Since it’s been so long since our last newsletter, I have two words of the ‘month’ for this issue. If you remember your “Simpson’s” well, you will already know from the ‘Leftorium’ episode that the original meaning of the word ‘sinister’ meant left-handed. Back in medieval times left-handedness was considered evil. Great efforts were made to correct this trait in those so afflicted, right up into the middle of the last century. My dad had a story of how his elementary school teachers would beat his left hand with a yardstick until he learned to write with his right. The word ‘dexterous’, which today is synonymous with agile, skilful, or nimble meant, way back then, right handed or on the right side. In other words, the left side was bad and evil, while the right side was considered good and pure or proper and ‘right’. Let’s not tell our legislators about this and give them more to argue about.
On to some issues which need to be talked about. As you all know, bargaining is over and we are already into the second year of our three-year contract. A lot was learned in this prolonged discussion with the company-on both sides of the table. We had a lot of problems during the six-year term and a lot of the huge package of proposals addressed those issues. We didn’t get everything we set out for, but we were happy with the things we did achieve. One of the big issues that need more work is the use of the Construction Section. Our objective going in to bargaining was to make them as expensive as full-time employees and therefore offer no advantage to having such a massive number of temporaries almost year-round. I think we got about halfway in our objective. Almost every shop is short-staffed; yet getting more full-time employees is harder to get than the best wage package of any refinery in the country (which we did). Perhaps with the next round of bargaining we can get the other half.
A committee will be set up after shutdown to look at the maintenance department going to a 9 1/3 hour, four-day week. This issue was a proposal in the last round of bargaining and management agreed to discuss this with us on an on-going basis and implement it if future conditions make it possible. Anyone who has a strong interest in being on this committee should contact me.
Another ‘future’ in the contract negotiations was the defining of each shop’s or position’s duties as covered in Letter 59. The old letter goes back to the 1960’s and is very out of date. Supervisors will be asked to define their shop’s duties in a more modern fashion. On the surface, this doesn’t appear too important, but it brings up the topic of cross-crafting. I have had several complaints lately about one trade doing another trade’s work in the interest of speed, convenience, or impatience. While the company always has the ‘other duties as assigned’ phrase to fall back on, we all must remember our situation in the plant with regards to the lack of full-time manpower.
Every time someone does the work of another trade, it is one less reason for the company to create more full-time positions. We are seeing temporary people used year-round in the plant (except for a 2-week layoff to avoid paying the three stats at Christmas) and it is time the company came through with their promise for an expanded maintenance staff. This issue will be brought up again with the company, but in the meantime, cross-crafting does not help the cause. All stewards should also be aware that temporary or Construction Section employees should only be working on A-work orders and not E-orders. There are a few exceptional cases where this happens, but we must remain vigilant that supervisors do not abuse this. There is no incentive to hire full-time trades people if we let them bring temporaries in to do our work.
A lot of rumours were flying around back in January over the Decokers and the arrangement made for them going on to 20-hour drum swings. There was very little in what they asked for over and above what they had in 1995 when a similar shift was needed. We got a little more for them this time but some people think they are compensated a little too well. I say this Union won’t negotiate backwards. We wouldn’t negotiate a benefit away just to make someone else happy. Imagine starting work at 7pm and finishing at midnight. Then coming back at 3pm and working until 8pm. Then you might get a decent night’s sleep before coming back at 11am. The next day you’re in at 7am, then 3am and finally 11pm. That’s six shifts in 5 calendar days-around the clock, all in the dirtiest place in the refinery. No amount of compensation makes this a good deal. Anyone who would like this kind of deal for their own job just needs to bid to the decokers next time an opening comes up.
The stretching program was originally given agreement when it started on the condition that it would be voluntary. I’ve heard many times that supervisors are pressuring people into participating. As far as the Union is concerned, this is still a voluntary program and it was never ‘notched-up’ to being mandatory. The company is, however, paying you for your time at work and expecting something productive while others are stretching isn’t really asking too much.
A lot of concern has been raised lately about the company’s Attendance Management Program. Without going into too much needless detail, what the company is doing is tracking absenteeism in order to ‘red-flag’ any employees they suspect may be using too much sick leave. They are building a case where, in the most extreme, they can terminate an employee for frustration of contract resulting from use of ‘too much’ sick leave. While this Union executive will never condone an abuse of sick leave, we do not agree with the company that using a negotiated benefit would ever be cause for any kind of discipline. Just what is considered ‘too much’ depends on plant, department, and section averages, so there is no actual number. CCRL is a large company and would have a hard time proving to an arbitrator that it was experiencing an undue hardship so arduous that it had to terminate an employee.
One of the things I found interesting in our meetings with the company was their insistence that the program was not disciplinary in nature, but corrective. I always thought that termination was the ultimate form of discipline. And don’t they call prisons, society’s ultimate place for discipline, ‘Correctional Institutes’?
Another disturbing part of this program is the personal information that is being distributed by Human Resources to supervisors. If you have medical information that you want to keep private, the only person you have to tell in order to receive sick leave benefits is the Health Nurse. She can tell your supervisor and in turn HR whether or not your sickness is legitimate. You do not have to give specifics to anyone but her, and she will act as the firewall for your personal medical information. Just why they want to know the nature of your illness if they don’t suspect sick leave abuse is beyond explanation. It sounds just a little left-handed to me.
June 2005
This newsletter that I had planned to have ready before shutdown is long overdue. Two of the above topics require some updating.
The Attendance Management Program has not gone away and we are getting more educated on the implications of it with each passing week. We have gone to our lawyer further advice and are in contact with another local that has dealt with Federated’s policy, and successfully grieved it. More news should be available through the summer.
The Decoker’s have gone to 20-hour drums again. They will probably be doing this brutal shift for a long period order to accommodate the company’s problem of excess bottoms produced in Section IV. We got them a fairer deal on their holidays with this arrangement. In a longer-term arrangement like this one, they are not getting as much time off for their holidays as they would on a 24-hour drum, and a method of making this a little more right-handed was agreed to.
In closing, I would like to thank everyone who has given me words of support in my position as Maintenance VP over the last three years. Elections for Union positions are now upon us. Ray Limacher is stepping down as President and I plan to run for that position. I ask for your continued support when you cast your ballot soon. I believe that the present executive has done some very good work over the past few years and that continuity of personnel is key in keeping the momentum of our present contract going into next year when negotiations begin again.
In Solidarity,
Rick McConnell
Maintenance VP