BNSF has cancelled its highly unpopular Availability Policy. We are optimistic that this is a permanent decision, and that the Carrier can instead develop guidelines for supervisors that will provide less intrusive ways of dealing with the very small minority of employees who actually have absenteeism problems. However, the death of the Availability Policy is only one side of this important issue. Throughout our handling of this matter, we have pointed out that the Policy contained no commitment on the Carrier's part that would insure that reasonable layoff privileges are actually available to employees who need time off. Several General Chairmen will be meeting with the Carrier again next week to discuss these issues, and we hope to secure some real commitment from the Carrier that every employee will have reasonable layoff privileges guaranteed by various collective bargaining agreements. We will post a report of that meeting on this site.