With the 4^th of July holiday approaching many will recall the Carrier shut down almost all operations this past Memorial Day on the day prior to the holiday, effectively abolishing all holiday covered assignments.   As a consequence trainmen seeking to protect their holiday pay were sent scrambling for an active position to hold in order to protect service the day before the holiday; and many were unsuccessful in that endeavor because there were no assignments working in the terminal.

While the General Committee office did not have advance warning of the May 24^th shut down in conjunction with the Memorial Day holiday in order to attempt to avert that catastrophe, the same cannot be said for the upcoming July 4^th holiday wherein it is our understanding the Carrier intends to greatly curtail their operations both Saturday, July 4^th and Sunday, July 5^th, 2009.  Consequently, following the Memorial Day fiasco, this General Committee immediately contacted the Carrier to solicit an Agreement to prevent a disruption of our members’ schedule when the Carrier annuls their assignment for the day before and/or after a holiday, as well as to prevent the loss of their holiday pay if the member doesn’t care about taking the extra day off, but simply does not want to lose their eligibility for holiday pay for doing so. 

The June 24, 2009 Memorandum of Understanding found here accomplishes our goals.  Under this understanding, whenever the Carrier annuls/abolishes a yard or road holiday covered assignment on the work day prior to and/or after the designated holiday, the affected conductor/trainman/yardman will be permitted to remain on their (shut down) position while waiting for reestablishment of the assignment (which will be specified in the holiday shut down notice).  In addition, the employee choosing to wait out the return of their assignment after the holiday shut down can do so without fear of being penalized in the form of losing their eligibility to collect holiday pay so long as they protect the first work day before and after the holiday shut down period (the same as they would have protected the holiday itself, if the holiday were the only day the assignment was annulled).  

At the same time those desiring to exercise seniority to a working assignment on the day before, or day after, a holiday have maintained their contractual privilege to do so under the existing agreement rules, respecting the on duty time of their current assignment as if it were working.  Under those B&O Schedule Agreement provisions (Rule 64, Section 6) an employee desiring to exercise displacement rights is restricted from doing so from the call time of their regular assignment the day before the holiday (0001 for extra board employees) until after midnight on the holiday itself.  This understanding does not change those provisions.

In short, we have sacrificed nothing for this understanding and gained much in the way of protection for our members who would rather just enjoy a long weekend and return to their current assignment; but couldn’t do so before for fear of disqualifying themselves from collecting holiday pay.  We cannot prevent the Carrier from annulling assignments around the holiday, so the goal of this General Committee was to do something to make that event as painless as possible for our members.  With this Memorandum of Understanding, that goal has been accomplished.