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Thanks Leo..What you have said here kind of confirms what I picked up in "bits and pieces" over the years. I'm surprised that the person you mentioned who "pocketed" the cash fares was given a 2nd chance..I also was led to believe that stealing..property or cash was the "unpardonable sin" and permanent dismissal was "always" the judgment. I recall that during my last "tour of duty" summer of 58 that there was a conductor on the Wymore Divsion who was caught in a "cash fare shortage' and was dismissed...His first name was Elmo.....I heard it often said of Elmo...That he would never get back.
It did seem as you pointed out that some repeat offenders did,indeed, get chance after chance after chance...Especially when it came to "G" offenses. I have very humorous story of a Wymore brakeman who was a "repeat" offender to say the least that I would like to tell, but it's too long and has an interesting epilog which needs to be attached to the story..We need to just to have an "old head" story time at one of our meetings...I think that you and I could almost provide one on our own...
It seems like that on the RI there was some kind of 'demerit" system as well as the "unpaid" vacation situation. I had the great pleasure of taking an engineer out of service for gross insubordination...He "ducked" service for an investigation, but we finally got him served...He got fired after the investigation....I am told that he did get back....after I had escaped the Operating Department he pulled the same offense against the Terminal Superintendent at Blue Island and received a dismissal which was personal...This one is covered in my book TERMINAL TALES.
Pete
-----Original Message-----
From: qutlx1@aol.com [CBQ] <CBQ@yahoogroups.com> To: CBQ <CBQ@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Sun, Jun 4, 2017 11:07 pm Subject: Re: [CBQ] Steel gons v composite gons Pete,
I will but I do not claim to be an expert by any means. There are a couple others on the
List who spent far more time involved in grievances and discipline than I.
Each operating dept. employee (and likely every RR employee) had a file that included all the basic info. Hire date, transfer dates,layoff,recall,etc,etc. Exam, promotion dates,etc. Also included were any discipline for rule violations as a result of investigations, these would include "demerits" in the old days and later just a "mark" in their record, basically a written finding of the persons error or rule violation signed by the employee, admitting his fault and agreement. I really can't address demerits as they
predated my time.
Basically the system was set up to determine the cause of various accidents,derailments,shortages in remittance, rider complaints,etc. after the hearing(investigation) if higher level mgmt.,after reading the transcript agreed the employee was at fault, that employee received a written reprimand in their record or more likely a period of unpaid time of time off ranging from 10-30 days. If an employee, over the course of his service accumulated a number of various penalties The severity (length of time off) increased, even for minor or similar issues.
At some point the proverbially dam would break and the employee would be fired. After a period of time this dismissal would be appealed by the local chairman, to the general
Chairman, who would take it up with the general Supt,VP,or GM of the territory in conference. From that conference the employee may or may not be reinstated(with full seniority rights).
I believe the carrier went to great lengths to give every employee a second and third chance. Even for these folks who seemed to be repeat offenders the railroad treated them as family. But at some point even the closest family has to let the black sheep leave the heard and stay away.
I just read a file where an individual was $1,200 short in cash fare remittance, admitted it, signed the letter acknowledging same and agreed to pay it back each pay period.
He then failed to follow through and was dismissed and never reinstated.
What is seldom known and was unknown to me until a couple years ago was that a "private file" was often kept by mgmt. at many locations on every operating employee, in addition to the official employment record. These basically earmarked individuals as good and bad apples,promotable,trustworthy or deadbeats, etc for the new officer coming into a location. I learned this from someone who would have known..
Leo
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