligible for benefits, note that
they only are good for SIX MONTHS. The RRB agents at the number above
can tell you all about it...
If you still have questions after CAREFULLY reading all of the above, please EMAIL or call your Local Chairperson.