Reality Check EP 042

The conversation revolves around the topic of FMLA (Family and Medical Leave Act) and the misunderstandings and challenges faced by employees when dealing with management regarding FMLA. The speakers discuss how management is often unaware of the rules and regulations surrounding FMLA and may try to deny or limit employees' use of FMLA. They emphasize the importance of knowing one's rights and advocating for oneself when it comes to FMLA. They also mention the availability of UPS FMLA for employees who may not meet the requirements for federal FMLA. The conversation highlights the physical toll that certain jobs can take on employees' bodies and how FMLA can be utilized for medical conditions or injuries related to work. The speakers share personal experiences and instances where they had to assert their rights regarding FMLA. They conclude by emphasizing the need to stand up for oneself and not let management violate FMLA rights. Teamster Power 767 Reality Check with Jeff Schoenfeld and Garfield Hooper. So today we are going to get right into it with FMLA. So many times I have to represent a member where management is just thinking they can do whatever they want. Management really doesn't know FMLA and they just think they can do what they want. They don't. And honestly, like the last person you want to ask about FMLA or basically anything when it comes to this company is a member of management because not only do they not have any business knowing about what our rules are for that kind of stuff, they also, like, they're not incentivized to tell you the truth, you know. Yeah. Yeah. It's, I mean, it gets bad. I mean, I had a situation the other day, a member called and said, hey, they're making me, I need FMLA, I got to be off at a certain time. And I was like, they're like, yo, you have to take a full day. I'm like, nah, the hell you do. You can take it since we're in a company that does, you know, hourly and, you know, broken down into minutes. You can take it in minutes. Yeah. I mean, you can. You can take it whenever you need it. But you are allowed to take a half a day because on the Hartford website, it even says full day, half a day or whatever time you need, right? And what you needed when you, you know, you put it in and I said, just come into work. I got this and I spoke with the supervisor and said, you can't, oh, he has to take a full day. No, he doesn't. And I looked at her and I said, no, he doesn't. And you know, he's allowed to do this. He's allowed to take it in increments. He came in, they wound up working him, you know, to when he needed. And you know, it's just crazy that they say those things. And so if you want federal FMLA, it's true. You need 1250 hours after you work in the company for at least a year. So but what happens is if you don't have those hours, they'll right away deny you. But what they don't tell you is there's UPS FMLA if you have 625 hours. So they'll deny you your federal and they'll come into the manager, oh, you were denied this and that. No, no, no, no. Hold on a second. I still got my UPS FMLA. And I recently had to explain that to the sort of my manager. This is the way it goes. I said, you know, there's no and he appreciated me, you know, telling him, hey, this is the way it goes. They're not they're denied maybe for federal, but it's not necessarily for UPS FMLA, which is half the time, six weeks instead of 12 weeks. And but, you know, there are managers, supervisors across the district who want to give discipline when it says no, and they've taken a day and, you know, and when you first sign up for FMLA, you do the paperwork, you're temporarily approved for 15 days. Okay. And, you know, you got to go to the doctor within that time, do what you have to do. And sometimes they'll deny it, but you know why they'll deny you? Because something was wrong in the paperwork. So you're not fully denied. It's just you just got to get it fixed. Yeah. So don't they're very, you know, it's a broad thing. Oh, it was denied. No, it was denied. But I have to get it fixed. And then you, you know, you have you have days to go get it fixed and everything. So but they don't tell you and how many times over the years they just try to discipline and this and I think, you know, management staff at my center and, you know, they know because I've explained to them, this is it. If anything else happens, you're violating the FMLA. I tell them you can't ask for a doctor's note. That's interference. They can't ask for a doctor's note. And it's important because something very important. The Teamsters championed for FMLA years ago for it to happen. That was the one of the many things that they championed for. And that was it. I mean, that was, you know, it and what we do, you know, anyone does in all the business that Teamsters represent, you know, especially with, you know, working in a warehouse or driving trucks, it takes its toll on your body. And you know, you know, for whatever reason, you might need it or you might have a family manager who has a serious condition that you need to take care of them. And I don't, you know, it's like, it's like they're almost heartless sometimes. We don't care, you know, and but I think more and more and more, the more we push back on them. I mean, in certain cases, they'll start backing off, but there are so many people who still get violated. What about you in your, in your building, one of the many things that your lovely manager does? Violating? Well, she's a new manager, in case you can't tell from all the problems we've had with her in the past. Yeah. Yeah. We've, we've had, we've had relatively, we've had a relatively few problems with her FMLA. She's very, she's been very strict about it, about like making sure everybody gets their paperwork in to make sure everybody gets the thing and gets the, gets the time off requested and all that kind of stuff. But we had, who was it, we had one guy the other day that asked me about being able to go to an appointment, but like, he didn't want to miss the whole day. And I had to have the conversation. I had to have a similar conversation with her about being able to take, you know, half a day. Instead of, instead of a whole day. If he wants to come in, like, you, you still got to give him, give him some of those hours. You know, he still required, he still guaranteed some hours if he wants to come in and work. She argued with me back and forth on this, like, like, like, look, I'm not going to have this conversation with you. Like, I was on FMLA, intermittent FMLA for 15 years, taking care of my mother. I know how it works. You have been a manager for like three years, like, you don't know how it works. So if you want to have a contact, a conversation with your business agent or not business, your labor manager, that's fine, but I'm right on this. So you can believe me or you cannot, but your labor managers are going to set you straight on this. It's something that, that a lot of managers are not going to tell you about. Like I said earlier, because they're not incentivized to tell you about, they don't want people to have three days off. They want you to be afraid to have to take a day off to take care of your family or take care of yourself. You know, you know, just like here in Texas with the heat, you know, people, people that have, have had similar heat injuries in the past are going to be more susceptible to it. And, you know, maybe, you know, talk to your doctor, you know, if you're, if you've had a documented case of, of severe heat exhaustion in the past, talk to your doctor, like they, they would probably be willing to fill out your paperwork for FMLA to give you a couple of extra days off a month, a few extra days off a month for you to recover in case it gets too, in case you get too hot. If you have, if you have had, if you've had to have surgeries, you know, whether on the job or off, you know, that may be, you know, your knees or your back or whatever else, like this, this, this job tears you down. This job will absolutely tear your body down. The company can preach and preach and preach about, oh, well, you got to stretch and all, you got to drink plenty of water and all, you got to do this and you got to do that. The fact of the matter is, people, like, there's only so much that a body can take. Some people's bodies can take more than others, but, you know, eventually, eventually something's going to break down. You're going to have a shoulder problem. You're going to have a back problem, a knee problem, a hip problem, and if you need to have FMLA, you know, even if it's for a couple of days a year, you know, just like, oh man, you know, I strained my shoulder or something one day. I was like, I don't want to, you know, you may not have, it may not be bad enough to where you have to go to, go out on workman's comp, but, you know, taking a couple of days off FMLA and resting it instead of working until you fuck it up even more, and then you have to have all kinds of other problems, you know, that's something that the company doesn't take into consideration. They want you there on the job, doing the job every day, to hell with, you know, you know, what's your body. They want to preach, especially this time of year, about know your body, know the signs, but when you know that, when you feel the signs, and when you recognize those things, they want to get pissed off when you want to take a break or take a day off here or there. Yeah, it's, you know, and one of the things also, if you come in and, you know, you're like anything else, you come in and all of a sudden, you know what, start time, it started, you know, and you're not feeling well or whatever it is, you're allowed to use FMLA, they can't say no. I mean, you know, you need it, you use it. I mean, I just, you know, years ago, you know, I had a manager violated me and wanted to do progressive discipline, and I even did it before start time, just the way it worked out. And, you know, he wanted to have someone, and wanted me to do the route all day and everything. I'm like, no, and then, you know, so they wound up violating me, it wound up being a whole thing where I got the Department of Labor involved, and Department of Labor got in touch with UPS, the lawyers got involved. I mean, you know, and this guy really, he was a real piece of work, a piece of, you know, experiment. Yeah. And, you know, I couldn't, like they even said to me, Department of Labor, we can't tell them to fire him, we can tell them to suggest that they do, but they can't, again, they can't tell him how to run the business, but I got him demoted. So, you know, it's, you know, you want to put me at risk, okay, you're going to pay for it. Okay. So, he got demoted, and, you know, you just got to be willing to stick up for those for everything. I mean, everything is just, it's just ridiculous. You've got to be willing to take it to that degree, you know, get the Department of Labor involved. You know, because if that, if that manager gets away with violating you, then he's going to get, he's going to try to get away with violating somebody else. Yeah. So, you know, just like, you know, I'll have a lot of, I have a lot of drivers that'll be like, you know, oh, well, you know, I was over 9-5 on these days, on this day, but it was only by a couple of minutes, I'm not going to file. I'll look at them and go, if you were one minute late, do you think they'd write you up? Absolutely, they would. Yeah. I don't care if, it's not about, it's not about you getting $5 from the company. It's about them violating your rights and you filing that grievance. And just like, just like with the FMLA, you know, obviously you're going to file a grievance, but with federal law like that, you can certainly take it to the next level, you know, because not all locals and not all BAs are going to be as strong as one, as, as, as others. So, you know, you know, file those grievances, but, you know, contact it there, you know, you can file claims on the, on the Department of Labor website, you know, somebody will call you, talk to you about it. Like, sometimes you just got to take it that, that, that, to that level and they're more than willing to put your job at risk for this. So sometimes they got to feel the heat too. You got to put their feet in the mud. And also, you know, they're, you know, sometimes you, you, you take FMLA and you'll have your own people be like, oh, you know, he's this, he's that. Okay. Well, that's, that's, that's, that I find to be even worse. Oh, I know. Yeah. And, you know, they're just, I mean, what are you doing? Get out of, get out of my business, you know, it's, it's people, your own people doing that, you know, if it's, you know, whatever, you know, people you work with or, or business agents saying things like that, that'd be crazy, right? Yeah, it would be. Too bad we don't have to imagine that. Exactly. Exactly. You know, and I've heard, I've heard people in my center say that about the, about people that are on FMLA. And I'm like, look, like, you don't know what everybody's going through. You don't know. I was open about my time with FMLA. You know, everybody knew about my mother suffering from cancer and nobody blamed me, but you know, I, you know, I was, I was a steward. Everybody knew my business. I knew most people's businesses because they would come to me and tell me about it. And that, like, you don't know, you don't get to make that judgment on somebody you don't know. You don't know their life. Like, that's, that's, that's ridiculous to even say something like that. If people, if Hartford sent you the paperwork, your doctor filled it out and sent it back to Hartford and Hartford approved it, then you have that right. Yep. So, I mean, it's that simple. Yeah. And you don't have to tell, you don't have to tell anybody about anything. You don't have to tell anybody what it's for. That's between your doctor and Hartford. And that's it. The management doesn't need to know. All they need to know is that you're approved and that you need to be off on a certain day. One day I was out on my air run. I had left the building and I was out doing my air. I had, I had like three or four air. I was out in Lucas and I got a phone call that, that my, somebody had come by to visit my mother and found her on the floor where she had fallen. And I said, that's it. I called, I called my suit and I said, I'm bringing it back in. I still had air on the truck. I said, I'm, I've got to come in. I've got to go take care of this. And you know, they wanted to be like, oh, well, we'll get somebody out to take the route over and finish the air. I was like, no. I was like, I'm driving back to the center right now. And that's what happened. And I never heard anything else about it. But you know, you have that right. You need to realize that you have that right, that you can take those minutes. You can show up for work late if you need to, if you can, as long as you let them know ahead of time that, hey, I'm going to be, you know, I've got to make this appointment or I got to take my, my, my parent or sibling or, or, or a kid to an appointment this early in the morning. And, you know, but I'm going to show up to work. Yeah. And then it does say, you know, in the FMLA law, you, if you have appointments that you know about, you need to tell management. That's, you know, it's the unforeseen part that, you know, you can't, you know, obviously it's unforeseen, but if you have, you know, appointments. Inform them as soon as you can, as soon as you know about it. And then you also, you also can go on the, the web interface on Hartford and schedule it as well. Yes. Yes, you do all that. Do inform management if it's a predictable appointment or something like that. Yes. Let them know ahead of time. But. Yes. And if you're doing it, you know, it's the, you know, if you're doing like an intermittent, it's the regular call-in procedures, okay, you call in to your, your, your center team or text in to the center team. And as soon as you can, you know, whenever, you know, as soon as practicable it says in the law, you, you, you let, you know, Hartford know, but as long as you let your team know and you do what you have to do, but, you know, everyone, anyone who's got any questions send it to our email and we will gladly respond with an answer because everyone goes through different situations, you know, and we'd love to help you get through those situations. So, you know, that's, that's always there, but, but for myself and Garfield, thank you for listening and have a good day.