Seniorty and Prefered Jobs?

Lartize

Member
Hello, I work at the Whites Creek Hub in Tennessee on the NightShift, and on the outbound. I have been working as a sweeper (Which pretty much consists of Iregs, Misorts, and pretty much whatever just blew up.

I had been working in the same PD for over a year now, and recently a woman came back from LoA with a shoulder injury.. she has 13 years in. She says she doesn't want a pick-off, but instead sweep, which is equal position-wise to loading a truck, since it is not skilled.

My question is.. Can she do that? Since 1) She can not lift anything 60lbs or more without assistants and part of sweeping is lifting up Iregs, and 2) It is not a skilled position, but equal to a loader.

Normally I wouldn't care a lot, but because she is not able to lift hardly anything, I am having to not only do my work, but also part of hers as well..
 

Homoudont

Active Member
refer to article 22.4
" Such preferred jobs shall include, but not be limited to: Preload, Sorter, Clerical, Irregular Train, Designated Responder, Carwasher, Loader and Unloader. Employees do not have the right to select any specific unit, load or workstation unless a prior past practice has been established."

The answer is can they do it, according to the contract a employee does not have a right to pick a specific unit. That's how I interpret the contract, and from a mgmt point of view, they have to be given some freedom in how to run the operation.
 

Dark_Team_135

Well-Known Member
refer to article 22.4
" Such preferred jobs shall include, but not be limited to: Preload, Sorter, Clerical, Irregular Train, Designated Responder, Carwasher, Loader and Unloader. Employees do not have the right to select any specific unit, load or workstation unless a prior past practice has been established."

The answer is can they do it, according to the contract a employee does not have a right to pick a specific unit. That's how I interpret the contract, and from a mgmt point of view, they have to be given some freedom in how to run the operation.

Picking a unit would be for example be asking for a loading job in a specific trailer or load. In this case you are just talking about a position or job. The key I believe is that she would have to put in a letter for the position and would get it when there was an opening. I don't see where she could just take it from someone already doing the job.

Also, if this person can't lift over 60 pounds, she should still be on disability until she is fully recovered. If the company wants to assign her TAW work (not usually done in disability situations) they can't move someone off their regular job to accommodate her in my opinion.
 

chopstic

Well-Known Member
Does that mean at any time I can choose to bump someone from their job with less seniority, and then they can choose to bump someone from another job with less seniority... and then tomorrow someone wants a little change in their routine so they start the bump insanity all over again until it turns into musical chairs at work. Or maybe if I was a driver with lots of seniority I could choose to drive a different route every day.

I was under the impression that seniority could only gain you an "open" position... that is a position which is not occupied by someone else. And the only reason there was to bump someone from their position is if you got non-voluntarily displaced from your current position.
 

upser_J

Well-Known Member
Absolutely not. Seniority involves the following: vacations, ft job bidding, overtime/extra work. Especially for part timers, seniority has no application in actual your actual job (pickoff, loader, etc) These are management discretion jobs.


plus... a benefit of having to do part of her work as well... hopefully a little extra time which equals a little extra money!!
 

Dark_Team_135

Well-Known Member
Absolutely not. Seniority involves the following: vacations, ft job bidding, overtime/extra work. Especially for part timers, seniority has no application in actual your actual job (pickoff, loader, etc) These are management discretion jobs.

Perhaps you should read Article 22 of the National Master Agreement which talks of employees being able to move to preferred jobs by seniority. Pick, loader, etc. are examples of preferred jobs that they can choose. They just can't choose a specific load or unit unless there is a past practice of that (which we have actually had here in the past).
 

chopstic

Well-Known Member
Perhaps you should read Article 22 of the National Master Agreement which talks of employees being able to move to preferred jobs by seniority. Pick, loader, etc. are examples of preferred jobs that they can choose. They just can't choose a specific load or unit unless there is a past practice of that (which we have actually had here in the past).

article 22 reads:
Part-time employees with six (6) months or more seniority shall have the right to place their name on the
list of employees waiting to be moved to a preferred job within their building.

That gives them the right to be put on a LIST awaiting an opening in a specific job area, but doesn't give the right to displace other workers who are currently performing that work.
 

Dark_Team_135

Well-Known Member
article 22 reads:
Part-time employees with six (6) months or more seniority shall have the right to place their name on the
list of employees waiting to be moved to a preferred job within their building.

That gives them the right to be put on a LIST awaiting an opening in a specific job area, but doesn't give the right to displace other workers who are currently performing that work.

Yeah I said that you would have to wait for an opening to get the job in an earlier post in this thread.

I was replying to upser_J that said your seniority has no application in your actual job (pickoff, loader, etc) which isn't true...
 

upser_J

Well-Known Member
I was just wondering..... how is loader a preferred job? Also, does it define in the contract what a preferred job is precisely?
 

gandydancer

Well-Known Member
I was just wondering..... how is loader a preferred job? Also, does it define in the contract what a preferred job is precisely?

A preferred job is a preferred job if the part time employee who wants to bid for it prefers it. Unskilled pickoff (Preload pickoff used to require detailed address knowledge, but with PAS it may not be, anymore) is treated around here as an undifferentiated loader assignment, but sweeping is not a load position. E.g., a 22.3 is entitled to one "soft" shift (ODC, HiVal, Irreg driver, HazMat responder, Smalls, sweeper, revenue recovery auditor...) and one "hard" (unload, load, main sort, secondary sort, Smalls dump...) , and the important thing is to note that sweeper and load cannot be the same job since they are in different categories.

As to whether you can bump someone, that depends. I don't know what "came back from LoA" means, but if you are laid off from a bid job you can bump someone with less seniority out of a bid job. E.g., I was laid off from ODC and bumped into Revenue Recovery on my first shift and if they hadn't had a vacancy someone who had bid into RR with less seniority would have been bumped out (and when management cut a RR position a few months later, someone was).

If "came back from LoA" has something to do with an injury, that's a grey area that has to be addressed by local agreement. We have some ft inside that are reserved for injured drivers. They keep their ft seniority when making that transition and I believe they can bump in wherever they want, according to that seniority. If the company and the Local agree, you're SOL. In any grievance the party with standing to grieve is the Local, not you. You can bring a failure-to-represent suit, but you won't win, since the courts give unions wide discretion in deciding what is in the interests of their members.

Contrary to chopstic, the right to be put on a list for a preferred job MAY give you the right to bump someone already performing that job. If the person(s) currently performing that job bid into their position(s) they have a right to continue in their bid positions until the next scheduled rebid, if any, barring a forced bump situation. But if they are performing their jobs only because they were assigned those jobs by management (which seems to be the case with Lartize) the fact that the position is now a preferred one (because some parttimer now says so) means that it must be put up for bid NOW, and the more senior employee will win with no advantage to the employer-assigned current occupant.
 

aikiernie

Member
Hey guys a quick question.Two part timers one 4 years ,other 1 year,the 4 year employee is sent home at 3 1/2,the 1 year allowed to work 5 hrs.Can the 4 year employee file for the hrs given to the less senior employee?:surprised:
 
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