Reality Check EP 013

Garfield discusses the issue of Article 12 violations, which involve changes to employees' time cards without their permission. This has been a problem nationwide. Garfield believes that if management has a question about an employee's time card, they should communicate directly with the employee instead of changing the time card. He also mentions that the company has been violating the contract and changing employees' time codes. Garfield emphasizes that management should not touch employees' time cards without their consent. He also mentions a payroll error penalty system that is supposed to be implemented by 2026. Garfield expresses skepticism about the company's new payroll system and urges employees to speak up about these issues. He believes that the company is intentionally trying to save money by not paying employees for their work. Teamster Power 767 Reality Check with Jeff Schoenfeld and Garfield Hooper. So how's everything going today Garfield? Oh man, you know what, I saw my last, I had my last doctor's appointments for my back today and they gave me a clean bill of health and I'm back to work, 100%. Good, good, good, very good to hear. That's what we want to hear, back to work, making the money, doing what you have to do, holding management accountable, right? Oh yeah, that's a full-time job in and of itself. It really is, it really is, it really is. So today I'm going to look to you Garfield, you tell me what you want to talk about. Well I'll tell you what has been a really big problem for us and from what I'm hearing it's been a really big problem around the country is Article 12 violations. And if you're not familiar with Article 12, that is basically, let's see, what's the name of the article? Polygraph and Time Clocks. I don't really know where polygraph comes in here, but basically the gist of this is they can't change your time card without your permission. Absolutely not. If they're going to give you less time basically, they can't anyway, they just have to let you know when they're changing it. Yeah, and my stance has always been like if you have a question about what time that I put in for how I ran my route today or whatever, then you know, they want us to use our phones for everything. Why don't you pick up the phone and call us? Text us in the book or the next day, hey, what's going on with your time card? Can you let us know why you clocked in 30 minutes early yesterday? Oh, I was there for a safety meeting. Oh, okay. But instead, they want to go in here, and this has been a huge problem for us. They wonder why people don't want to be involved in the safety committee, so hell, they can't get paid for them. Yeah, and the thing they do also, it's like when they say to you, oh, we're only giving you – at this time of year, we're only going to give you this many hours. So safety doesn't matter now? Yeah. Oh, so safety doesn't matter. And why? You don't want to pay us? Yeah. Is that what it is also? You want to mess with our time card? Yeah. It is always, always something with them. Yeah. They're always the moving party in terms of violating the contract. Yep. Most of the time. I mean, our center, I believe, by itself last year was paid out like something around like $40,000 in that big 05-06 decision that happened last year. Yeah. Them changing people's time codes from 05 to – or from 06 to 05. Yep. And like you would think after a big payout, the company would be like, okay, we need to put a stop to this. But I had a conversation with my division manager, and it seems to be that SOP is to adjust everybody's time cards to start time every day. I'm like, well, I'm coming in – two days a week, I'm coming in early, one for a steward meeting and one for safety. Yeah. I'm coming in 15, 30 minutes early at least twice a week every week. And I go to check my time card, and it's been changed. I'm a responsible adult. I check my time cards to make sure I'm getting paid right. Yep. But I shouldn't have to. You know? I shouldn't – No, you shouldn't. It's a billion-dollar company that I shouldn't have to make sure that I'm being paid correctly by this billion-dollar company. They should just be like, oh, this is the time he clocked in. We're going to pay him from the time he clocked in to the time he clocked out. Yeah. It's such a simple thing that they make so difficult. And, you know, it's – you know how they tell you, you know, if your start time – let's say you look at your board. You know, just going off the beaten path here, you know, they say, oh, you know what, your start time is this today. And your board says a different time. Yeah. Don't touch it. Because, you know, they've always said don't touch it. I've never – I don't change the time. I let them – I said, okay, make sure you put the right start time, whatnot. But they were fire – terminating people. Yeah. They were taking away their seniority, you know. Yeah. And because they were changing the time. Like, okay, they didn't – oh, look, they changed their time because of this. Like, you know, they can't have it one way and then have it another way. Yeah. And then they want to, you know, change your time. Like, okay, wait a minute. You worked this many hours. You came in for safety for this. They're always – you know, they like to muddy the water. They really, really do. And it's very simple. Do not touch our time cards unless you ask us. Yeah. That's it. It's simple. It's simple, right? Yeah. I settled grievances today for somebody that, you know, they went in and saw the supervisor before they left on a Saturday, on a six-punch Saturday back before the contract was put into place. And, you know, the supervisor said, hey, like, I'm going to turn you pay actual. And the guy – he was like – he was like 10 minutes until he got eight hours. He was like, no, I don't want to go pay actual. You saw what time I was going to go on. I gave you an accurate ETA. If you wanted me to go help somebody, you should have sent me out. I'm clocking out and going home. You don't touch my time card. What did he do? Yep. Touched his time card. So did someone tell the VA? No, Al. The VA was informed, but we filed a grievance. We talked with management the next week. They – the next week, you know, we got it fixed. He got his extra – I think it was like – I want to say it was like 20-something clicks. So maybe it was a little more than that. Something like that. They got him paid, but they got him paid a couple of weeks. Like he ended up getting that amount of money put on his paycheck a couple of weeks later. So it was like, well, instead of just doing it correctly the first time and not doing that, now you're paying an additional – what is it now, four hours for the first two weeks? What does that say? Yeah, it's four hours. Yeah, and then by the second pay period, it becomes eight hours each week after that. Yeah. I mean, it's just funny how they – you know, they talk about their new payroll system and this and that. Yeah. But it's – you know, and this is the new language. It's exactly what it says. If the payroll error for a full-time employee is not corrected within two pay periods, the payroll error penalty described above shall be increased to the full-time employee's full daily guarantee, which is eight hours. Yep. I mean, it's – I mean, it's simple. They don't seem to care. And just FYI also, if the payroll error involves a part-time employee, the penalty pay shortage described above, which are not paid on the second scheduled workday, shall be equal to four hours times the part-time employee's regular hourly rate. Four-hour payroll error penalty for a part-time employee shall continue to be paid for every full pay period in which the shortage is not corrected. So they – basically, they up the – you know, the penalty for part-time and full-time. And they're supposed to have this, you know, this new payroll system, you know, by 2026. You know, they say – and here's the language. We have to speak specifically to this. Within 30 days of the implementation of the employer's new payroll processing system, but no later than January 1, 2026, the following shall apply. The payroll error penalty described above for full-time employees shall be increased to the employee's full daily guarantee for every full pay period in which the shortage is not paid after the second workday, which is basically what we said. And, you know, do we believe that the new payroll system is going to be good? I mean, do we believe it's going to be halfway good at all? I mean, everything is half-assed with this company. Yeah. And the thing is, if people don't call attention to this, if you don't follow your Article 12s, follow your Article 17s for these 15 and 30 minutes or these 05 to 06s, this company is going to be able to pay for this new payroll system with your money. With the time you worked, the amount of money they save not paying you for the time you worked, they're going to be able to pay for this new payroll system. Well, no, absolutely. And, you know, they hope that people won't, like, miss 20 clicks and they'll just be like, whatever. And then if they do that for every part-timer, every driver, how much money are they making? How much money are they siphoning off? How much money? I mean, it's ridiculous. Yeah. I mean, it's... When you add that, when you think there's what? How many UPS employees, how many UPS tankers are there? 300,000? 400,000? Yeah, about 300,000. 300,000? Yeah. You know, 20 clicks times 300,000. That's a lot of money. Yeah. Yeah. That's... It is. It is. And, you know, at the time, it seems small, you know, but when you add it up, it's a lot. But it's the principle that they're doing it. They're, once again, like supervisors work, they're stealing. Yeah. They're stealing. Yeah. And they do it on purpose. Yeah. You know, they're, like I said, because they're hoping that people won't say anything. They'll be like, ah, it wasn't a big deal. It wasn't a big deal. Yeah. And that's how they get over. They do. They pray on the week, and, you know, and they're hoping that everyone will just be like, oh, okay, you know. But that's why everyone needs to speak up. Everyone needs to know. Everyone needs to know what to speak up about. So, hopefully, they will. This has been going on since the dawn of time, right? Yeah. I mean, it's just absolutely crazy. To think that they're going to do the right thing when the company, you know, it's one big ego. They want it their way. Whether it's going to be good for them or bad, they want it their way. Yep. And they're going to do certain things they've done over the years to get to where they've always been. And it's things like that. We're taking 20 minutes here, 20 minutes there, hoping they'll, you know. But they claim it's an error, right? They claim it's a mistake. Once is a mistake. Twice it starts getting in. Two, three times is a pattern. Yeah. So, I think we're well into the pattern by now. Oh, yeah. It's just ongoing. It's just – but that's – listen, that's what we're here for. We're here to educate. We're here to tell people, hey, there are things that you can do. And I have to tell you, there was a – I sent it to you today. There was a comment made by someone that they really appreciated us, you know, helping them work through the contract language, listening to the podcast. We appreciate that. And, you know, for Garfield and myself, we're doing this for that very reason. That's what it's all about for us. That's exactly it. If one person hears this episode and thinks to themselves, oh, man, I need to start checking my times, and they say, oh, well, they're shorting me here and there, you get that money. And if they put it off to a couple of weeks to pay you back, well, that's a couple of weeks of penalty pay that you get to get. Absolutely. And since apparently the only thing we can do is throw money at these issues, then apparently and hopefully, you know, the amount of money will become untenable for this company to continue to put up with this stuff. Hopefully, somebody will say, you know, paying four hours for 10 minutes that somebody shorted somebody on a shift, somebody will say, well, that's too much. Why are we doing this when all we had to do was just pay this person 10 minutes? Yeah. Yeah. I know. I know. And it's $50, anything less than $50 for full-timers, anything less than $25, there's no penalty pay. Yeah. There's no penalty pay for that. Yeah. I understand. I forgot about that part, but you're right. Yeah. So I just want to clarify that. have to reach so you can actually get penalty pay. But, you know, and again, if one person tells another person, another person, and everyone starts getting educated, there it is right there. Then, you know, we've done what we set out to do is educate every member. I mean, that's it. That's why we do this. There's no other reason. Yeah. We want to educate. It's a great feeling when people, you know, respond back and say, you helped me. That's great. That's a good feeling. It's a good feeling, like empowering other people to help themselves. Yes. Yep. Yep. Absolutely. It empowers them, empowers other people, and then so on and so on. And this is what we want. This is exactly what we want. But I'm glad we covered this because it's very important. Yeah. And we don't want the company getting over. And, you know, the more people that know, you know, they're going to be held more accountable. That's it. Yeah. I mean, they're getting away with so much now. More people start, you know, getting their, you know, educated on this. It's going to be less and less and less. And, you know, that's what we want. I'm glad we covered this, Garfield. You know, there'll be other times where we cover it again. Certain things, certain situations come up. But this is some basic stuff that we really needed to talk about that members needed to know about. Thank you, Garfield. And I'm Jeff Shenfeld. And I'm Garfield Hooper. You have yourself a good day. Our experiences deal largely with the Southern Region Supplement. This is just an information podcast. And if you have questions, it's best to contact your local steward or business agent. And remember, strong people stand up for themselves, but the strongest people stand up for others.