The below text is General Chairman Donnigans response to an email  message he received from a BLET member wherein Brother Donnigan explains the current Personal Leave Day qualification for Engineers. The pertinent part of that email has been reproduce below for the WRGCA membership as a whole. One must bear in mind, that the below  should not be misconstrued as the actual Agreement, but only as Brother Donnigans email reply to a Brother who had a question about same and should only be viewed as such. All items of questions pertaining to the qualification of PL days should be immediately addressed directly to your Local Chairman for Agreement support and further handling.

As I believe the email message to be very informative and helpful, I have reproduced it below for your convenience.

WRGCA Web Site Administrator

Brother Donnigan responds to a members email message as to the qualification of Personal Leave days for engineers.

Brother Donnigan writes (in part):

The note to section 2 of the personal leave day interpretation/settlement states:

"It is the parties' intention this Paragraph requires 180 qualifying days in a calendar year in road freight/passenger service to qualify for personal leave days in the succeeding year."

This was applied in accordance with the interpretation of I.D. President Dubroski in following with the criteria set forth in the 1996 national agreement as such pertained to qualifying for vacation.  The equivalent is 180 days tied directly to miles earned versus 150 starts as was ruled by arbitration in the SP case.  The term "day" is vastly different than "start".  Also, see Q&A #4 of the 10/02/01 document previously sent out to our WRGCA local chairmen which provides an example for the calculation of qualifying days for personal leave, answer 4 states:

"A road engineer working in service not covered by the paid holiday rules has no unpaid absence during a pay half.  For the half the engineer earns 2000 miles.  2000 x 1.3 = 2600/130 miles = 20 qualifying days toward PL days."

Depending upon the number of miles for the run and without a non-compensated layoff during a particular half, an engineer averaging 2000 miles per half could generate some 40 qualifying days toward personal leave day entitlement.  At that rate, it would take only 4.5 to 5.0 months to qualify for next year's personal leave days.  An engineer [could] actually qualify for personal leave days sooner than he/she could qualify for vacation. 

The SP arbitration decision forces one to accumulate 150 starts, thus spread over 12 months, an engineer would have to average 12.5 starts per months.  Engineers working with regularity (e.g. extra board, local freight, etc.) would not have too much difficulty, but it was felt that pool engineers, especially those of longer runs, could have difficulty qualifying for personal leave days. 

I believe the current method gives an engineer the quickest way to qualify for personal leave days.  The trick is to stay marked up and limit non-compensated layoffs during payroll halves. 

Tim