Railroaders' Nostalgia > Getting bumped for one day! (SP)

Did this happen to you?. Case in point: If you worked the day before and the day after you were entitled to the "middle day" which was bulletined as a paid holiday.
So you had guys with a live bump that would knock you off your job just to get that one paid free day. Then they would bid off the job! Didn't happen all that much due to timing but I always thought it was CS.
Seniority never worked to well for a junior man.





4460

Thats why it's called SENIORity... LOL. But yes, and it still goes on today, The old heads say "you should have hired out sooner, kid".

Happens off the railroad, too. Years ago when I was driving for Greyhound and working off the extra board I was lucky enough to bid on and get a temporary regular run for a while, a "hold-down" for a regular driver out on extended sick leave. Not great hours, and a long layover in Chicago before my return trip to my home terminal. But they were regular hours and more structured than the extra board, so it was reasonably good for a few months.

Nevertheless I got bumped for a couple of days or a week by a very senior man at our terminal. He just liked the hours better, even with the long layover I had. Being a naive young whippersnapper, I protested, and quickly got put into my place in no uncertain terms. And told to shut up and take it.

It didn't matter to anyone that he was a renowned "sharpshooter" who played his seniority to the hilt against anyone, any time, anywhere. Most guys really disliked him not only for that but his braggadocio personality (he acted like he was God's gift to Greyhound), but they generally kept quiet about it. Because he could also be vindictive against those who talked against him. He was an excellent driver, and had every safety award pin the company issued on his name badge. But as a person, he was a jerk to work with. We were all very glad when he finally retired.

MC

If I worked the day before a holiday, and was laid in FOR the holiday, they'd better notify by tie-up if I'd been bumped. Because they weren't getting a hold of me until the day AFTER the holiday.

A long time ago, I knew I was getting bumped prior to starting vacation after my off days. I asked the guy if he'd wait until my second off day, and he was happy to. By that time, I was nowhere to be found.

You gotta work with what you've got. That said, I tried to avoid abusing people when it came time to use my seniority. 

I've been retired 5 years but to get paid the holiday I believe you had to be marked up the day before and the day after the holiday.

Beowawe Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I've been retired 5 years but to get paid the
> holiday I believe you had to be marked up the day
> before and the day after the holiday.

We weren't considered unavailable until we were notified. Until they got a hold of you, or in later years you perhaps notified yourself by logging into the crewcall system, you were "not notified", and it didn't count against your availability. 

We had similar things happen on the Santa Fe. One time one of the less popular engineers bumped me off the slab job while I was working knowing the job was abolished at close of shift stealing the deadhead I would have gotten at close of shift from an "outlying" job. I let him know about it but as stated, it was a seniority move and there was nothing I could do about it except exercise my seniority without the deadhead miles.
JB



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/08/23 19:41 by 3rdswitch.

As long as you placed on another job immediately when you got bumped, you could preserve your holiday pay, and with very few exceptions rails would do that.  It would cost too much not to.  We also had a holiday bump rule where a man whose job was laid in on the holiday could bump a man who was scheduled to work that day, just for the one day.  You stayed on the job, you just didn't work for time and a half that day, but your basic holiday pay was still protected.  This could be good or bad, depending on what you may have had planned.  And skillful use of the 48 hours to place rule was used by all rails, regardless of seniority.  It allowed you to possibly have some family time that you weren't expecting.  But yeah, seniority moves often sucked for the junior man, but the longer you worked on the railroad those moves could benefit you rather than hurt you, so the outrage died down.   BSB