When Buckeye Partners recently promoted a new manager over the yard where UE Local 106 members work, he began unilaterally changing a number of practices. The local has successfully fought off every regressive action the supervisor has taken.
The new manager issued letters to UE members in one classification (Relief Operators) that they couldn't upgrade their pay when they worked in a higher job (Operator), except in very narrow circumstances — despite the fact that they effectively do the same work as the operators and have been upgrading for their whole shifts for years.
Then the manager attempted to change the conditions of employment and require all employees to undergo pulmonary function tests, in addition to requiring Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response (HAZWOPER) certification at the operations level.
He hired three new hires into operator jobs, without posting the jobs, even though the contract requires new hires to be apprentice operators upon hire.
The new manager also wanted UE members to call out sick to other members, rather than a manager. His plan was for members to call the TC-1 (“Terminal Control #1,” a union position), and have the TC-1 fill out a questionnaire about the absence and send it to management.
Local 106 successfully fought off all these violations of the contract and past practice through filing grievances and discussions with management. They won their grievance over the relief operators: the company is going to upgrade all of the relief operators to operators permanently. After the local made it clear that they wanted to negotiate over the changes to their conditions of employment, the company pulled the testing back while they prepare a response.
The local won their grievance over the new operators and the lack of posting jobs — the company is going to post seven operator and relief operator jobs and allow the members to bid on them. The company also agreed to post a head operator job because there is an operator who's been upgrading to a head operator job regularly. And the local successfully got the manager to rescind the sick time call-in policy and continue the practice of members calling out sick to a manager.