Hearing that Norfolk Southern will stop accepting incoming shipments (stuff to be loaded on trains) tomorrow. Shipments at their destination facilities (already shipped by rail) will be available for pickup by the customer.
Railjunkie wrote:
You're an outsider too. You don't see me begrudging you your right to an opinion on what happens with a union issue that you admit you don't have a dog in the hunt on...
I'm an outsider, yes. But when 40% of the goods shipped in the US are shipped by rail, there's a good chance I may be buying them... and they may be out and/or at inflated prices. "No dog in the hunt?" Well, all of America now has interest in it now. It's hit NBC News on their nightly broadcast. CBS News is carrying stories on it. ABC news. Associated Press. If this doesn't get resolved, it's going to hit the economy hard, and we'll be in full-on recession.
What I'd love to see is this attendance policy get ripped up and something more closer to what us outsiders get: 40 hours a week, 8 hours a day, everything else overtime OR a big set salary doled out on a regular basis.
Yes, I've been on-call, woken at odd hours of the night, even called while on vacation because
something in a system I oversee broke and I had to advise on what to do next or fix it from remote. I've also been woken up because
something more fundamental broke and I had to be on the company call while that department fixed the issue because it affected my system. That happened for nearly seven years, with me being defacto-24/7, until this year when the system I was managing was put under control of a proper department, and my department (Development) instated an on-call rotation for the systems that are our main concern. If Development on-call has to be called, that means
something majorly screwed up and we got to screw it back down again.
So I've experienced similar pain. Do I wish it on anyone?
ABSOLUTELY NOT! And that includes railroad engineers and conductors.
Let me make this clear: I'm with the engineers and conductors. I'm ashamed that the Presidential Select Committee punted on the attendance policy. I hope Congress extends the cooling off period, and these two Republicans be forced to drive home. This resolution is crap.