AGREEMENT

320—192 3

It is hereby understood that the agreement between the parties signatory hereto signed at St. Louis April 29, 1964 to be effective with the year 1965, pertaining to the splitting of vacations, is cancelled and the following is agreed to:

1. Engineers who qualify for three or more weeks’ vacation under the provisions of the April 29, 1949 Vacation Agreement, as amended, will, upon request, be permitted to take their vacation in three periods of not less than one week each in any calendar year subject to the provisions of this Agreement.

2. Employees desiring to take vacations in two periods must make written application thereof or during the periods when applications for vacations are being accepted.

3. When two periods are requested, only one of such periods will be assigned during the period May 1 to September 30.

4. Section 6 of the 1949 Vacation Agreement provides in part:

“Due regard, consistent with requirements of the service, shall be given to the preference of the employee in his seniority order in the class of service in which engaged when granting vacation.”

In applying the principle quoted above, consideration will be given to only one period of a split vacation in assigning vacations to engineers. An employee requesting a split vacation will designate which period he desires considered in accordance with the above. After all engineers have been assigned one vacation period in accordance with the principle quoted above, the remaining split vacations will be assigned to available unassigned periods with due regard to the engineer’s desires in his seniority order consistent with the requirement of the service.

5. In view of permitting split vacations, it is understood the length of the entire vacation will be no greater than the length of vacation to which the employee is entitled at the time the first portion of the vacation is taken.

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6. In the application of Section 2 (c) of the Vacation Agreement, the vacation allowance to an employee who splits his vacation as provided in this Agreement will be on the same basis in the second and third periods of his vacation as in the first .period of his vacation, the same as if the vacation had not been split.

7. Once an employee has made a choice and been assigned a vacation, or the vacation list has been set up, same will not be changed, except, that should the employee, at the time he is scheduled to take his assigned vacation, be absent from duty by reason of personal injury or sickness, he may, by mutual agreement between the Local Chairman and the Superintendent, be assigned another vacation period.

8. The Carrier will assume no additional expense in granting vacations as result of the Vacation Agreement. Where relief for vacation incurs deadheading, the Carrier will be required to pay for only one round trip for this service. Only the relief engineer deadheading to fill the first vacation period will be allowed deadhead pay for the trip to the point and return. No deadhead pay will be allowed to the relief engineer sent to or returning from the point to protect second and third vacation periods.

9. All other provisions of the April 29, 1949, National Vacation Agreement, as amended, will apply without change.

This Agreement shall be cancelled automatically upon the service of thirty (30) days’ written notice by either party of a desire to cancel the Agreement, and the serving of such notice shall have the effect of reinstating the application of the April 29, 1949, Vacation Agreement at the expiration of the thirty (30) days in exactly the same manner as if this Agreement has not been written.

Letter addressed to General Managers

December 17, 1965

320—1923

There has reportedly been some misunderstanding and difficulty in the application of Section 4 of the BLE and BLF&E split vacation agreements.

For the information of all concerned, it should be understood that each employe desiring to split his vacation will be given seniority preference first of all to only one of his vacation periods (as designated by the employe). Then after all initial vacation periods are assigned, including those who do not wish to split their vacations, and each employe has been assigned one vacation period, the remaining split vacation periods will then be assi9ned to available vacation period slots taking into consideration the employes’ desires and seniority.

In other words, the senior employe cannot have both their vacation periods assigned in accordance with seniority before junior employes are assigned one of their periods.

/s/ B. W. SMITH

Letter June 17, 1953 (File 320—3503)

When an extra man is on vacation he should not take his place on the board when he reports on or before the last day of his vacation until midnight of the last day of his vacation.

This does not make any change in the practice followed, where men who are regularly assigned to regular turns, or pool runs, are being permitted to report and be used on their regular assignments on the last day of their vacation in order to keep them from losing time.

Letter July 1, 1953 (File 300—2134)

When a man is off on vacation he will be required to report just the same as if he had been laying off and will not be placed on his assignment or the extra board automatically at the end of his vacation period.