Original issue date: April 30,2002

Updated and Re-Issue date: March 20, 2003

To: All Regional Staff Engineers, All Roadmasters, and All Maintenance of Way Employees

From: Labor Relations, Engineering – PACS

In the past few weeks, PACS has been inundated with inquiries about bulletins and awards. Last week, we handled 90 calls on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from employees wanting to know if they were awarded a position. Normally, we are able to award all the positions on Tuesday. However, due to the large volume of calls lately, it has taken all of Wednesday and part of Thursday.

In order to award a job, there is a process we must follow:

1. We process all the incoming bulletin requests on Thursday and Friday to get ready to broadcast all the new bulletins on Monday.

2. On Monday, we broadcast all the new positions out for bulletin for the next week.

3. On Monday, we also input all the bids received the previous week for the bulletins that are to be awarded on Tuesday. With less phone calls, we could input the bids each day.

4. On Tuesday, we begin the award process. This is a manual process - not just hitting a button and getting the awards. The following steps are required:

a. Verify all bids have been entered.

b. Manually look for all the qualifications needed for each position.

c. Check for any qualifications stored in the computer.

d. Assign the employee to all the rosters he is entitled to for each position.

e. Print all the awards and compile the packets for filing.

f. Close all awarded positions.

Note: This award process does not include any special situations – prior rights, joint seniority, machine operators (Williams Case positions), Conrail vehicle operators, or any other non-standard award.

This process is very specific and must be followed completely to ensure the proper seniority, the correct position, and the proper notification.

When employees call and inquire about bids, awards, corrections, or problems with their bids, it slows the process.

It takes approximately 10 to 15 minutes to process each award. With an average of 150 to 200 to award weekly, it has become extremely difficult to get the awards processed timely with the current volume of incoming calls.

Therefore, effective April 29, 2002, we are instituting the following new policy for PACS:

1. Hold off on phone calls until all positions have been awarded. If there is a mistake, we will handle it after all awarding is complete.

2. The information on your bid sheet must be complete and legible to be considered.

3. You must put your qualifications on your bid. If you do not put them on your bid, we cannot assume you have the qualifications.

4. There are no exceptions to the cancellation rule. You must fax a signed bid or hand written request to cancel a bid. No phone requests will be accepted.

5. If you fax in a bid, please keep your confirmation as proof. If you cannot get to a computer to check your bid, wait until Friday afternoon to call and verify receipt. That gives us time to input all the bids.

6. If you fax in more than one bid form, explain what you are doing on the form or your last bid will be entered as your only bid.

7. We input bids by the bulletin number. If you put the wrong bulletin number on your bid, you will not get the position you want.

8. Updated bid sheets have been placed in all appropriate CCBB AMS libraries and are located toward the bottom of each library. To ensure that all necessary information is submitted it is recommended that each employee submitting bids do so on the updated form (copy attached).

9. If you request that another individual submit a bid on your behalf be advised that bids submitted after 5:00PM on the closing date, bids that do not contain all necessary information, or bids that are illegible WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED.

If you are reading this notice and you think you have a friend or co-worker that may not have read it, please pass this notice around.