UPS Master Agreement & Regional Supplements:Article 3. Recognition, Union Shop and Checkoff
Section 7. Supervisors Working
(a) The Employer agrees that the function of supervisors is the supervision of Employees and not the performance of the work of the employees they supervise. Accordingly, the Employer agrees that supervisors or other employees of the Employer who are not members of the bargaining unit shall not perform any bargaining unit work, except to train employees or demonstrate safety, or as otherwise provided in the applicable Supplement, Rider or Addendum. However, in the case of Acts of God, supervisors shall comply with the procedures in subsections (b) and (c) and may only perform bargaining unit work until bargaining unit employees are available. The Employer shall make every reasonable effort to maintain a sufficient workforce to staff its operations with bargaining unit employees. The Employer also agrees that supervisors or other employees of the employer who are not members of the bargaining unit shall not perform bargaining unit work in preparing the work areas before the start of the Employer’s hub, preload or reload operation, nor shall the Employer send any bargaining unit employee home and then have such employee’s work performed by a supervisor or other employees of the Employer who is not a member of the bargaining unit.
(b) When additional employees are necessary to complete the Employer’s operations on any shift or within any classification, the supervisor shall exhaust all established local practices to first use bargaining unit employees including where applicable, double shifting, early call-in, and overtime.
(c) If there is no established local practice, the following shall apply with regard to inside work. Within each building, each operation will maintain appropriate list(s), by seniority, of those part-time employees requesting coverage work. It will be the employees’ responsibility to sign up on the appropriate list. The Company shall post such lists and employees who are interested in adding their names to the lists shall do so on the first working day of each month. It will be the employee’s responsibility to make sure his/her contact information is correct. Employees who are unavailable to work on three (3) separate occasions within a calendar month shall have their names removed from the coverage list. Those employees shall be eligible to re-sign the list the following month. When coverage work is available, the Company will use the appropriate list to fill the required positions, and such employees will work as assigned. The employee must be qualified for the available work and double shift employees shall have seniority among themselves. No employee is allowed to work more than two (2) shifts in any twenty-four (24) hour period. Local call verification practices and procedures shall remain in place.
Nothing contained in this Section shall change existing practices or procedures covering full-time work.
(d) If it is determined at any step of the grievance and/or arbitration procedure that this Section, or a “supervisor working” provision in a Supplement, Rider or Addendum, has been violated, the aggrieved employee will be paid as follows: (i) if the actual hours worked by the supervisor amounts to two (2) hours or less, the aggrieved employee will be paid for the actual hours worked by the supervisor at the rate of double times the employee’s rate of pay at the time of the incident; or (ii) if the supervisor works more than two (2) hours, the aggrieved employee shall be paid four (4) hours at straight time or actual hours worked at double times the employee’s rate of pay at the time of the incident, whichever is greater. If no aggrieved employee can be identified, the payment will be made to the grievant. Such remedy shall be in addition to any other remedies sought by the Union in the appropriate grievance procedure.
But first check your regional Supplement for time limits. In New England, for example, you have five days to report the matter to your Steward, and he has two days to report it to Management. Anything older than that is untimely and will be rejected. (There's no Statute of Limitations on murder, but there is on almost everything else!)From what I have witnessed, i would not file a grievance for just one day of supervisor's working (not if i know that they will continue to do it). Our sups seems to not care about the small grievances. I would get solid documentation on the supervisor's working for a couple weeks without saying anything, and THEN lay down a grievance thats a big one.
DONT WAIT FOR ANYTHING! I would file in a heart beat if I was forced to clock out before hitting overtime, then saw sups doing union work. Get a shop steward.
If you don't know, ask their names. If they don't comply, tell them you want to speak to a steward. Let them tell him they won't identify themselves.OK, fine! What supervisors name you gonna put on the grievance?...
Stick around and watch. You intend to get paid for the time. If you get hassled, request a steward from management. They're obligated to get you one.You have that? How long did they work?
You write down the names. Then you count the names. Use your toes if necessary.How many of them were there?
Who cares? You don't have to know this to collect for their hours. You only have to have been refused the work.Who was their manager? Who told them to send everybody home?
In the Seattle Hub The management decided to start staggering in new employees. Sending me home after I get 3 and 1/2 hours and keeping the new guys to do all the wrap up work. Hoping that the newer employees won't reach 5 hours. The problem is they brand newbies are getting more hours on the clock than I do, Every night, and in my work area.
For example (a grievance I filed earlier this week)
"On 3/17/09 I Jim Jimson started work at 10:45 PM was forced to clock out at 3:45 AM by Bill Billson (O/B Supervisor), with a total of 5 Hours 0 Minutes. I told Bill, “I would like to stay.” Bill replied, “There is nothing more for you to do.” A fellow hourly employee with less seniority than me, Bob Bobson was told to stay on the clock and do my Orange/Brown wrap up. He worked from 11:15 PM to 4:45 AM, A total of 5 hours and 30 minutes a difference of 30 minutes. Bob Bobson had 4 hours and 30 minutes on the clock when I was forced to leave. He should have been sent home. If I was able to stay on the clock I would have received 6 hours and 0 minutes."
This is not cool at all. I have filed a grievance everyday this week so far and will continue until the stop. The union rep told me that they can not do this. But will keep trying until they have to pay out. They don't realize they are going to be paying 2 people to do the amount of work 1 person could do.
gandydancer;
Re: your comment of....
"Requiring the emplyer to use the higher wage employee when it would prefer to employ the cheaper is the most basic function of seniority."
You lost me with that one. Not sure that's a function of seniority at all. I'll grant that seniority comes into play when positions of inequality come into play (all other circumstances being equal, then seniority would prevail), however, in the situation described above, I'd raise Cain with the sup. who worked a more senior employee on overtime before a less senior employ who had hours available. Granted, the less-senior employee ended-up with SOME overtime...however, that wasn't assigned (or, presumably, known to be needed) until a full HOUR after the more senior employee reached his 5 hour limit and told to clock-out. Think what you will, but there's no way in Hell a sup should be sanctioned to authorize O/T for one p/t employee (no matter what his/her seniority) when another is available (and qualified) to perform the work on straight-time.
I'm sure there'll be comments about being available an hour later, etc...and I note that such comments would get into property/trespass issues, etc., which I doubt the union would want to address very closely, being that it would be a knife that cut both ways.
Just opinion, of course, but the best I could see one filing on would be the OT the less senior employee would have made....but, if there's much filing of that sort going around, expect some pretty harsh "on the property" stipulations to pop-up in return.
Also management keeps telling me that they have the right to keep any employee on straight time. Where are they getting this from? I've searched the contract looking for this wording that they keep saying. But I can't find it.
example...
Jim Jimson clocks on at 10:00pm
Bob Bobson clocks on at 10:30pm
Jim Jimson gets his 3 1/2 at 1:30
Bob Bobson gets his 3 1/2 at 2:00
Jim Jimson is told to leave at 3:00 total of 5 hours
Bob Bobson is told to stay and clock out at 3:30 with 5 hours...
So I am told that they keep Bob Bobson because they "have the right to keep any employee at straight pay." Even though Bob had his 3 1/2 before Jim Clocked out.