Hey, instead of swinging your e-dong around - why don't you confront the guy in the parking lot if thats how you feel?
Or better, yet run against him in an election? I don't think you realize what stewards have to go through.
The guy is only as good as his last greivance right?
Lately all of the people that have got their jobs back have been without backpay and that means they are at strike two as it is now considered an agreed upon suspension. The union seems to be happy to just get the job back. More and more it appears that our power is evaporating.
I don't measure our "power" by getting jobs back. Why the hell are these guys getting fired anyway? I have a huge target on my back but this job is REALLY easy to stay out of trouble. Follow their retarded little methods, show up to work on time (not even 1 second late) and ... you won't get touched.
Yeah, they can fire you for retarded crap like...anything they want. But as long as it doesn't violate a cardinal sin they'll bring them back with pay. If a guy has been repeatidly fired, especially for progressive discipline (I friend-ing can't STAND it when we have to fight tooth and nail for pieces of crap that ABUSE the union), and get their jobs back.
It seems we spend a lot of our time getting jobs back when it should be on busting the company's ass. The power of the union doesn't stay at the union hall. It doesn't stay at the B.A. or the steward, they are only as strong as thier members make them.
If our B.A. didn't have a core group of members and the stewards beating the drum at the same tune - he could scream till he was pink the face to get jobs back but the bottom line is, if the member screws up (which you know majority of the time, the member did screw up - the company isn't going to roll the dice for piddly-crap), we have to just go for mercy. Hell, just last week I settled for 8 hours at double time on a combined 20 hours at double time for supervisors working with my hub manager. I had plenty of written statements to back up my grievances as well. But the deal was, he withdraw 3 suspensions and 2 terminations and I'd back down that much on my personal grievances. I told the two guys that were pending terms that they were off the hook and they just said "oh... aight. thanks bro." But if I get seen talking to a supervisor about anything, I'm a little rat who is in the company's pocket.
I know that may seem harsh and that I don't care blah blah..but thats how I am. I tell it how it is.