Yelled At For Filing a SUP Working Grievance

[masonman]

I am a part time steward. I have only been a steward for a few months.I have turned in 3 grievances in the past month for sup's working. It wasnt previously enforced, but i have been trying to help get it under control. The first time i was going to file, our center manager assured me that it would stop and asked me not to file. I didnt and it continued. I have since been filing for it every time i see it. We got word the other day that his bosses told him that "heads would roll" if anybody else files for that reason. I have let a few times go that were only a few minutes, but we have one part time sup that wont stop working. I approached the Center Manager today and told him that i had a grievance to file, along with two other people . I got yelled at, at point blank range for about 3min. He screamed at me ,"If you want to play games boy, I will play them too. If you ever have one misload, you will get written up. If you are ever late, you will get written up. If you do anything that is not perfect, you will get written up. I will play your games! You are asking my guys to be perfect, so you and your guys better be perfect or you will get written up!" He kept repeating himself and he would walk away for a few seconds and come back and yell at me again.He did this in front of several witnesses! He came back the last time and apologized for yelling at me and said he would look into the problem. I told him i would hold off this time on the grievance and he told me to have a nice weekend and left. I really got mad after i left, but i realize that i have said things to people before and wished that they would forgive me for it. I decided to let it go, but then i had a part time sup call and tell me that he called a meeting and told them to write us up for everything we did wrong from now on. Thinking about calling our Union Rep and discussing it, but i dont really know what kind of hell that would rain down on me. Any ideas?

 

[Anonymous 10]

Call your ba ASAP keep him in the loop. A steward should talk to his business agent at least once a week.

 

[hondo]

Stop thinking, and call your union rep.

Get it straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak.

 

[Anonymous 10]

Stop thinking, and call your union rep.

Get it straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak.

Good advice.

 

[masonman]

So i just got off the phone with our local Rep. He told me to file Monday morning on the Sups working and on the Incident with the center manager. He said that he didnt ever want to hear that they spoke to someone there that way. I am not one to ever let Sups harass me or yell at me, which is why i got the steward position, but i still feel a bit hesitant about going up against our Center Manager.

 

[over9five]

So i just got off the phone with our local Rep. He told me to file Monday morning on the Sups working and on the Incident with the center manager. He said that he didnt ever want to hear that they spoke to someone there that way. I am not one to ever let Sups harass me or yell at me, which is why i got the steward position, but i feel hesitant about going up against our Center Manager.

Unfortunately, that is your job as a steward. I am NOT saying you should do it, but you must have known you would be in this position daily when you accepted the steward position.
It's not a job for everyone. I wouldn't do it.

 

[masonman]

I thought about it before i took the position and i always stand my ground with Sups. I have just never had any falling out with anyone in upper management before

 

[steward71]

DON"T EVER BACK DOWN. LET UP. OR GIVE UP. ALSO CONTROL THE OUT COME. 1. you have done so by contacting the BA. 2. File for everyting you can. 3. this shows the issue on paper. 4. when you write the grievance you write a statement to be given to your BA only, on what he stated to you, how he stated it, where you were at, date and time, and who seen this action. Let him be the one to do the talking, just read the contract back to him. He will try to get you to say soemthing back to him in front of the others. In this area you may not be protect by the equal rule. This mostly applies to in office and close door meetings in the shop steward role and not you as the employee. The equal rule has be ruled on by the NLRA many times. The rule means in short when Super Sup's are in a meeting with you and you in the role of a steward over issues of violations you are equal to them. IF they used heated speech,you can too. But be careful and do so some homework over the issue. I forgot the name of the book, but I think it is called the "Shop Stewards Handbook". Goog luck.

 

[menotyou]

Aren't all buildings wired for sound and video?

 

[steward71]

not all of them some parts of my HUB have them in some areas, and some parts of the parking lot.

 

[UnconTROLLed]

Smile and file on harrassment/workplace violence and every instance of sups working. Don't buy into the games, the sups working will NOT CHANGE unless you continously file! Believe me, every word out of the center manager's mouth is a lie when it comes to the "drop the grievance and I'll drop the harrassment". They will not drop the sups working and all of the other contract violations though!

The minutes add up so file every day for every 10 minutes and you can probably add up 30min - 1hr for those sups at end of week.

One of our PT stewards filed 60 grievances in 4 months in his center. During and because of this, he was being harrassed badly , so when the PT has constantly harrassing him and I was a witness, we filed on the PT sup under Art 37. IT took a while and enough cease/desist grievances, but the problem disappeared, the PT sup was moved and a newer less aggressive and arrogant one came in. Now the center is much more calm and collected. It took a 6-8 month series of battles.

 

[Backlasher]

Screw em. Write up the grievence!!! Are you gonna take that kind of harasment. It's time to start pushing back cause this whole things getting out of control. Your the Steward. How are newer generation drivers like me gonna think we even have achance at it if we see our own stwards getting yelled at and backing down. This weakens the union tremendously. By him yelling at you in front of others gives just cause. It's critical that management doesn't get away with threats or harasment.

Simmer on this, I had to do training for seasonal to run peak, Don't know why cause I ran cover driver all last summer. There were 95% outsiders in for driven and all worried. The managers said, I been look at those full timers, Out of shape, Not very big guys, woman and older drivers. If they can do it then it's obviosly not such a hard gig so you guys can handle it. THAT WAS SO BELITTLING US DRIVERS. Making us sound small,weak, out of shape. We know better so why are we putting up with it??

 

[grgrcr88]

Retaliation for filing a grievance is against the law. In fact threatening retaliation for filing a grievance is against the law. You should file a grievance for the way you were treated. Also there is a section in the UPS policy book, I believe, regarding the way a steward shold be treated with dignity and respect by the company. There is also a book available called The Legal Rights Of A Union Steward. I would suggest you get a copy and read it as soon as possible.

You should also get a copy of all the methods that apply to you, and learn them 100%. They will watch you as close as possible, so make sure you are doing everything by the book. Once they realize they are not going to get you for anything, they will leave you alone. You must stand your ground and never let them talk you out of filing grievances because you feel bad for them. I assure you they do not care about you!!

 

[dannyboy]

1 Conduct yourself above his level of communication. IF he yells and pitches a fit, walk away and file.

2 Even if he treats you disrespectfully, dont retaliate in kind. All that will do is put both of you in the wrong. Two wrongs never produces anything of value.

3 After a while of knowing they can not intimidate you, you will end up with a working relationship with the center manager. That is not to say you will be a yes man for him, its that he will know when you go to him, you are serious, and should be treated with respect. Respect is hard to demand. But when you show respect, even when they dont deserve it, its hard for them to not be back.

As for filing with sups working, if the center manager is getting heat from above, tell him you would gladly not file, just keep his part time sup from working. Tell him to walk onto the belt and have his hands in his pocket. Do not remove hands until out of the work area. That would solve the problem.

Now, because you are a new part time steward, they will try to feel you out. They will try to set the stage for the next encounter, and beyond. Your conduct so far was fine, and your notifying the BA was the right thing to do. So I think you should be very proud of yourself.

There are many full time stewards that have been around a long time that could learn from your example.

d

 

[tourists24]

Make sure you put in writing somewhere exactly what the center manager said when he threatened you..... it all adds up down the road if he retaliates. Especially if you have witnesses. I take a journal/diary and write in it daily on each day. From everything that is said to me to what happened on my route that day.... document document document

 

[masonman]

Lots of good advice! Thats what i wanted to hear. My BA also told me not to back down to them ever or they would forever be trying me. I definitely feel better about filing on both accounts.

 

[brownmonster]

I just though of a way to solve this problem. It's pretty much cutting edge stuff. HIRE ENOUGH DAMN PEOPLE!

 

[FracusBrown]

Lots of good advice! Thats what i wanted to hear. My BA also told me not to back down to them ever or they would forever be trying me. I definitely feel better about filing on both accounts.

All the good advice is likely to get you fired. You're shooting spit balls at a guy with a cannon. And he sounds like an idiot with a cannon.

Grievances don't do much to the manager. They're just a nuisance and an ego buster. Warning letters, suspensions and terminations are not an even trade in my opinion.

It makes as much sense as picking a fight with a cop. Good luck.

 

[tourists24]

All the good advice is likely to get you fired. You're shooting spit balls at a guy with a cannon. And he sounds like an idiot with a cannon.

Grievances don't do much to the manager. They're just a nuisance and an ego buster. Warning letters, suspensions and terminations are not an even trade in my opinion.

It makes as much sense as picking a fight with a cop. Good luck.

Nothing I said will get anyone fired. And a manager will be in trouble when the labor manager is having to pay supervisor working grievances. Tell ya what,,,, keep your d^*n hands off bargaining unit work and there wont be anything to retaliate on

 

[hypocrisy]

Lots of good advice! Thats what i wanted to hear. My BA also told me not to back down to them ever or they would forever be trying me. I definitely feel better about filing on both accounts.

Your BA gave you very good advice. I would also add to tourists24 that you should obtain witness statements regarding the threatened discipline for firing a grievance, and have the BA file an NLRB charge for you (you can also file one yourself, but it can carry more weight coming from the local. Be sure they do file one or file your own anyways. Be aware of time limits).

It is important to develop a working relationship with your center manager and management team, and this one has certainly fired several shots prematurely. Time to stand your ground and escalate it to an arena(s) that will correct his misguided behavior.


With supervisors working grievances, I usually tell management I'm hoping to give them the tools so that regional/Atlanta will help them staff appropriately. Ask the management person why they are working and to stop, if they give you attitude escalate it to higher management then file if necessary. If they stop but it happens a second time, file. Seek out that management person who doesn't want to do BU work and get times and lists of who is working when you are not around then file "et. al." grievances to get everybody paid. Eventually the $ paid will get to the point they reduce the problem to a manageable level.