1.  Miss your deadline. You know what the contract says, but somehow you forget to file the grievance within the specified time. The grievance, in almost every case, becomes history. Two pieces of advice. Keep a calendar diary with dates marked in red so you won’t miss deadlines. And if you need more time, ask for an extension from management and get it in writing.
        2.  Never get back to the grievant. This usually happens when the steward determines that the member has no grievance. Rather than be the bearer of bad tidings, the steward disappears. This is irresponsible. If the issue is not grievable under the contract, see if it can be resolved in another manner. If not, tell the member that the issue cannot be written as a grievance, and give him/her the reasons.
        3.  Bad mouth the union. If you have a problem with the way things are done or with your leadership, discuss the issue(s) in a rational manner. Get off the soapbox and see if the difference can be resolved. There’s plenty of room for discussion and disagreement. But when it spills out on the shop floor or at a meeting when management is present, such disagreements can permanently weaken the union. A house divided against itself will fail.
        4.  Drop the routine fly ball. You are the steward with responsibilities outlined by the constitution and by-laws. You should not make basic mistakes. Grievances should be written correctly. Information should be shared. You should know your rights. If you are unsure or don’t know the answer, ask.
        5.  Sit down and shut up at meetings with management. In your role as a steward you are the union advocate. This role is an active one. You are the equal of management. You may ask questions, ask for and get records to process grievances, and even raise your voice at meetings when necessary.
        6.  A major no no. You or a member may be baited at a grievance meeting so that you will get angry. A steward who argues out of anger and not facts will lose the grievance. Period.
        7.  Write long grievances. Grievances should be short and sweet. Management is being paid big salaries to supervise. Don’t do the work for them. Your grievances should identify the grievant, outline the problem in a sentence or two, state what article of the contract is being violated, and what remedy you want to make the grievant whole. Save the arguments for the meeting. A good poker player never tips his/her hand.
        8.  Meet the grievant for the first time at the grievance hearing. If this is the first time you’ve met the member, you are inviting trouble. Big time. You should talk to the grievant face to face when you investigate the grievance and write it.
You should also talk to the grievant prior to the hearing to familiarize him/her with the process. When they walk into the room, they should feel as comfortable as possible. They should know that yes, no, and I don’t know are acceptable answers at a hearing. Describe the room to them, who will be there, and what they will be asked.
        9.  Wait for the member to come to you with the problem. If you do this, you will never gain the respect of the membership you represent or the management you must deal with. Problems can often be resolved before they explode into grievances. And members may not be as aware of contract violations and grievable issues as you are.
        10.  Forget to take a breather. This is intense work. Stewards work a full-time job and then take on their union responsibilities. This kind of existence is rewarding but is fraught with burn-out. Take time for yourself and your family.

IBEW Local 1613

      1. For every asshole there’s two waiting in the wings to take his place. 
      2. Do something even if it’s wrong. 
      3. For every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction. 
      4. When all else fails; OBJECT LOUDLY! 
      5. If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit. 
      6. A fight in front of the troops is worth way more than a fight behind closed doors. 
     7. You are always right, even if you are wrong. 
     8. You are the expert on the contract because you are the steward. Got it? 
      9. If they want to get along, get along, if they want to fight, fight! 
     10.Making friends with management is OK as long as you remember they will cut your throat for their own survival. 
    11. Know when to contact the business agent! 
    12. Never let management tell you how to be a steward! (Even if you don’t know how to be one yourself).

Dear Denverbrown:
        My name is H…. W……… I am looking for a little help. I have been a driver for eight years. I had fallen into a comfortable routine delivering my route. I never had an absentee problem, and I got along with my supervisors OK. That is until we got this new guy.
        He started out riding me pretty hard. He upped my dispatch and when I complained he told me to blow it out my you-know-what. I felt that he was very disrespectful to me. I let the whole thing blow over, but now he treats me badly on a regular basis. One day I finally had enough and I yelled back at him in front of everybody. I used the same language to him that he regularly used to me, but the company fired me for creating a hostile work environment. I don’t think this is fair.
        Their policy is supposed to be for everyone yet that supervisor is still here, and I’m not. My feeling is that the company and their policies are hypocritical. My union steward told me I should have filed a grievance under (I think) Article 37 for harassment the very first time I felt threatened by this supervisor. Now I’m the man out and I hear he is still treating people like this.
        The thing I don’t get is why the company just lets him go on the way he is. I guess he gets them good numbers because they just let him treat everyone with an iron fist. I always assumed we were in this battle together to make the company successful. Now I find out that the management is only there to make themselves successful at my expense. They just don’t really care about my family, my health, my safety, my future, or me.
        After eight years I now see that I should have been more aware of the Union’s function. Unfortunately I had to be terminated to see it. I could have saved myself a bunch of trouble if I had not been afraid to raise this issue with my steward, but he always seemed like a troublemaker and I didn’t want to get that reputation myself. I thought the company liked me.
        Now the company has thrown me to the wolves. I’m still hopeful I will get my job back, but I am suffering financially while the decision is made. I see how people become the Union badasses that they become. They are always covering their rear, leaving no stone for the company to turn. Never allowing the company to get anything on them. I always thought these people were just trying to cost the company money, and just had a bad attitude. Now I find out they are truly trying to protect themselves from a monster.
        Thanks for listening. I will continue to read Denver Brown so I can stay ahead of the monster.
         Sincerely;
         H… W………

When FedEx wins, UPS loses. That’s you.

     High wages and benefits that out distance the competition cannot go on forever. There will have to be parity for UPS to continue to compete. If FedEx wages do not go up, UPS wages must come down. If we have high unemployment going into the 2013 negotiations, will UPS take on the Teamsters again? We had low unemployment and high prosperity in 1997 when the Teamsters enjoyed vast public support for the strike and took UPS to the mat. That may not be the case in 2013. Negotiations begin almost a year before the contract expires. That’s 2012, not that far away.  Could you stay out this time for a month? Two months?
     I hope eveyone is putting some money aside.  

                                           FedEx Among Big Winners in Midterm Elections
WASHINGTON — One of the biggest corporate winners after Tuesday night’s watershed Republican House victories will be Memphis-based FedEx Corp., which can abandon fears that pending legislation will upset its existing labor relations.

“I think they dodged a bullet,” said David Schaffer, a Vienna, Va.-based aviation consultant and former counsel to the House aviation subcommittee.

Schaffer said it’s still possible the lame-duck Congress could pass a new, multiyear Federal Aviation Administration bill, but “I don’t think it could pass with the FedEx provision in it.”

FedEx has deployed an army of lobbyists in recent years and established a public relations campaign to defeat the provision that would have reclassified some FedEx employees under the National Labor Relations Act, allowing them to form local bargaining units that could strike and upset the company’s reputation for reliability.

The author of that provision, Transportation and Infrastructure Committee chairman James Oberstar, D-Minn., lost his re-election Tuesday night.

The committee will be chaired by U.S. Rep. John Mica, a Florida Republican, come January.

Oberstar was FedEx CEO Frederick W. Smith’s nemesis during the height of the public relations struggle last summer.

He accused Smith of “misleading the public” with a campaign accusing rival UPS of seeking a “bailout” with the labor provision.

FedEx spokesman Maury Lane said Wednesday that Smith would have no comment on Oberstar’s loss.

Lane said, “Yesterday’s election results clearly showed that the American people will no longer tolerate special-interest legislative bailouts. FedEx Express will continue to oppose legislative initiatives that do not support marketplace competition and promote reliability in the overnight package delivery industry.”

Both UPS and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters sought the labor language to make it easier for FedEx’s truck drivers and other employees that don’t require FAA certification to organize.

Teamsters spokeswoman Leigh Strope said the union was “very saddened” by Oberstar’s defeat.

“Jim Oberstar recognized that FedEx Express, hiding under the guise of an airline, was wrong and unfair to its work force and the rest of package delivery industry,” Strope said. “The work that he started will be carried on by others who support fair competition and giving workers the right to organize.”

Both sides of the fight spent heavily, but U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., who defied his Transportation Committee chairman in voting against the provision, agreed FedEx is now better off.

“I’m sure FedEx is a big winner because, with Republicans in control of the House, that provision would never get through,” Cohen said.
Bartholomew Sullivan, The Commercial Appeal

       I was in my center one time, in the check-in area. It was about 7:50 am and, although I didn’t start until 8:45, I had come in early for a local hearing that we had scheduled for 8am on the other side of the building. Most of my group was crowded around, talking and waiting to go to work.
       I was holding 2 grievances I had just written for a driver who asked me if I could help him out before going to my meeting. That’s when the Division Mgr  walked up and asked, “What have you got?”
       I said, “A couple of grievances, this one is a supervisor working grievance ( I laid it aside) and this one charges harassment, over-supervision and requests that management stay off car until a local hearing can be held.”
       Mgr – Are you on the clock? Who authorized you to go on the clock and do Union work this morning?
       Me – I have a local hearing on boxline 6 at 8am.
       Mgr — Who did you tell, because I’m gonna ask them?
       Me – My manager.
       Mgr – I’m gonna ask him.
       Me – Go ahead and ask him.
       Mgr – I have the right to go out on car and train my people.
       Me – He’s been trained for 3 days and when he files an over-supervision grievance then you have to get off car until a local hearing is held.
       Mgr –I have the right to train my people and I can tell you right now we are coming out again today.
       Driver – I know the methods, I had a 2 day methods ride just 2 weeks ago, management is harassing me.
       Mgr – How are we harassing you?
       Driver – Saying things like, after I go the bathroom, can you go faster now that you dumped that big load? He’s harassing me about my in-car routine when I had a different car all three days.
       Mgr – I have guys out there jerking me around, taking bathroom breaks every half hour.
       Me – This driver knows the methods, let him go out and do his job.
       Mgr – He does? Look at these numbers, he’s a buck seventy-eight over and has 65 methods violations.
       Me – Nobody’s perfect, we all have methods violations, give the guy chance.
       Mgr – I’ll give him a chance, I’ll ride with him myself and if I tell him 3 times to honk his horn at a residential stop and he doesn’t do it a fourth time, I’ll fire him. How’s that? And here is something else–you think about how you are going fight it – Production rides.
       Me – I’m sure we will find a way to fight it.
       Mgr – The guy is an hour sevent-eight over, how am I supposed to dispatch him and keep him under nine-five? I have to pay him for 8 hours, don’t I? That’s in the contract.
       Me – Yes you do, but that only applies if he works under 8 hours, that has nothing to do with a planned day.
       Mgr – So how do I dispatch him to get him under nine-five is he doesn’t plan?
       Me – You send him out with what you show is seven and a half.
       Mgr – I’ll tell you what I’ll do, I’ll send him out with a planned day, tell him not to miss even one package and be under nine-five, and if he doesn’t do it, I’ll fire him.
       Me – I need to get to my meeting, it’s almost 8 o’clock.
       Mgr – I’m gonna ask who authorized that.
       Me – I was hoping to get these grievances signed before I went over there, do you want to sign them? 
       Mgr – No, you’re not on the clock.

       The whole group got to witness this exchange. Afterwards, several drivers told me it was a real eye-opener.
One guy said it was better than coffee.

      An argument in front of the group is worth ten behind closed doors.