Making the Grade - Job Evaluation Schemes
Protecting Your Members From Phony Job Evaluation Schemes
Equal Distribution of Overtime
Here are some scenarios that are probably familiar to most UE Stewards:
- Harlan Parrot comes up to his steward. "I have a grievance. Jim Carey is always s------ up to the boss and getting all the overtime. I thought there was supposed to be equal overtime. What are you going to do about it?" or,
- Sheila approaches her steward one afternoon, "Hey, did you hear the company's asking people to work this Saturday in shipping? Pedro is still laid off from shipping. You've got to stop them from working."
Sound familiar?
Workplace Surveillance
Workers at a UE represented factory noticed a crew of outside electricians doing a lot of work in the plant. They were installing an extraordinary amount of new electric exit signs and refurbishing old ones. At first no one thought anything about it, but then someone noticed that instead of regular electric cable running into the signs there was 3/4 inch coaxial cables.
Insubordination
Ella Bloor was having a bad day on her machines. They weren't running right and to make matters worse, the company had bought bad steel again.
Dealing With New Technology
Workplaces keep changing, not always for the better and very rarely is the well-being of the workers the key reason for the change. Consider these everyday situations:
Situation 1:
The boss at Cyborg Inc. calls for a meeting of the union committee.
Drug and Alcohol Testing
It's not necessary — and coming from employers who routinely demand mandatory overtime and that fewer and fewer employees handle ever-increasing workloads — drug and alcohol testing is nothing more than out-and-out hypocrisy.
Two Tier Wage and Benefit Systems – Equal Work For Less Pay
At the opening session of negotiations between UE Local 1917 and Amalgamated Putz Corporation, the company made a serious pitch for establishing a two-tier payment system. "We need to lower costs. The parent corporation is demanding every unit reduce costs by 15%. Our competitors are paying operators $1.75 less per hour and they have to pay 30% of their insurance premium.