Question about sick pay for railroad workers

[grumpyduck]

I'm sure I can find the answer to this online, but it would probably take hours. From what I've read, the issue is that railroads don't want to give workers sick leave: they want them to take it out of PTO.

A friend of mine worked for years at a huge medical conglomerate, and all staff had vacation, sick time, and holidays all in a PTO "envelope." The company figured out how much vacation time etc. each employee rated and added it all up, and gave them that much PTO. It worked fine because everyone was aware of the system. And, for the company's accounting systems, it was probably easier.

So, with the railroad workers, is it that they just don't get enough paid time off to cover everything, or that they may think PTO is all vacation time? It seems, from the MSM, that the battle is specifically about "sick time," when just increasing the amount of PTO might take care of the problem. Or do the railroad oligarchs just don't want to think about it that way?

[ret5hd]

1. ONE of the issues is:

There is no “sick time”…you can’t call in sick (flu, broken leg, gall bladder surgery) and get paid. You have to schedule such things ahead of time.

[grumpyduck]

4. Yikes. So you have to plan ahead

for accidents? That's freakin' ludicrous.

[Ray Bruns]

7. I think that is the sticking point. Also they want to bring their benefits

More in line with the industry.

[AZSkiffyGeek]

2. What I've read...

Is that their scheduling runs really lean to maximize efficiency/profit, and people calling out on the day of their shift screws everything up, so they don’t offer “sick pay” - they can use vacation/PTO, but it must be scheduled in advance - if someone calls out it’s unpaid.
Apparently the impact is big enough that it’s cheaper for the rail companies to offer 25% pay increases instead of 7 sick days…

This is not defending the practice.

[Ray Bruns]

3. From what I understand, they get a lot of PTO, just not another category of sick time.

I think it has more to bringing their benefits more in line with industry standards. From what I have read, they get a minimum of 25 days of PTO. But that is what I read in Google, so take it for what it’s worth.

[neverforget]

15. They get vacation time and personal days. They don't have PTO or sick time. Vacation time

is awarded by seniority. When I worked at BNSF, my vacation was usually in March or Sept/Oct. It used to be you could layoff 1 day a month without being penalized but that's not the way it works anymore. Now it's a points system where you are penalized for laying off. If you drop below a certain threshold, you're in trouble for availability and can be fired after a couple times.

It sucked when I worked there. I can't imagine how much worse it is now. So glad I quit when I did.

[FBaggins]

5. I'll take a swing at it

Lots of employers lump vacation and sick leave into PTO. Employees get a little more PTO than what they would have gotten as pure vacation but fewer total days than more employees would get with distinct vacation and sick leave policies.

For most employees, this is better - because they usually don't take many sick days, and it results in more time off than they otherwise would have had. For some it's worse

The problem is this. The railroads need to know about PTO in advance (because the trains must run on time)... so there are disincentives to take a day off without enough warning (which is what happens when you get sick).

Rail workers (generally) have "enough paid time off to cover everything"... but they don't have the flexibility to use that time off unexpectedly.

Both positions (rail workers and rail companies) actually make tons of sense from their own perspectives.

[Zeitghost]

6. I have the same system

3 weeks PTO per year plus a one week shutdown at Christmas. Sick, personal and vacation time all come out of the same pot. I'm good with it and my employer is very fair, not making us take PTO for regular Dr visits and other things that just take an hour or two.

My wife is under a very similar plan but gets 4 weeks PTO but no Christmas week off.

We much prefer it to the separate pools most of our former jobs used because you can use unused sick leave for personal time off.

[ret5hd]

12. If you break a leg next Monday...

Can you already the day off with pay from your pto?

They can’t. They have to schedule that broken leg a few weeks in advance.

[AZSkiffyGeek]

13. My job just switched from dedicated sick time to a pool of PTO

I'm work from home so it was great for me - I'm working 4 day weeks from Halloween through the end of the year to burn my "sick time". The only thing that sucks is that we used to get paid down for any unused sick time, which last year ended up being almost an additional paycheck the week before Christmas.

[ret5hd]

14. How do you save any time for...

heart surgery?
knee replacement?
bad auto accident?
all hose things life can throw at you?

[underpants]

8. To me, designated sick leave still has benefit to the company

Cover all PTO could be used for everything as you described. I’ve worked in that situation, you tend to get less. Leave specific to being sick or medical treatments can have stipulations put on it by the company. For instance, if you are out more than one day the employer can require a doctors note.

[lapfog_1]

9. my understanding

is that for the railroad workers, any PTO has to be scheduled in advance and approved by their supervisors.

So... just adding a few days to the PTO package will not account for sick time.

The issue for the railroads is that they have trimmed the labor force for trains to a bare minimum (usually a crew of 2 or 3 for the entire train). So any last second no-show throws the system (not just that 1 train, but all trains that will occupy the track - which then creates havoc with the entire railroad system ). Trains have to run to exact schedules so that the entire system is safe and efficient.

Basically the railroads don't want humans on the trains... humans that get sick, etc.

However we haven't yet gotten to the point that we would trust a fully AI operated trains (and yet we are moving to AI operated vehicles for our highways).

The railroads need to add a spare crew person or two on every train to account for sick days... and they refuse to do it.

[Deminpenn]

16. I think the way it works with the crews actually

on the trains is that they work so many days or hours straight, then that is followed by a set amount of time off. Similar to the way firemen, for example, work 3 days on, then 2 days off. IIRC, there are pretty strict rules on this.

As for combined PTO, unless accumulated sick days can be saved and carried over from year to year, then differentiating sick/vacation/personal days doesn't make any difference.

[timms139]

10. They can get sick pay for being off under a doctors order .

The Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act provides qualified railroad employees with benefits to restore part of their lost wages arising from periods of unemployment or sickness (including, for female employees, health conditions related to pregnancy, miscarriage, or childbirth).

[Ocelot II]

11. I'm not sure how this works, or why the unions weren't able

to negotiate sick pay in their contracts. At my old job at the time I retired (a large airline, but not a union position), everything was PTO, although when I started, vacation and sick time were separate. And many years ago I worked at a large railroad, in a unionized office job, and I'm sure we got sick pay. So I don't know how this has all come about, except that from what I've read, in recent years the railroads have reduced their operations staff, which was possible to some extent due to automation, to the point where they are running on minimum staffing all the time to save money. So if someone calls in sick at the last minute it screws up their schedules. If everything is counted as PTO and an employee has already used up all their PTO time taking a planned vacation or other time, if they get sick after that they have no more paid time. This encourages sick people to be operating trains, which is certainly a safety issue. None of this makes much sense to me.