Reality Check EP 21

The hosts discuss the new contract which states that having three no-call, no-shows results in losing seniority and termination. They emphasize the importance of communication with supervisors to avoid being fired. They share examples of members who were at risk of termination but were able to keep their jobs by communicating their situations. They urge employees to document their communication with management through text messages or the board. They remind listeners that this language is specific to the southern region and advise seeking advice from local stewards or business agents. They encourage everyone to stand up for themselves and others. Teamster Power 767 Reality Check with Jeff Schoenfeld and Garfield Hooper. How are you doing today, Garfield? Doing pretty good. How about you? No complaints. Same old, same old, right? Yep. Getting right into it. So we're going to talk about, I know we've brought this up before, in the new contract, something was put in where if you have three no-call, no-shows, you lose your seniority, which, again, that means you terminate. Yeah. Now, the company is jumping on that. They're jumping to take them to the panel and use that language. We knew they would. Yeah. Okay? And it's a problem. I'm going to tell you a situation. I had a member call me. Someone gave him my number or texted me and said, what do I do? I have to be somewhere every day. I don't know. I'm not sure what it was for. So she's got to leave early. Like, well, that's the decision you have to make. I mean, if they don't let you, then you still have to finish your job, you know? So I asked her, I said, have you gotten in touch with your supervisor? She says, no. I said, has it been three days? She goes, yes. I was like, oh, my head started spinning, you know? Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. And I saw this as a BA. People will get fired. But if they at least communicated, let's say they did something, they had a better chance of coming back if they communicated. When you don't communicate, that says basically to management you don't care. Yeah. And I know that's not necessarily the case because this member, I know she was nervous. She didn't know what to say and whatnot. But really, you need to make contact, especially with this new language. And, you know, this is one of the reasons why we didn't want it in there. But, I mean, it's there and we have to do what we've always done. We have to communicate with management. Have you ever been an issue with your steward or whatnot where this has happened? Has that happened at your building with the new language? It hasn't happened yet. We had one guy that was a little worried about it because he had a, I believe it was kidney stones. And he was off for a few days, but he wasn't aware of the new language and he had called me about it. He had called me to talk about it after we had done that episode. And I said, did they know you had kidney stones? They were like, yeah, they knew I was going to be out for a few days. I was like, okay, well, you're probably okay here, but I want you to reach out and communicate to your supervisor, like, right now. And see what they say. Absolutely. And like, I'm not going to bring it up to anybody, you know, and everything was fine. But, you know, it had been, he had been out for like, because he originally went out on like a Friday. And then it was like, this was like Thursday of the next week when he was getting ready to come back. And he was like, well, I mean, technically you didn't communicate with him this whole time. You know, if I was going to go through this and, you know, be a dick about it with the, you know, with the way the language reads, you didn't communicate with him for three days. You know, if you hadn't communicated with him by the morning of the third day, you know, that's, you know, they can walk you out. Like, in a situation like yours, you're probably going to get your job back. But they have, if they wanted to be a dick about it, they could have absolutely been like, okay, well, you're going to be off work for a few months. But, you know, thankfully, that didn't happen with us and with this situation. But I'm not going to be surprised if it does. That's why it's one of the reasons why we did that episode earlier last year. And, you know, hopefully we can inform people enough to where they know, you know, and I tell my members, you know, they're all about communication right now. You know, especially the beginning of the year, because they want to write everybody up for everything. I said, communication is, you know, malicious compliance at this point. If you've got to spend 10 minutes setting up your truck out on the route, communicate that you're setting up your truck. If you've got to drive a half a mile out of your way to go take a shit, communicate, hey, I'm going to the restroom. You know, blow them up. Don't give them an excuse. You know, if they're going to pull you into the office and ask you where you are, it's like, well, I told you where I was. Exactly. I mean, it's so important. I mean, that's, like I said, even before this language was in there, you know, management would, they would take it personally. You know, they didn't give a crap about their jobs, so they didn't communicate. Yeah. You know, we'd have to go, well, you know, they were nervous. I guess, okay, maybe, you know, they should have communicated. But, hey, listen, the supervisor is not making it easy or, you know, whatever. But you just communicate. That's what we're trying to get across here. It was important that we brought this up again because it's happening. People are being, you know, terminated. You know, waiting on the cases if people are, you know, out for good, if they've taken them out, you know, and they haven't got their jobs back at the panel. It's just you can avoid a lot of problems by communicating with management. Yeah. So, but just wanted to bring that up. Yeah. That's all we're going to talk about today. Well, I did want to mention one thing, too. If you're going to communicate with them, like if you're off the clock or if you're, you know, if you're at home or whatever, you're sick or whatever and you can't make it for a couple of days, do that via text message so you have a record. You know, they respond to you. Documentation. Yeah, documentation. If you're communicating with them during the day while you're at work, do it in the board. You know, we mentioned that in a previous episode about them communicating with you about how to properly sheet up packages. Make sure that is documented in the board. You know, don't talk to them on the phone and say, hey, everything's fine or, hey, I'm still sick or, hey, I still haven't, you know, passed this kidney stone or whatever. You know, do it in the text message so you have a document, you have something you can screenshot and send to the union and say, hey, I communicated with them about this situation. Absolutely. And it'll just, that's less stress for each employee. So, and we're going to be bringing this up a lot. Yeah. Because it's just, I want everyone to hear mine and your voice saying communicate with management. Yes. Communicate with management. That's, that could decide your job. Yeah. Really. Yeah. It could decide your job. Yeah. And also, just to be clear, too, this is supplemental language. So, I don't know what the other southern, the other regions outside of the southern regions say for Article 48. They have language like this, but this is southern region language that was put in. Yep. So, we'll, we will, no, it's going to come up again. We're going to hear about more situations. And I'm hoping we don't, because that means, you know, maybe we're doing our part to help people communicate with management. But we're going to keep trying to, you know, reinforce this to all the members. Yeah. So, myself and Garfield, everyone have a good night. 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 e-mail address, 767realitycheckatgmail.com. That's 767realitycheckatgmail.com. And remember, strong people stand up for themselves, but the strongest people stand up for others. Thank you.