Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers

Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers
Division 758

Richard E. Etienne
Vancouver, WA
rick@etnsplace.com

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

By now, I am sure you have all received your letter from "Carl". It sounds pretty homey, doesn't it? Well, don't get to comfortable yet. Let's just see what good old "Carl" has to say. His letter is here:

CARL R. ICE
Senior Vice President
Operations

The Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway Company
P.O. Box 961034
Fort Worth TX 76161-0034
2600 Lou Menk Drive
Fort Worth TX 76131-2850
817-352-1400
817-352-7488 Fax

February 5, 2000

To: All BNSF TY&E People

Re: Attendance Guidelines

Dear Fellow Employees:

As you know, BNSF's availability policy has been canceled. We learned a lot from the responses we received to that policy and from discussions with the BLE and UTU. We've come up with what we hope will be a more acceptable approach to ensuring that TY&E employees work full-time, with reasonable time off.

I hope you and your supervisor have been able to discuss our new attendance guidelines, which take effect March 1. If not, I certainly encourage you to do so. A copy of the guidelines is enclosed for your information.

The guidelines provide supervisors with the flexibility they need to manage attendance issues by considering special individual circumstances and applying a common-sense approach to each situation. We also hope to involve local chairmen in our application of the guidelines.

We appreciate the contributions thousands of BNSF TY&E people have made to our customers and co-workers over the years. Thank you all for your commitment to our community. I know I can count on BNSF operating employees to be in place to meet our customers expectations, so that we can continue to provide record-setting on-time performance and quality service.

Very Truly yours

s/ Carl

BNSF GUIDELINES FOR TY&E EMPLOYEE ATTENDANCE

BNSF TY&E employees are key members of our community, and have a legitimate expectation of reasonable opportunity to be off from work. And, along with all other members of our community, BNSF TY&E people share certain responsibilities to the community as a whole. One of these basic responsibilities is to be "full-time" employees. The company commits that each TY&E employee in unassigned service fulfills his or her responsibility to maintain "full-time" status, in general, by laying off not more than twenty-five percent of weekdays and weekends in any three month period.

Local members of the BNSF transportation management team are specifically empowered to apply these Guidelines considering special individual circumstances. Managers should never act in a rigid or "wooden" manner, and in every case should use "common sense." Application of these Guidelines also must yield to any conflicting labor agreement provision. We also invite and encourage local union leaders to give their input in the application of these Guidelines in individual cases, and, generally, to be "part of the process."

BNSF provides for and encourages each employee who knows in advance of a need to be off to request a pre-approved layoff. An employee may do so up to ninety days in advance, and will receive a prompt answer. Once a pre-approved layoff is granted, the company may not cancel it without the employee's consent.

More specific principles for applying these Guidelines follow:

· Each employee's compliance with the Guidelines' standard of "full-time" employment will be measured on a "rolling" three month basis, to accommodate individual employees' needs to "bunch" days off.

· An employee's continuous fulfillment of the Guidelines' "full-time" standard for any twelve months completely clears his or her record of any previous failure to fulfill the full-time standard.

· The company's basic measurement of full-time status considers all time an employee is not marked off, and also jury duty, bereavement leave engineer recertification, and layoff union or company business, to be the same as on-duty time.

· Periods of vacation, personal leave, other paid leave not already mentioned here, layoff on miles, and foot of the board are removed from the measurement.

· In every case, local supervisors should consider special circumstances and use common sense in applying the Guidelines.

· We encourage any employee identified as failing to maintain full-time status under these Guidelines to seek the involvement of his/her local chairman. Local managers should also encourage such involvement by local chairmen in order to promote fair and common sense application of the Guidelines.

The above letter from "Carl" sounds pretty folksy, doesn't it? Well, don't be fooled. The "Availability Policy" is not dead. It has simply been given a makeover, and renamed "Attendance Guidelines".

Here is the memorandum from our own VP Dave Dealy. I'm sure you remember how caring and understanding Mr. Dealy was at our town hall meeting last year. Here is what he tells local management in how to deal with the new and improved "Attendance Guidelines":

Date: February 11, 2000

To: Service Region AVPs, Division Superintendents, All TY&E supervisors

From: Dave Dealy

Subject: Attendance Guidelines

Accompanying this e-mail message is the information kit associated with the attendance guidelines for TY&E employees. Our goal is to have face-to-face discussions with as many TY&E employees as possible during the next week.

The items in the kit are for your use only in introducing the guidelines to employees and responding to their questions and in administration of the guidelines.

Included in the information kit are:

A one-page Summary of BNSF TY&E Attendance Guidelines.
Guidance for the Administration of BNSF's TY&E Attendance Guidelines, including questions and answers about the guidelines. These will be modified as additional information is developed as a result of your discussions with TY&E employees.
The TY&E Attendance Guidelines roll-out plan.
The goal of these guidelines is to ensure that TY&E employees work full-time, with reasonable time off. The approach is based on input from TY&E employees, the BLE and the UTU. Thank you for your help and support of this effort to ensure that BNSF operating employees are in place to meet our customers' expectations.
Summary of BNSF TY&E Attendance Guidelines
For BNSF Supervisors Only

Train, yard and engine employees are key members of the BNSF community. Each TY&E employee has a responsibility to the other members of our community to be a full-time employee. Each TY&E employee also has a
right to reasonable time off. The following attendance guidelines are intended to help TY&E employees fulfill that responsibility to each other and to our customers.
TY&E employees in unassigned service will be considered full-time employees if they lay off no more than 25 percent of weekdays and weekend days during a continuous three-month period.
Continuous compliance with these guidelines for twelve months will clear an employee's record of any previous attendance issues addressed under these guidelines.
Any time an employee is not marked off, as well as time marked off for jury duty, bereavement leave, engineer recertification, or layoff union or company business, is considered the same as on-duty time.
Vacation, personal leave, layoff on miles, foot of board, bump board and any other paid leave is considered neither on-duty nor off-duty time.
Supervisors of TY&E employees are empowered to consider employees' individual circumstances. Local union leaders are encouraged to become part of the process of applying these guidelines.
Pre-arranged layoffs are encouraged. Employees may request a layoff up to 90 days in advance, and will receive a prompt response. BNSF cannot cancel a pre-arranged layoff without the employee's consent.

Attendance Guidelines Roll-out Plan

Thursday, February 10 1 p.m.
Conference call led by Mr. Dealy, to include all TY&E supervisors.

Friday, February 11,6 p.m.
Electronic transmission of cover letter, summary, implementation instructions, FAQs and roll-out plan to supervisors via service region AVPs and division superintendents and directors of administration.

Monday, February 14,9 a.m.
Regular transportation supervisor's conference call led by Mr. Dealy. Opportunity to discuss additional questions. Updated FAQs, if necessary based on questions developed during call, to be distributed electronically by close of business. Supervisors begin meeting with TY&E employees, individually and in groups at on-duty locations as opportunities present themselves, to discuss implementation of attendance guidelines.

Friday, February 18
Superintendent's notice announcing attendance guidelines posted.

Monday, February 21 (week of)
Letter from Carl Ice to TY&E employees' homes, with copy of summary.

Tuesday, February 22
8 a.m.
Issue press release to rail trade publications; release to be used as press statement for response to inquiries from local newspapers and broadcast stations.
3 p.m.
Conference call led by Mr. Dealy to discuss any additional questions TY&E supervisors may have about guidelines, summary or FAQs, including input from employee contacts. Updated FAQs, if necessary based on questions developed during call, to be distributed electronically by noon Wednesday, February 23.

Monday, February 28
Depending on feedback in discussions among supervisors and employees, an additional conference call could be scheduled with Operations supervisors at 3 p.m. Monday, February 28. Alternatively, a modified version of FAQs could be distributed electronically as necessary.

Wednesday, March 1
Attendance guidelines take effect.

As you can see, this new policy is just a revamped version of the original availability policy. The whole purpose of this new policy is to get Congress to shelve house bill HR 3091, as evidenced by Mr. Dealy's emphasis on press releases. Letters have already gone out to all of Congress and the Senate alerting them to the kinder gentler BNSF. This is all smoke and mirrors. The whole purpose of this new policy is to get Congress to not get involved in railroad policies.

Note, the only thing that has changed between the two policies is the amount of time necessary to "cleanse" your record. This came to pass because Neutral Kasher noted in his original ruling about the availability policy that the current guidelines smacked of unreasonableness. So, presto, we now have changes.

There is still an availability policy in effect, no matter what you choose to call it. I encourage all members to act accordingly, keeping this in mind.

Thank you

Fraternally yours

Richard E Etienne

Division 758
Vancouver WA.