Short Turnaround Service.
This position from Labor Relations states:
Short Turnaround Rules are "calling rules, not pay rules".
This means the rule provides when employees may be called to make short trips and turnarounds. Employees called for multiple dogcatches are not called for "short turnaround service", but "multiple dogcatch service", and as such the short turnaround rules do not apply. Likewise, the "automatic release rules" do not apply, because of the nature of the call.
In PLB 2703, award 10, the neutral noted that the automatic release rule applies when the employee "completes the run called for". In other words, when he has completed the dogcatches he is called to make.
"Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it is clear that the so-called "Short Turnaround Rules" do not, under any circumstances, apply to a crew called off the extra board. In each and every case where there is s Short Turnaround Rule containing restrictions on time and/or miles, the phrase '...in pool or irregular freight service...' is in the rule. Arbitrators have held that extra employees are just that-'extra'. As such, they are not contemplated under a rule applicable to employees in (assigned) pool service, or irregular freight service."
A neutral upheld that this rule applies only to employees called in pool or irregular freight service. The extra employee is neither. He says: "Certainly, by this time, in the industry, the parties in making a rule on the property know the difference between extra board service and pool or irregular service and can-and do- specify what they intend to in various rules".
The reasons why labor relations is making this interpretation is:
Because they can.
Because they want to.
Because they have a board award on the UP property.
Because the RLA lets them.
The reasons why they will not prevail are:
On the UP property, there exists a call rule for "multiple dogcatches".
On the BNSF, there is no rule. Hence, they cannot call you for a type of service that does not exist.
The findings by the neutral bout making a rule on property is invalid, as all agreements were written in 1955 or earlier, and therefore have never been "modernized".
Irregular Freight Service is exactly that-irregular. That is, not falling under pool, roadswitcher, or local service. Thus, the only employee who could take that work is extra board employees.
44 plus years of historical past practices.