General Discussions

The Carrier just notified us of an upcoming change to the attendance policy. We have not received the new policy with the changes but did receive the information about the changes below. This is another step backwards and diminishes our members quality of life and tightens the parameters of the attendance policy. Please make sure the members in your LCA are aware of the changes and protect themselves from any potential discipline. We are preparing a written response to these changes and will be modifying our position towards attendance cases in arbitration as well.

UP is updating its TE&Y attendance policy to better reflect the impact of taking unapproved time off and how employees can earn points back. Craft professionals have many avenues available to take approved time off. Unapproved time off hurts co-workers who must unexpectedly cover work and impacts how we serve customers.

On July 1, 2024, for all assignments and boards:

1. The credit period definition changes to 14 compensated on-duty events without a reset layoff status.

2. Evading Assignment (EA), License Expiration (LX), Pending Rules (PR), and Excessive Leave (EL) will accumulate points.

3. ‘Layoff on Call’ will accumulate an additional two points per occurrence.

4. All layoff statuses occurring on any portion of a holiday or peak day (0000-2359) will accumulate holiday/peak day points. Example: An employee lays off for 24 hours at 8 a.m., Wednesday, July 3, marking up on Thursday, July 4. The July 3 layoff will accumulate holiday points, not weekday points.

Credits will be prorated and points will not be reset. Prorated credit updates may take a few business days to reflect the new policy in the Crew Attendance Monitoring System. After July 5, employees may submit a ticket if updates have not occurred.

Fraternally,

Luke Edington

General Chairperson

SMART TD GO-953