Some flight attendants have their attendance tracked by a game-like 'point system' that they say values efficiency over health

• Strict employee attendance policies allow America's planes and trains to run on schedule.
• But some workers say these "point systems" value efficiency over their health and well-being.

Imagine starting a brand new job, and you start with zero points. A sick day earns you one point, two if you wait until the last minute to call in. Sleep in and miss a shift on accident? Another two points are added. Go over the maximum number of points allowed, and you could be fired.

While the exact method for losing and gaining points varies, this is the system many of America's airline and railroad workers live by.

"We fly all over the country and the world," a flight attendant at American Airlines, where earning 11 points can lead to termination, said. "We should not be encouraged to expose thousands of people per trip to our illnesses. We shouldn't have to worry about getting fired because of sick calls."

Point systems like these enforce attendance policies by keeping a running count of all absences and tardies, regardless of cause. Also known as "no fault" attendance, they're common in industries where on-time deliveries and arrivals mean everything, like transportation and shipping. They're perhaps most visible at Amazon.

During a year marked by labor strikes and protests, flight attendants and rail workers told Insider that these points-based attendance policies create an industry culture that values efficiency over employee health and well-being.

For workers at BNSF, the nation's largest railroad by revenue, for example, a sick day could cost anywhere from two to ten points, depending on the day it's taken and how early the worker calls out. So could fatigue or a family emergency. It's a new attendance policy called "Hi-Viz," implemented in February 2022 to near-immediate backlash.

It's since been reformed, with a higher limit on points and more ways to earn them back, but has still caused ripple effects as workers leave the industry and it struggles to staff up.

Similar attendance systems exist at most major US airlines including American, Spirit, United, and Southwest, where flight attendants are dinged with points for calling in sick, checking in late, or taking more than the allotted personal days, for example. Additional points are added during "critical periods" around the holidays. Accumulate enough points, and you can be fired. The airlines did not respond to requests for comment.

Employees showing up to work on time is what keeps vital services like planes and trains running on schedule. One late flight attendant can delay a plane with hundreds of passengers, or an absent conductor can bring rail shipments grinding to a halt.

But workers say the point systems form the foundation of punitive attendance policies that force them to work while sick or dangerously fatigued. Some have requested to remain anonymous for fear of losing their jobs, but their employment has been verified by Insider.

Transportation workers across industries are pushing back

Dennis Pierce, the outgoing president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET), told Insider that over a thousand workers have left BNSF after the railway implemented its new attendance system this year. This hurt supply chains and led to understaffing, he said.

A BNSF spokesperson said the company hired 1,800 train crew personnel and 1,200 new employees on their Engineering, Mechanical and Dispatcher teams in 2022, keeping BNSF "ahead of attrition."

For years, Michael Paul Lindsey, a locomotive engineer in Idaho who is a steering-committee member for Railroad Workers United, railroaders "have just been run ragged" from constantly working.

"Then they impose these oppressive attendance policies basically preventing you from taking time off," Lindsey said. "That was the biggest reason why railroaders became so disgruntled and wanting to go on strike."

The restrictive attendance policy helped catalyze what could have been an economy-rattling rail strike, had Congress not stepped in to push through a contract while ignoring workers' asks for any sick days.

In 2022 so far, there have been a total of 89 labor protests and strikes in the transportation and warehousing industries, according to Cornell's labor action tracker — 15 more than in 2021.

On top of attendance systems, railways and airlines share another thing in common: they are the only two industries in which the federal government can step in and stop workers from striking.

At American Airlines, flight attendants have pushed back on the system for years.

"I don't think you'd speak to one flight attendant who thinks the point system is necessarily fair, or balanced," Anthony Cataldo, an American Airlines flight attendant of 33 years, told Insider. "I also don't think you'd speak to a flight attendant out here who would say that some type of policy isn't necessary to keep flight attendants at work, because when people call in sick it affects other flight attendants' quality of work life."

Previously, crew members could discuss attendance issues with their flight manager during an emergency or extenuating circumstances and have points removed or reduced, according to Cataldo. Today's system, introduced in 2018, he says, doesn't allow for that kind of wiggle room due to stricter enforcement guidelines.

An American Airlines spokesperson did not respond to Insider's request for comment.

"What we see now is something completely different from what I started with," Cataldo told Insider, adding that he hasn't heard of anybody getting a point removed under the new system. "There's no mitigating these points. Those days are gone."

When work can be whenever, highly-regulated attendance is even more of a struggle

Attendance policies are made even more complicated by the fact that many workers are required to work unpredictable reserve shifts, meaning they could be called into work at a moment's notice to fill in for someone else.

Some airlines also require employees to work "mandatory overtime" shifts during periods of mass flight cancellations or delays. When Spirit Airlines canceled over 1,000 flights last summer, one employee told Insider that some airline staff worked 15-hour shifts in fear of being fired under the point system.

"I'd say 95% of our employees work on call. So we're on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year," a BNSF railway conductor of over a decade told Insider. "When you're on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week you cannot schedule a doctor's appointment, take the day off for your wife's birthday. I mean, it's just made it nearly impossible to get any time off."

This lack of rest creates a "deep fatigue" that can put rail workers in dangerous situations, Marilee Taylor, who worked as a locomotive engineer for 33 years and retired from BNSF in February, told Insider.

"I have the moral responsibility, civic responsibility to not drive drunk," she said. "I can operate a train where my reaction time is worse than if I were drunk, and that is because of lack of rest."

Are you an airline or rail worker? Got a story or tip to share? Get in touch with these reporters at htowey@insider.com and jkaplan@insider.com