Arcos

[smoky]

I know this has been discussed before but our company is going to an automated call out system. Just wondering of there's anything in particular we should be looking out for as far as contract language and all that? I'm sure they'll be looking for a minimum response percentage and all that, anyway we would appreciate any information or opinions.

[loodvig]

Although I was never on the call out list because I was working trouble there were lots of problems with it. Guys would be called when they were already in working and got charged with a 'no' responce, or guys who had worked and were home resting getting called right back in, etc. If you're not home it would charge you with saying 'no'. Also they took away the stand by money so no one had to be home waiting for the phone call. I guess most of the problems are fixed by now.

[bluestreak]

The most repeated grievance we had with the system was calling in order of the OT list {low to high} as required by contract. The CO. had a real problem maintaining the list on the computer that did the calling. Another problem was from within before cellphones the call went to home phone then a lot of people started sending the call to their cells to get the call when they were on the road or out to dinner even had people leave a union meeting on the contract vote to go to work while having a serious discussion on striking. It's a cheap way for the Co to get help,we used to have a stanby crew that the Co paid you a couple hundred bucks a week to be available to work now it's like a game show to see who can get to the phone first.

[CHICAGO HAND.]

We lost a court case about this. We are on call 24/7 with no pay. We have to answer a certain percent of calls every 6 months with progressive discipline towards termination. Good luck we got screwed. I personally think they bought the judge.

[reppy007]

they dont call it the big long sausage for nothing......beware of the things to come:nightmare:

[trigger]

ARCOS works as long as you sign off when done. You can also put yourself on holdover when continuing after your shift ends. That will stop it calling you while you are still on duty. You can put yourself on do not call for up to 5 days. What does not work is when you put yourself on rest time, it calculates from the time you type it in. Not the time from when you have rest time coming at the start of your shift start. If your contract has sleep time in it. And if you do this you will not be called again until those hours has past. So we don't enter rest time, I text my bosses the sleep time. They love it cause it wakes them up in the middle of the night or early morning. Also you can't count the radio people to convey that info. to them the next day.
But what is very important to do is the times on ARCOS must match the hours on and off duty on your time sheet. That they do pay attention too! Remember to always sign off through ARCOS.