Okay, I apparently need an update. What is "Hi-Viz"?
Hi-Viz is quite simply the new work availability policy that BNSF implemented last February. Under the
old availability policy of being available 75% of the days in a given month. For unassigned service (on call) this equated to 5 weekdays and 2 weekend days a month they could take unpaid off without violating the policy. If you work assigned service (set 5 day schedule) you were only able to take one unpaid day per month.
So under the new
Hi-Viz policy we are given 30 points. An unpaid layoff Mon-Thu cost 2 points a day, Fri-Sat 4 points per day, and Sun 3 points for unassigned service. Any unpaid layoff in assigned service cost 7 points. Then there are also what's called
High Impact days, basically one of the 11 federal holidays, plus SuperBowl Sunday, Mother's and Father's day, or any day that BNSF deems without notice and to take an unpaid day cost 7 points unassigned and 10 points in assigned. If you miss a call, fail to report, or have to layoff after on duty it'll cost the employee 15 points. Current example we have an engineer who lost 15 points for failure to report, he has an accident report from his car wreck driving to work and emergency room paperwork and the company still charged him 15 points.
1st violation or hitting 0 points is a 10 day suspension and points reset to 15, 2nd time 20 day suspension and points reset to 15, 3rd time is termination. So far I know of a handful of people who have their fist violation, and one guy who had hit his third. None have been suspended or terminated, they've all been told to "get back to work". I imagine though the boot might come down in the future for some of the extreme violators.
To earn 4 points back we have to be available for work with no paid or unpaid time off for 14 days with a few exceptions (jury duty, union business, or mandatory training). You also can earn 1 point if you make a trip between 12:01 Friday and 11:59 Sunday. However, you can't have a paid/unpaid layoff in the same weekend, and if you have more than one trip in that weekend you still only get 1 point. If you're the top engineer or conductor in the terminal for hours worked in a month you can get 7 points.
When Hi-Viz was first implemented we couldn't have more than 30 points. The company did do some adjusting and now with top hours worked and the weekend point we can work up to a balance of 37 points. The staying available for 14 consecutive days to earn 4 points will not earn you above 30 points.
BNSF saw the writing on the wall late last year, as they were trying to recall employees back to work from furlough. They had over 1500 certified conductors furloghed system wide with the majority of them at
THREE + Years, most didn't come back to work. So when freight traffic picked up there wouldn't be enough employees to move them.
FYI in June and July the top engineer worked over 260 hours in both months. The conductor was over 240 hours. The engineer working boards are progressive, the conductor boards are not unless the extra boards are exhausted.
Federal law prohibits the railroad from working us past 12 hours on duty, more than 6 consecutive starts not counting deadheads with less than 24 hours rest time, and from working more than 276 total hours in a month not counting Limbo time. Limbo time is any time past our 12 hours of mandated hours of service where we might be waiting on transportation or lodging or deadheading by van or train.
