On December 13, 2018 the current yard meal period dispute with the carrier was settled.
This was a long hard fought dispute both by y Local 528 and our members over the last 10+ years. The Chicago Freight Terminal yard employees have been consistently being denied their meal period as described in yard rule 7 in both memorandum of agreements dated 1946 and the 1959. In addition to out right denial of their right to a meal period in many instances the carrier would “JQ” the employee. The carrier was authorizing payments to employees to work through their meal period, thus avoiding a denial of a meal period and collective bargaining with the organization.
Many of our CFT members are aware of this practice. They would often find on their paystub’s where the Local Chairman had placed a claim against the carrier for the JQ payment. Over the years of this dispute Local 528 Chairman have progressed 13,674 of these grievances on behalf of their members. These will be paid with the final settlement payments.
During this dispute the Local has progressed 3,879 meal period claims that our members submitted and had payment was cut by the carrier.
In the settlement of all the outstanding meal period claims it was agreed as of December 31, 2018 to pay all current meal period and JQ claims in the system. All parties agreed to increase the daily rate of every Foreman and Switchman assignment in the Chicago Freight Terminal. The CFT members will see this substantial increase in pay effective January 1, 2019.
The outstanding grievances will be paid to all the members who are entitled to them in three (3) separate installments. These payments will be on the second half payroll in January, February and March. We will be contacting all our members with the information letting them know the amount of money they should be expecting to be paid.
To read the full detail agreement visit smart528.org/agreements