4 ms·

BNSF workers quitting to protest new policy reducing time off to 1 day per month

11 points by Geekette 5y ago

ecf 5y ago
> The policy eliminates ALL time off including weekends, except 1 day per month. How, exactly, is this legal?
- hotpotamus 5y ago
  Why wouldn't it be legal?
  - sreevisakh 5y ago
    That should come under work safety laws, especially for the type of job they do. Like the lady said - that sort of long term fatigue is worse than getting drunk above the legal limit. I have personal experience. Situational awareness and judgment gets progressively impaired. How is that even an acceptable risk on the railroad? An accident could potentially harm people who are not even connected to the railroad. There are accident investigation report in the airline industry that found that fatigue and impaired alertness from even the maintenance staff is a threat to the safety of passengers. Any work that involves a risk of accident must include pre-shift alertness tests and mandatory minimum scores. Considering the sort of health risks involved, that should apply to all jobs - with a minimum number of paid leaves/year for recovery. It should be of grave concern for the general public that huge MNCs are willing to put the lives of employees, customers and even general public at risk in pursuit of insane profits for the C-suite and investors. It's an even bigger concern that these MNCs are able to influence legal system to rubber stamp such insanity.
    - aaaaaaaaata 5y ago
      > Situational awareness and judgment gets progressively impaired. How is that even an acceptable risk on the railroad? Out of the public eye, dirty and/or undesirable work in nature.
      - sreevisakh 5y ago
        That wouldn't make the risk acceptable - only easy to get away with, doesn't it? Just imagine if an exhausted engineer over speeds on a curve and detail the train onto a suburb or industrial area.
- jneumann004 5y ago
  If I had to guess, they're apart of a union and that's what the contract stipulates.
rdtwo 5y ago
That’s wacky. Our company does the same thing for some workers with mandatory overtime weekends and only time off every 4 th weekend.

11 points by Geekette 5y ago

ecf 5y ago

> The policy eliminates ALL time off including weekends, except 1 day per month. How, exactly, is this legal?

hotpotamus 5y ago
Why wouldn't it be legal?
- sreevisakh 5y ago
  That should come under work safety laws, especially for the type of job they do. Like the lady said - that sort of long term fatigue is worse than getting drunk above the legal limit. I have personal experience. Situational awareness and judgment gets progressively impaired. How is that even an acceptable risk on the railroad? An accident could potentially harm people who are not even connected to the railroad. There are accident investigation report in the airline industry that found that fatigue and impaired alertness from even the maintenance staff is a threat to the safety of passengers. Any work that involves a risk of accident must include pre-shift alertness tests and mandatory minimum scores. Considering the sort of health risks involved, that should apply to all jobs - with a minimum number of paid leaves/year for recovery. It should be of grave concern for the general public that huge MNCs are willing to put the lives of employees, customers and even general public at risk in pursuit of insane profits for the C-suite and investors. It's an even bigger concern that these MNCs are able to influence legal system to rubber stamp such insanity.
  - aaaaaaaaata 5y ago
    > Situational awareness and judgment gets progressively impaired. How is that even an acceptable risk on the railroad? Out of the public eye, dirty and/or undesirable work in nature.
    - sreevisakh 5y ago
      That wouldn't make the risk acceptable - only easy to get away with, doesn't it? Just imagine if an exhausted engineer over speeds on a curve and detail the train onto a suburb or industrial area.
jneumann004 5y ago
If I had to guess, they're apart of a union and that's what the contract stipulates.

rdtwo 5y ago

That’s wacky. Our company does the same thing for some workers with mandatory overtime weekends and only time off every 4 th weekend.