Vacation Changes Needed and Goodbye to Veteran's Day

Unhappy with your vacation pick for 2005? Now you have to approach an ACRE officer for a vacation change request. If you do, remember the reason you must submit your request. The new vacation wheel selection order, courtesy of the ACRE. The pick availability was worse than ever, and now after the pick, requests for vacation changes will be at an all time high. When you make your request, also remember that you pay dues to ACRE and your request is not a favor for them to work to change your vacation, but a duty of representation.

ACRE is supposed to work for the members to provide proper representation. So, why is it, whenever an ACRE officer completes the most basic of tasks for a member, the function is treated as a favor. Why are you always reminded of their performance at a later date?

Have you spoken with any members who took the time to figure out the lost earnings they experienced due to the loss of Veteran's Day as a holiday? Veteran's Day was a working holiday; everyone worked his or her normal train schedule at time and a half plus a day for the holiday. Added to the equation for these members is being scheduled off for Thanksgiving (some wanted this) or the day after, or scheduled off both days. Some rather large numbers are being tossed around by some of the affected ACRE members. The figures, depending on a persons schedule, etc., run from several hundred dollars to eight or nine hundred dollars. Now, who benefited the most from giving up Veteran's Day for the day after Thanksgiving? The company, or ACRE employees?