J
jibbs
Guest
Hey guys, this is a li'l long so tl;dr - scroll to the final bold paragraph at the bottom:
So with the introduction of scanners and new loaders and new methods and new managers people are missing a lot of packages. I'm on the end of the belt so it effects me, but I still manage to keep it mostly clean (emphasis on "mostly.") Anyways, since the methods have started pretty much everybody on the belt misses a package every 3 or 4 minutes, sometimes stacks of packages.
It was my understanding that a union member should be directed to recycle those missed packages and missorted packages (wrong belt), and that management/supervisors were not to progress a package from it's arrival at UPS to it's final destination at it's delivery address, with the only exception I know of being the very broad "Act of God" clause.
Anyways, a supervisor was doing this today. I was at my wit's end already (rougher day than usual) and asked him why he was doing what he was doing. I honestly forget how exactly the conversation started, but this is how it ended:
Argument with supervisor about him doing bargaining unit (union) work despite management being non-union. Transcript starts mid-conversation because I don't remember the beginning of it very well:
Me: Non-union employees are not allowed to progress the package from it's arrival to it's final destination, from beginning to end of it's travels through our system.
Supervisor: And once it's in the truck it's at the final destination.
Me: ...No, the final destination is the delivery address, which a union member is supposed to deliver after a union member loads it onto the truck. At no point should you be touching packages barring an act of God, and that's nearly exactly what the contract says.
Supervisor: [throws package on the ground] So that's at it's final destination, right? Now I can touch it? [Proceeds to pick the package up and load it]
Me: ...No, man, that's the part that goes in between "beginning" and "end," which we call "the middle" and is inherently implied with the phrase "from beginning to end." You know what the middle IS, right? What do you not get about "final destination?" It's the delivery address; it's not where we load it in the truck. That's why there's "Final" in the phrase, because it's at the end of it's transit.
Supervisor: You don't know everything, [name removed], I'm allowed to do this.
/end conversation, beginning of rage-work
So now I'm at home, right, looking up the language and lo' and behold this dude was 100% in the wrong. Planning on printing this out along with the relevant sections of the contract and bringing it in Monday to file, because he really should've chosen a more complacent person to talk down to:
page 9, specifically
http://www.teamsterslocal804.org/docman/steward-forms/7-2014-ups-stewards-guide/file
[tl;dr]
I'm mainly trying to go in Monday super confident that I'm in the right, and was hoping someone here could better explain when a supervisor is allowed to break contract and move packages to and into their assigned trucks and when they're NOT allowed to. I was under the impression that the only time they should have hands on packages is when we're short-staffed and they've already exhausted every reasonable means to try and get union members from other shifts/positions to come in and do preload.
So with the introduction of scanners and new loaders and new methods and new managers people are missing a lot of packages. I'm on the end of the belt so it effects me, but I still manage to keep it mostly clean (emphasis on "mostly.") Anyways, since the methods have started pretty much everybody on the belt misses a package every 3 or 4 minutes, sometimes stacks of packages.
It was my understanding that a union member should be directed to recycle those missed packages and missorted packages (wrong belt), and that management/supervisors were not to progress a package from it's arrival at UPS to it's final destination at it's delivery address, with the only exception I know of being the very broad "Act of God" clause.
Anyways, a supervisor was doing this today. I was at my wit's end already (rougher day than usual) and asked him why he was doing what he was doing. I honestly forget how exactly the conversation started, but this is how it ended:
Argument with supervisor about him doing bargaining unit (union) work despite management being non-union. Transcript starts mid-conversation because I don't remember the beginning of it very well:
Me: Non-union employees are not allowed to progress the package from it's arrival to it's final destination, from beginning to end of it's travels through our system.
Supervisor: And once it's in the truck it's at the final destination.
Me: ...No, the final destination is the delivery address, which a union member is supposed to deliver after a union member loads it onto the truck. At no point should you be touching packages barring an act of God, and that's nearly exactly what the contract says.
Supervisor: [throws package on the ground] So that's at it's final destination, right? Now I can touch it? [Proceeds to pick the package up and load it]
Me: ...No, man, that's the part that goes in between "beginning" and "end," which we call "the middle" and is inherently implied with the phrase "from beginning to end." You know what the middle IS, right? What do you not get about "final destination?" It's the delivery address; it's not where we load it in the truck. That's why there's "Final" in the phrase, because it's at the end of it's transit.
Supervisor: You don't know everything, [name removed], I'm allowed to do this.
/end conversation, beginning of rage-work
So now I'm at home, right, looking up the language and lo' and behold this dude was 100% in the wrong. Planning on printing this out along with the relevant sections of the contract and bringing it in Monday to file, because he really should've chosen a more complacent person to talk down to:
page 9, specifically
http://www.teamsterslocal804.org/docman/steward-forms/7-2014-ups-stewards-guide/file
[tl;dr]
I'm mainly trying to go in Monday super confident that I'm in the right, and was hoping someone here could better explain when a supervisor is allowed to break contract and move packages to and into their assigned trucks and when they're NOT allowed to. I was under the impression that the only time they should have hands on packages is when we're short-staffed and they've already exhausted every reasonable means to try and get union members from other shifts/positions to come in and do preload.