Well, it appears, at least according to you, that your "local" cant read either.
the sentence from article 37 is called a PREAMBLE.
pre·am·ble
/ˈpriˌæm
bəl, priˈæm-/
appendix, conclusion, afterword, closing.
2.
the introductory part of a statute, deed, or the like, stating the reasons and intent of what follows.
3.
a preliminary or introductory fact or circumstance: His childhood in the slums was a preamble to a life of crime.
4.
( initial capital letter ) the introductory statement of the U.S.
constitution, setting forth the general principles of American government and beginning with the words, “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union. …”
"reasons and intent" 728.
Your "local" somehow defines this PREAMBLE as "working as directed" but this goes to show nothing more than the ignorance of people holding union office.
"
and employees shall perform their duties in a manner that best represents the Employer's interest"
After the word "AND" is called a CAVEAT.
In other words, its a WARNING. A warning to employees that the decisions "they" make on the road suit the employers best interests and NOT an instruction by a supervisor.
Your supervisor could "direct" you to RUN all the red lights for the day. According to YOU and your LOCAL, you simply must comply because you do not make decisions or are to be held responsible because you are simply directed to do something.
You leave the building, you run all the red lights on the way to the route and you make it 25 times without crashing, but on the 26th time, you crash into a car killing a family of 4.
Do you think for one second, that your "excuse" will be.. "i was only working as directed"????
No matter what they "told" you, you
"MUST" , not maybe, or partially, or sometimes, or never, ..."PERFORM YOUR DUTIES in a manner that BEST represents the employers interests."
Obviously, at least I hope so for your sake, you understand this.
This PREABLE gives you an INSTRUCTION, a written DIRECTIVE how to PERFORM your duties as a package driver.
In the matter of the red light, you would be prosecuted for the action, fired and potentially sued for following a "counter directive" from your supervisor.
ITS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY bro whether you want to admit it or not. Just because you have some
working at the local level giving you BAD advice doesnt make it true.
If the teamsters and the company wanted to specifically indicate what an employee was suppose to do on the road while being "unsupervised", and that included being told how to perfom, then the words "WORKING AS DIRECTED" would have been included.
But, as you have already agreed to, those words DONT EXIST in our contract, so why do you keep trying to insert them into the conversation.
We can agree, ORION BLOWS A$S, and its costing the company more money than it is saving, but to say we dont have an option is silly at best.
The company is constantly making rules that go against other rules. Like SOBER pointed out, the company cant discipline you for violating one rule because another rule caused you to create a "forced error".
This is why the preamble to article 37 is written is such a manner. The drivers of package cars and feeder trucks have to be the person who makes the BEST decision at the time that it has to be made.
No desk jockey can possibly make a decision for a person on the road in the split second it needs to be made.
Please try to understand where we are coming from. We dont like ORION either. We just dont want to fight with it.
We dont want to manipulate it either to give a false positive to the company that it is working either.
Maybe, if enough drivers complain loud enough, someone at corporate will hear us, and take another look at this disaster before its implemented across the country and millions more spent creating the largest operating disaster since the great mexico experiment that cost UPS millions.
TOS.
