You'll actually bid for your schedule during the normal bid process. You'll have a "shadow period" of days where everything put on your line during that period is just for pay purposes, but is dropped back into the pot for others to bid. Everything after your shadow period will stay and you'll work them as scheduled as long as you're done with OE. I think there were some scheduling updates sent out by the union with some good information, but it's nearly impossible to quickly find anything in the union website and I'm not finding it right now.

Most guys try to stuff as much of their schedule into the shadow period as possible. Meaning they find the highest time trips and bid those and try to find a 5 day that starts on the last day of the shadow bid period. Even though only the first day of the trip touches the shadow period, it's all dropped with pay.