IAM Educator v11-4

Update for Stewards Vol. 11, No. 4

Answers to someof a new steward’smost common“What if?”questions

is necessary, but a member innot willing to come forward, itcan be filed as a “union griev-ance.” Letting violations passwithout some kind of unionaction weakens the unionand encourages the employ-er to single out other fear-ful workers.

. . . a worker is violat-ing the contract orotherwise doing some-thing that will get himor her in trouble?

Consider talking with theworker privately, or ask a friend of theworker to discuss the issue with him orher. Your role is not to be a “police offi-cer” but rather that of a union leader con-cerned that the worker will be disciplinedand the union will be the weaker for it.

. . . a worker’s complaint is not a validgrievance?

First, make sure it’s not a grievance.Remember, valid grievances can includeunfairnesses that are not contract viola-tions. If it’s really not valid, explain thishonestly to the grievant, but it can be bet-ter to fight it anyway. It’s often better tohave the boss say “no” than the union.There are some grievances—complaintsabout other workers; grievances that, ifwon, would harm the general member-ship; or particularly outrageous claims—that should not be fought. Telling peoplehonestly when they are simply wrong ispart of the steward’s job. This shouldrarely happen, but if there is any doubt,you must begin by assuming that our peo-ple are right and the boss is wrong!

. . . management interviews and disci-plines a worker without the presence ofa steward?

Under a 1975 U.S. Supreme Courtdecision, a worker has the right to requestunion representation when the workerreasonably believes that disciplinary

action may result from a meeting withmanagement. Thisprotection isknown as“WeingartenRights.” It’s thesame in Canada.However, it is up tothe worker to requestthe steward or unionofficer: the employer isunder no obligation toinform the worker of hisor her rights. It is impor-tant for you to tell workersyou represent about thisright. Your union officers

can give you more information.

. . . a nonmember asks me to handlehis or her grievance?

You must handle it just as you wouldhandle a member’s grievance. Under law,the union must represent everyone in thebargaining unit fairly, without discrimina-tion or hostility. This is known as the“Duty of Fair Representation.” It givesyou an opportunity to show the nonmem-ber rank-and-file unionism in action—andhe or she may reconsider joining.

. . . there is a provision in the contractabout scheduling that you are getting alot of complaints about? You investi-gate, but there doesn’t seem to be aviolation of the agreement: manage-ment seems to be right on this one.

Put the boss on notice that this is aproblem and figure out some ways for themembers to let the boss know why theydon’t like it. He or she may be willing towork it out. If there’s an element of unfairtreatment involved, you may be able topursue the problem under the contract’sunion recognition clause. Better yet, lookat ways you can use the collective powerof your co-workers to settle the grievance.

—Adapted with thanks from the Steward Handbook of theUnited Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America.

STEWARD UPDATE NEWSLETTER

Internet users are familiar with the term“FAQ,” which stands for FrequentlyAsked Questions: questions about a

service, a product, a way of handling acomputer task. Union stewards—especiallynew ones—have a lot of Frequently AskedQuestions as well, especially when itcomes to handling grievances. Those ques-tions usually start with the old familiar“What if...” This article offers ten classicWhat Ifs. Maybe the answers can make lifea little easier for you.

What if. . . the grievant reveals a fact in thegrievance meeting that I didn’t knowabout?

Call a caucus and find out what it’sabout. Good interviewing can help pre-vent this, but it happens to every stewardat some point. When you meet with theworker before going into the grievancemeeting, always ask, “Is there anythingelse I should know?”

. . . I can’t make a full investigationwithin the time limits to determine if acomplaint is a grievance?

File the grievance and continue yourinvestigation. The union can always with-draw the grievance at any time if you findit shouldn’t be pursued.

. . . I goof up at the first step?You’ll have another chance at the

second step—and you’ll have time to dis-cuss the case with other stewards or unionstaff to help you do a better job.

. . . a worker’s rights have been violat-ed, but he or she does not want to filea grievance?

Fear is a very real feeling in the work-place today and a steward needs to assuremembers that the union—their co-work-ers—will support them. Remember,though, “an injury to one is an injury toall” and we have the responsibility to makesure the contract is enforced and workers’rights are not violated. If filing a grievance

What if...Answers to some of a new steward’smost common “What if?” questions

Wiggle WordsWhen looking at contractinterpretation, the firstthing to watch out for willbe wiggle words. In thiscase regular is an adjectivemodifying the work week.Other words to watch outfor would include: normal,

customary, usual, periodic, occasional, inter-mittent, understood, recognized practice. Eachof these words create ambiguity, NOTclarity.

My own favorite word is emergency. Inmy union’s view, a list of clear emergen-cies would include things like floods, tor-nados, fires or power outages. An employ-er, on the other hand, thinks that a dis-patching supervisor oversleeping is anemergency. The best words are Act of God.

Other interpretation headachesinclude “full-time employee,” but with nowritten definition of full-time. Alongthese same lines: “Part-time” employee,“eligible” employee, employee “on theseniority list.”

Yet another head-scratcher: condi-tional words, as in: An employee isallowed a two-year leave “provided” theunion and employer sign off on the leave.

Some of the problems of contractinterpretation are not material for thegrievance procedure and arbitration, andare better left to be argued and correctedat the bargaining table.

In summary, remember this:� Every word counts.� “Wiggle” words cause ambiguity.� Explore the intent of the parties whodecided to use the word.� See if past practice in your workplacewill help your case.

—Richard de Vries. The writer is a veteran union representativewith IBT Local 705.

Contract interpretation grievancesare complex, challenging, and alltoo common. How a few “sim-

ple” words are interpreted can mean thedifference between huge victory andcrushing defeat, so it’s important for stew-ards to tune in to this never-ending causeof dispute.

Here’s an example.Let’s say Christmas falls on a

Monday. Everyone is off. Tuesday wecome to work and there is a notice thatsays Saturday is a mandatory day, noexceptions.

We go to the union contract and seethe sentence: “The regular work week isMonday through Friday, 8:00 am to 4:30p.m. , with an unpaid 30-minute lunch.”

So, do we have a griev-ance?

On first blush, an arbitra-tor would likely rule, “If theparties put in the word regu-lar, someone must have antic-ipated there would be an irregular situa-tion. Clearly, only once in a while doesChristmas fall on a Monday. This is clear-ly an irregular situation. It is clear thereare business needs to be open five days. Ifthe parties had intended to limit the weekto Monday through Friday, period, theywould have written the words THEWORK WEEK IS M-F PERIOD.”

The arbitrator has clearly read thesentence carefully and noted that theterm work week is modified by the wordregular.

Grabbing a dictionary, we see this:Regular: Conforming to a rule;

agreeable to a prescribed mode or custom-ary form; normal; acting or going on byrule or rules; steady or uniform; orderly;methodical; unvarying.

Hmmm, could be aproblem. Let’s go toSynonyms and Antonyms.

Synonyms: orderly,methodic, systematic, uni-form, unvaried, customary,ordinary, stated, periodical.

Antonyms: Irregular,exceptional, abnormal, errat-ic, uncertain, rare, disorderly, confused.

Maybe helpful, maybe not. Whatnext? Do the research.

Look at the last ten years’ experi-ence with holidays and see if this is thefirst time your employer has ever donethis. If so, you may have a chance at per-suading the parties this is a new term and

condition subject to noticeto the union and bargain-ing. If the employer hasflip-flopped on the issueover the years, manage-ment will argue each yearhad a different businessneed. It further would

work against the union if the union hadnot protested before.

Check to see if the sentence inquestion was discussed in bargaining.Were examples given? Did the employerever say during negotiations it was man-agement’s intention to have more flexib-lity in the work week, or were theysilent? Union notes taken during the bar-gaining may help. Dig them out.Interviewing bargaining committeemembers may also provide insight as tothe intent of the parties.

What the union would be arguing foris maintenance of standards and hopefullya clear practice on how things have beendone in the past. There is no guaranteehow much weight an arbitrator would giveto a past practice.

Contract InterpretationGrievances

STEWARD UPDATE NEWSLETTER

When it comesdown to thecrunch, everyword in the

contract counts.

Words to watchout for include:normal, usual,customary and

periodic.

STEWARD UPDATE NEWSLETTER

Handling Health andSafety Rule Violations

Does this scenario sound familiarto you? It does to a lot of stew-ards: A worker cuts corners in

order to get the job done, and there’s anaccident, an injury or an illness becauseof the corner-cutting. The incident comesto the attention of a supervisor and theworker gets blamed for violating a healthand safety rule. The worker gets disci-plined, but the hazard that caused theproblem is forgotten about.

The fact is, many jobs cannot getdone safely until hazards are fixed. Manyworkplaces are understaffed today, leanby design and speeded up. Equipmentand infrastructure are likely to be old,deteriorated and nonstandard, oftenrepaired on the fly. Experienced seniorworkers work alongside casuals who areuntrained. Some workers are doing thejob of more than one person. In work-places like this, when productivitytrumps safety, rules are a weak way tokeep people safe. Workers will bend rulesto get their work done.

Because of all this, a steward’s inves-tigation of discipline for a health andsafety rule violation must go beyond the“Did he or didn’t he?” and examine thehazard that the rule was supposed to pro-tect against.

The Hierarchy of Controls The steward needs to understand what issometimes called “the hierarchy of con-trols.” This hierarchy is accepted by OSHA(the Occupational Safety and HealthAdministration, part of the Department ofLabor), NIOSH (the National Institute ofOccupational Safety and Health, also partof the Department of Labor) and everyhealth and safety professional who is not inthe pay of management.

The top of the hierarchy, the mostpreferred way to deal with hazards, is toredesign the job. This means fix the haz-ard; then there will be no need for a rule. The bottom of the hierarchy is to leavethe hazard in place but have workers

Union Health and SafetyCommitteesUnions without their own health and safe-ty committees should consider initiatingone. This is the case whether or not man-agement has been issuing frequent safetyrule violation charges. The union commit-tee should meet separately from any labor-management meeting. Its first activityshould be to engage in aggressive hazarddocumentation. This both to inform man-agement and to inform workers. Afterinforming comes follow-up. What stepswere taken to remove hazards? If manage-ment proposes creating rules, rememberthat safety rules are a mandatory subject ofbargaining. If the rule is that peopleshould wear PPE, bargain that theemployer should provide it, make sure itfits and train people in its use. You can alsobargain for the time required for trainingand for putting on, taking off and storingthe gear. There are two big advantages tohaving the committee and engaging inaggressive hazard checking and follow-up.It makes the union look serious abouthealth and safety to management and allthe members. Second, it will actually getsome stuff fixed.

If All Else Fails, “Work Safe” Tactically, one of the strongest things thatcan be done in a situation where anemployer is pursuing a pattern of goingafter workers for safety violations is towork to the safety rule, sometimes knownas “work safe.” If the workers actually fol-low all health and safety rules to the let-ter, production will likely slump, becausewhat is really happening on a daily basis isthat workers are exercising their judgmentto get the work done. In fact, in a trulydangerous workplace, “work safe” may bethe most effective way to get hazardsfixed for good.

—Helena Worthen and Joe Berry. The writers are veteran laboreducators.

wear personal protective equipment(PPE), such as gloves, masks, safety glass-es, hard hats, respirators or hazmat suits.This puts all the responsibility on theworker to protect himself, despite the“general duty” clause of OSHA that saysthat management must furnish a work-place free of recognizable hazards.

In the middle of the hierarchy arerules: put up warning signs, hold trainings,or simply order the worker to do the jobin a way that avoids the hazard. Rules arealso supposed to be temporary while thehazard gets fixed.

One way to envision this hierarchy isto picture a busy traffic intersection.Imagine that there is no traffic signal.People depend on the brakes in theirindividual cars to not crash into eachother. That’s like PPE. Then imagine atraffic light. That’s a rule: green means go,red means stop. But sometimes a vehi-cle—a fire engine or ambulance, or some-one in a hurry who sees that no one iscoming—runs the red light. That’s a ruleviolation, and sometimes it makes sense.The best solution, of course, is to build anoverpass so that the two streams of trafficnever have to cross. That’s the engineer-ing solution.

What Can a Steward Do? Ask questions. If a member is disciplinedfor violating a health and safety rule, thefirst question—the key question—a stew-ard should ask is, “What was the hazardthat the rule was intended to protect theworker from?” Then you ask, “Why did heviolate the rule? Were there consequences?Did anyone get hurt? Did the rule viola-tion cause damage to property? Did itinterfere with the work of someone else?Did it put someone else at risk?”Arbitrators take all this into consideration.If the worker is disciplined for not properlyusing PPE, he may have had a plausiblereason. If he violated the rule because hewas impaired by lack of sleep, drink, drugs,or mental illness, the context still matters.

Alot of employers these days areinto “inspirational” slogans onteamwork and productivity, slo-

gans that usually come down to “WorkHarder, Work Cheaper, Be MoreObedient.” But one promising slogan thatis making the rounds is worth applying tosteward activities: Take a Negative andMake It a Positive.

Here’s one real-life way to do it.A group of stewards was commiserat-

ing with each other over the lack of sup-port they got from the members. At issuewas the deduction ofunion dues from alump sum that theirnational union hadnegotiated in place ofa wage increase aspart of a new contract. The contract wasratified—by a large margin—by many ofthe same members who were now loudlycomplaining about the dues deduction.

The stewards were bewildered bythe inability of their “inactive” mem-bers—those who pay union dues asrequired by the union contract but whootherwise pay no attention to the activi-ties or importance of their union—tocomprehend one apparently simple fact:the lump sum, like all of the otherimprovements and protections negotiatedin the contract, was negotiated by them,by their union, which must have financialsupport if it’s going to succeed.

Sound familiar? Of course it does.Questions over dues deductions

reflect both a fundamental lack of under-standing of the union, and an even moreserious inability to understand one ofLife’s Big Questions: what comes fromwhere, and why?

Stewards who are besieged byunhappy members have to create anaction plan, using these complaints tostrengthen the union.

Keep in mind that while the case

we’re talking about here involved a duesdeduction, the action plan can be appliedto any number of situations in whichmembers have a beef about the union’swork.

� Improve communicationsIn many ways, the confusion about thedues deduction reflected an informationvacuum in the workplace, an empty spacethat was quickly filled up by gossip,rumors and employer propaganda. Tocounteract this, once a new contact is

signed stew-ards shouldprepare a“talksheet”—alist of pointsabout thenew contract.Each ofthem coulduse thesepoints when

approached by a co-worker, in this case adisgruntled dues-payer. Having a consis-tent approach will help stifle rumors andmanagement propaganda while the prepa-ration of the sheets by a group of stewardswill allow each of them to contributeunique responses to be shared by thegroup.

The talk sheet could summarize allthe improvements won in negotiations,stressing the importance of membershipinvolvement during bargaining. The sheetcould point out that if an hourly raise hadbeen gained instead of the lump sum, thedues would have been deducted through-out the year anyway, so the deductionfrom the lump sum is nothing unique.

� Informal educationIt became obvious that most of theunion’s dues-payers had no idea of howthe union functioned as a whole. Stewards

STEWARD UPDATE NEWSLETTER

should consider conducting regular mem-ber educational sessions to cover variouspoints about the contract and about thestructure of the union.

� New patterns of union meetingsDemographic shifts in the workforce, andexpansion of union jurisdictions, frequent-ly make it a challenge for even the mostloyal and dedicated members to make itto regular union meetings. It might helpboost participation by having meetings inthe workplace, where appropriate—beforework, during lunch or right after work.Another possibility is to send out e-mailmessages to members on a regular basis.

� Union appreciationMany members covered by the unioncontract have forgotten just how cold theoutside world really is. An excellent edu-cation activity is to produce comparisonsbetween non-union jobs—particularly inthe same industry—and the union jobs.Call it “The job’s the same, the union’s the dif-ference” and keep telling the membersabout the value of their organization. Letyour members vividly understand justhow far ahead they are. In the same vein,if you have some members who wereworking before the union was organized,schedule regular times for them to recallthe bad old days for the members whohave always enjoyed the protection of thecontract. Such memoirs are great additionsto any new member kit.

� Consistent activityDon’t allow the union to be seen as visi-ble and active only when a new contract isto be negotiated. With long contractterms, long periods of apparent inactivityneed to be filled by consistent—and per-sistent—union educational and organiza-tional activities.

And always remember another of theinspirational slogans: overcome obstacles.The confusion of the members is anopportunity for the leadership, so look attheir complaints as just one more moun-tain to move. Get yourselves together andmake it happen!

—Bill Barry. The writer recently retired as director of laborstudies at the Community College of Baltimore County,Maryland.

+-Turning Negativesinto Positives

The IAM Educator Update for Stewards is published six times a year by Union Communication Services, Inc. (UCS), Annapolis, Md., in partnership with the IAM’s William W.

Winpisinger Education and Technology Center, 24494 Placid Harbor Way, Hollywood, MD 20636. For information on obtaining additional copies call 301-373-3300. Contents

copyright © 2013 by Union Communication Services, Inc. Reproduction outside IAM in whole or part, electronically, by photocopy, or any other means without written consent of

UCS is prohibited. David Prosten, editor and publisher.

Dear IAM Shop Steward,

As this edition of the IAM Educator was being prep

ared, our union was getting ready t

o participate

August 28 in the 50th Anniversar

y of the March on Washington. W

hile many remember that famous m

arch as

the setting for Dr. Martin Luther

King’s “I Have a Dream” speech

, there is a deep connection betw

een that

historic day and the North Ameri

can labor movement.

One of the principle organizers of

the 1963 march was A. Philip Ra

ndolph, president of the legendar

y

Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Port

ers and one of America’s premier ci

vil rights leaders. The Porters me

rged

with our own Transportation Com

munications Union (TCU/IAM) i

n 1978.

The official name of the 1963 ma

rch was the “March on Washingto

n for Jobs and Freedom.” It drew

250,000 people to Washington D.

C and remains one of the largest m

ass protests in American history.

At the event, Randolph declared

that “The March on Washington i

s not the climax of our struggle, b

ut a

new beginning not only for the N

egro but for all Americans who th

irst for freedom and a better life.”

Today that struggle continues —

a struggle for civil rights, jobs and

freedom. While we’ve made man

y

gains since 1963, the struggle tod

ay is just as important as it was a h

alf-century ago. Conservatives in b

oth the

United States and Canada are try

ing to roll back laws protecting civ

il rights, block efforts to keep job

s from

being shipped overseas, and erode

basic freedoms such as the right t

o join a union and retire with dign

ity.

A potent symbol of the struggle is

the recent bankruptcy filing by t

he city of Detroit. Bad trade and

tax

policies have let millions of good

manufacturing jobs go to Mexico

and other countries, leaving a hol

lowed-

out city and destroyed communit

ies. But instead of trying to bring j

obs back home, conservative polit

icians

look to cut pensions and other be

nefits for workers.

Just as in 1963, the struggle today

is for jobs and freedom. And as in

1963, union men and women will

be leading that fight. Together, w

e must work every day to protect

our jobs and defend our freedoms

, just as

A. Philip Randolph did in his day

.

Thank you for being a Shop Stew

ard.

In Solidarity,

R. Thomas Buffenbarger

International President