Reality Check Ep 026

The main ideas from this information are: 1. There is an issue with boundaries in the bidding for feeders and packages, and it's important to ensure that nothing overlaps. 2. A center manager has caused problems by re-looping the center without fixing the map and sheet borders. 3. There are issues with the interpretation and enforcement of the nine-five rule, which protects employees from being reassigned and penalized for working longer hours. 4. Grievances should be filed for violations of the nine-five rule and time card edits. 5. Stewards should ask members to provide their times for going over and compare them to the company's records to identify any discrepancies. 6. It is important to check for time card edits and ensure that supervisors have permission before making changes. Grievances should be filed if any unauthorized edits are found. Teamster Power 767 Reality Check with Jeff Schoenfeld and Garfield Hooper. So how's this Sunday treating you today? Well, like most Sundays, it's busy, you got to keep the house clean, keep the laundry done and, you know, just the boring things in life. Yeah, things that need to get done, though, right? Yep. Yeah. So today we want to talk about some nine, five things that have come up, but we just want to bring up something we had recently talked about, the bidding for feeders and packages, and there was an issue in package that keeps coming up, and that's the boundaries. Yes. Okay? It's, you know, it even says that nothing should overlap. That's very important because, you know, centers in my building, they're going to have to re-bid. And why that is, is that was put in there to make sure the company doesn't overlap because we want to, what, add routes. Yes. It's, you know, basically that's what it does. And the company is, you know, everyone needs to check, every steward in their center needs to check that nothing overlaps. If it does, they have to get it fixed. I mean, you know, if it's already done and they overlap now, you file that grievance, say, hey, listen, no, no, no, no, this is an issue we need to re-bid. Very important. Okay? Because... We've had an issue in our center because our new center manager basically re-looped the center, which is something our center's been needing to be done for a while. The book that she has that have all the maps in it that kind of shows, you know, the little dots like you would see on like the dispatch computer that would show where all that stuff, it's all nice and neat and all the routes have really clear borders on the map, but like you can't really see street names or anything on the map. But then you come over to the sheet and the borders on the sheet don't reflect the ones on the map. So I've been, I'm like, look, like, we need to fix this. And she's like, well, if anybody has a problem, just come to me and we'll fix it. I'm like, yeah, but that's not really our job. That's your job. That's the dispatcher's job to take care of that stuff. And she's kind of been fighting back and forth. It was like, you need to take the time to do this. And we're about halfway through it. And I just like, well, if she's not going to fix it, then I'm just going to file the grievance and we'll just start over. So, you know, I tried to work with her, like, I tried to be honest with it. And, you know, I appreciate the work that she did. But, you know, like it needs to be done right, because, you know, the way our center is, she's our 13th center manager in nine years. With number 14 comes along, there's no telling what will happen. So. Yeah, let's reinvent the wheel. So it's north, south, east and west. They cannot overlap. Yeah. It's important. It's in the contract. We're going to hold the company to it. That's it. A hundred percent. So if anyone anywhere is having that issue, you need to file that grievance. And, you know, it's under 48. It has to it has to be rebid. That's it. They may not like it. And they can moan, cry this and that. But oh, well, it's in the contract. From what I'm understanding, it's like pretty common thing that's going on all across the southern region. Like nobody's really doing it right. Yeah. Yeah. No, they haven't. It's it's it's a problem. So just everyone, we wanted to make note of that. OK. So but today, now we want to talk about the nine five. Yes. We noticed that there are a lot of issues going on that, you know, in the contract. They can overload you on Thursday and Friday and, you know, what does the company do? They're trying to do that. They're trying to take you off your route and, you know, the route that you bid on, whether it's weekly or whatnot, they try to take you off. That's that's a two hour penalty right away. So I mean, you get that penalty anyway. Yeah. And, you know, specifically, I'm going to read this exactly from the contract. Employee bids was assigned to cover a route for a full week, but is prevented from completing that bid or assignment due to reassignment by the employer. They still I mean, they're still eligible for the protections. Yes. OK. Still eligible for protection. The company can't just do that, you know, and blow the two hour penalty and they'll have to, you know, still do the nine five. So that's an issue that's going on a lot. I know it's going on up north as well. This is this is something that because this is very similar language to what it was before this previous contract, when before we had the 22 fours and all that stuff, you know, I had this argument with several center managers over the course of my career about, you know, oh, well, they have less than four years of seniority or, you know, they didn't run the same route all week. I was like, well, here's the thing. It's like they you have to put up the vacation bids. If you don't, then, you know, you violated that right. They didn't get the opportunity to bid on something. So there's the nine five grievance right there. If they put you on a route that you bid on, like say you bid on a on a on the vacancy bids and, you know, they decide on Wednesday, oh, well, somebody called in. You're better at running this route. So we're going to put you on this route instead. Well, maybe you get your third nine five on that day and then and then they're going to argue, oh, well, you didn't have all three on the same route. I was like, well, no, but you forced him to run a separate route. And then not only does that qualify you to get the nine five penalty, but that would also qualify you to get the seniority penalty for them forcing you to run a route that you didn't bid on. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's, you know, and then, you know, I was speaking to a steward from up north and basically the argument of the company is making is that the qualifications of Article 37 determine the ability to file a nine five grievance. But those qualifications concern the ability to get on the list once you on you go over three times you file. So, you know, there are slight variations of what's going on. But I mean, the company is trying to do whatever it is. I mean, it's we know this. Yeah. But we have to stick by the contract. I mean, it's a problem. I mean, you know, any other any other specific issues with the nine fives in your in your building? I've gotten a lot of questions about the extra two days because you can file on those other two days if they brought you up and say you work 10 or 11 hours, two days, and then they kept you under the rest of the three. That's still technically a violation that in this contract can get you paid. But I believe it actually has to go to panel in order to get you paid for those things. So, I mean, it's worth filing those grievances. You might get the time and a half for those days. You might not. I don't know if one has gone to panel yet, but I don't know. Not that I know of. But the coaches can, you know, at their discretion, you know, award a penalty and it could be a triple time. I'm not saying that's what it's going to be. Yeah. But for the contract, the penalty, they can award it. You know, yes, it's just up to the co-chairs discretion. OK, so everyone needs to be on top of that. And I'm going to I'm going to say something, you know, there are certain things. So when I see different stewards doing the nine fives, they're settling it for the DAs. OK. Yeah. And here's the thing. You don't ask the members or, you know, what are their times for going over? OK. You can write down the grievance week ending. That's the company's responsibility. You can write it down, but it might, you know, I mean, we want to make sure that it's it's correct. And of course, we'll see what the member says. But, you know, and it'll get down to, all right, this is these are the actual numbers. This is what it goes through. And, you know, we need the company to do their job also. So everyone just do week ending and the company's responsibility to get those times. And it's very important because if you keep doing it the other way, it makes it easier for management and they don't make it easy for us. Well, why the hell are we going to make it easier for them? What I generally do is I ask people if they're if they're going to fill out the grievances to put their times on there and that way that I can compare it to what the company shows me. Like if, you know, if for some reason that they had a time card issue, it's like, why are you why are you showing them to be this over and not this over? Because then that can reveal as a steward, that can reveal to me other issues, because as you've probably heard in other episodes, if you've listened to us for a while, my center has seems to have an issue of, you know, editing people's time cards. So having people having people, you know, put that information on there helps me try to suss out other problems in the center. So it's been useful for me and I think it makes the settling stuff go a little bit more quickly. Yeah. Yeah. And then also, since that goes to another thing that, you know, they're going to edit your you have to check and see if they edit anything of yours. And that's time card edits. That's Article 12. Yep. That's something they have to show you. OK. And they and I said this before, a lot of stuff we, you know, it's repetition. We need to repeat these things. I say, oh, well, you know, it's, you know, it costs a lot of money. Look how many pages we have to do. Yeah. OK. You know, I mean, whatever. That's how many pages it is. It is what it is. We want to see the time cut. We want to see which supervisor is editing it and, you know, they shouldn't be touching it. No, no, but that's your permission. Yep. That's exactly it. They're going to be taking time away. Hell no. OK. They need your permission and you cannot let this go. OK. I mean, everyone needs to file a grievance on it. They need to make sure no one's editing any of your stuff. Without you knowing, without asking and saying, hey, this is what we're going to do. That's it. You can't just let them. Oh, yeah. No, we're going to do it. They're going to do what they want. No, no, no. They can't just do what they want. No. So. But. All right. Well, we just wanted a couple of things with 9-5 and, you know, some of the other issues, you know, originally in one of the first things about the bidding, but we needed and hope everyone has a great week. All right. Thank you. We all deal with national language, but on this podcast, when it comes to supplemental language, we deal mostly with the southern region. And as always, it's best to get advice from your local stewards or business agents. If you would like to reach out to us with any questions, we have an email address. 767 RealityCheck at Gmail dot com. That's 767 RealityCheck at Gmail dot com. And remember, strong people stand up for themselves. But the strongest people stand up for others.