> Most UP and BNSF yard crews got off by union agreement.

If these yard crews are covered by the 8 hr, 5 day yard agreement, they've be getting Christmas off for several decades. The company posts a notice reading "job(s) xxx will not work December 25." This means that if you are holding job xxx, you will receive 8 hrs of holiday pay (straight time, a basic day with no arbitraries), subject to certain prerequisites.

When I was on freight (1960s-1980s), the Agreement specified that you had to qualify for "holiday pay". This went something like this: work a certain number of straight-time shifts in a certain number of days prior to the holiday. You also had to work the last shift your job worked before the holiday and the first shift after it. The Agreement was a bit ambiguous about the pay for a holiday vs actually working on a holiday, and the Board ruled in the employees favor at least 50 years ago, saying that the 8 hr "holiday pay" is separate from any time and 1/2 you receive if you perform service on said holiday. This meant that if you qualified for holiday pay and actually worked the holiday, you would receive double time and 1/2. If memory serves, if you didn't qualify for the holiday pay, you would only get straight time. Needless to say, the Board decision pretty much killed switching jobs working holidays.

> But too many unneeded road trains were forced to roll.

Road jobs have no holidays, unless the train isn't called.

> Ethical scum.

A judgement you are not well enough informed to make.