I'm going to give everyone facts here. Facts only. How we should proceed from here, as a union, will be laid out in a carefully thought out statement soon . That statement will take into consideration the preservation of the most jobs possible, combined with the protection of our agreements, and the safe operation of our members, which are all vital functions of the union. We have asked the carrier to consider borrow outs or permanent transfers to the road to help ease the high volume of pending job losses in the yard. For now, here are the facts....
Effective July 8, Proviso yard will shut down all humping operations, and become a flat switching yard. The south side of the hump will become G2, and will have track realignment to accommodate their needs. Tracks 1-44 will be empty, and retarders will be removed. Yard 2 will be empty, with the exception of some G2 traffic.
The car count at Proviso will be reduced from 1500 cars currently, to 700 cars. This will include industry and some interchange traffic. CW and CU are gone (already abolished), while IHB, CP, CN and BRC trains will stay.
There will be 3 RCL jobs per shift, and one Relay, in addition to at least one Utility job. One RCL job will flat switch on the north end of yard 9. A Utility position will assist switching operations on the north end. Point person will be required at first, until 10000ft zone and repeaters installed. One RCL job will switch at the south end of yard 9. Current Hump Zones will be reversed, so that southbound moves on Hump leads will be protected by pullback. One RCL job will switch in yard 4, which is where industry cars will be sorted out. Plus Industries and the above mentioned transfers.
ONE Yardmaster will run the entire Proviso complex. one channel for switching in yard 9 (4141) One channel for everything else. (7171) The OTHER yardmaster will run Butler, West Chicago and Global 3 - also from East Five.
The Car department will be establishing a CD515 in yard 9. He will be HOS employee and hang and arm markers and do air tests. They are putting in 4 temporary air compressors in yard 9 until they finish constructing the permanent air system there.
Canal Street is already done, Global 1 will be phased out eventually. 23M will have two blocks, one gets dropped off on the CJ for G1, the other is a Lathrup block, and will be added to ZG2LT. Similar blocking will be done outside os G2 and delivered as a block.
No comments from anyone on specific numbers for furloughs. However, I estimated 31 starts per day lost between hump/trim, HTF, CRO and reliefs. Thats' AFTER the new jobs are added in.
That's the factual part. It is their business plan. Sometime over the next 48 hours, Tom (Local Chairman) and myself will have a statement, officially, on how to interpret all of this.
