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Re: Job Insurance? An investment portfolio or a second marketable skill
Author: Dr Zarkoff
Date: 02-27-2011 - 17:11
>to provide an income to a suspended or dismissed railroad employee after he or she has been removed from service for an alleged rule, CFR or company policy violation. Railroads don't have a "suspended with pay" scenario.
The only thing I can add is that it may take years to exhaust the process of determining the propriety and applicability of any discipline assessed. Some cases are ultimately in favor of the [dismissed] employee, others aren't (recent cases I know of took nearly 3 years each; in one the employee won, the other, the employee lost). Job insurance tides the affeced individual over while not working (it may keep you from losing your house and/or family, never mind the car).
If you think all cases of employee discipline are fair, then you don't know the story of the tunnel fire between Serrano and Chorro on the SP some 20 years ago. The superintendent (LPM for those who know initials) was on the warpath looking for scapegoats and pulled the crew out of service. How on earth can a engine or train crew tell if the timbers are smouldering, particularly when it wasn't visible when the engines went through and there's no caboose? One of the local chairman in SPBI (SLOBICA on later computer printouts, both SP-ese for San Luis Obispo, CA) related the story of the investigation, and from an experienced railroader's point of view, it was hilarious the lengths the flunkies went to. To his credit, the next sup't issued a letter of full apology (forget his initials).
You also have to keep in mind that these railroad disciplinary processes aren't subject to "regular" labor laws because not only do they predate them, they have been specifically placed under the jurisdiction of the RLA (Railway Labor Act), which also deliberately pre-empts local and state labor laws.
The only thing I can add is that it may take years to exhaust the process of determining the propriety and applicability of any discipline assessed. Some cases are ultimately in favor of the [dismissed] employee, others aren't (recent cases I know of took nearly 3 years each; in one the employee won, the other, the employee lost). Job insurance tides the affeced individual over while not working (it may keep you from losing your house and/or family, never mind the car).
If you think all cases of employee discipline are fair, then you don't know the story of the tunnel fire between Serrano and Chorro on the SP some 20 years ago. The superintendent (LPM for those who know initials) was on the warpath looking for scapegoats and pulled the crew out of service. How on earth can a engine or train crew tell if the timbers are smouldering, particularly when it wasn't visible when the engines went through and there's no caboose? One of the local chairman in SPBI (SLOBICA on later computer printouts, both SP-ese for San Luis Obispo, CA) related the story of the investigation, and from an experienced railroader's point of view, it was hilarious the lengths the flunkies went to. To his credit, the next sup't issued a letter of full apology (forget his initials).
You also have to keep in mind that these railroad disciplinary processes aren't subject to "regular" labor laws because not only do they predate them, they have been specifically placed under the jurisdiction of the RLA (Railway Labor Act), which also deliberately pre-empts local and state labor laws.
