A few things. I am way down on the totem pole. I don’t have any kind of power or authority in terms of pay or bargained items.
We are a regulated company, so corporate profits are not the motivating factor. Our profit margin is pretty much determined for us. The other company is not a direct competitor, just in a similar field. We pay well. They might have higher rates, but I think a lot of that is less stability and more dangerous work.
The contract is probably 90% the same as it was 40 years ago. Changes to each version are fairly minimal. It’s impossible to know who bargained for this policy. It’s not like this is a common occurrence, so I don’t think either side would have any interest in reviewing it. No reason to give something else up.
It is very possible that it was, in fact, management that put in this provision and my frustration is misplaced. I was just told - that’s what the contract states. I’m just disappointed. A different title to the OP might have been appropriate. I’m probably showing my unconscious bias.
It’s a common wrong assumption that union labor or collective bargain contracts are written and defined by the unions. They are always a negotiated battle of nickle-and-diming every little concession or protection between the union and the company management. Very often, what seems like an unfair or excessive protection could very well have been put there as a negotiated mitigation for some other completely unrelated concession elsewhere.
For example,
“We’ll give you an additional 0.5% company match 401k, but returning workers don’t retain vacation for years of service and only get 2 free pairs of eyeglasses instead of 3.”
“Ok, but only if the recreational facilities are also free to part-timers and not only full-timers, and you guarantee that our work for licensed welders can’t be outsourced outside of the state”
“Mmm, fine, but you need to then allow us to increase the pension vesting period from 5 years to 7 years”
and so on…
Disclaimer: Worked as represented under different unions at different job, been involved in strikes, labor negotiations, union repping, etc…
I was a union rep for over 15 years. It’s very possible that this seniority rule was, in fact, a management request. Workers don’t typically fight for lower pay, less vacation or to make it more difficult to accrue seniority for themselves. Management does, however, have a motivation to do so.
Regardless, even if the union reps are the ones telling you this employee needs to start back at zero seniority, it’s because they’re simply enforcing the contract that their members ratified. Rules are rules, and these are the ones both sides agreed to whether you (or they) like it.
ISTM that there’s a disconnect in the details of the “loss of seniority” being discussed. Many people have said that that the union has no incentive to want people to lose seniority, and that’s true as long as we’re discussing service time for purposes of pensions, retirement eligibility and so on. These are things provided by management, and the union has every incentive to want them to be as generous as possible. But that doesn’t seem to be what the OP is referring to.
Based on the OP, what he seems to be talking about is job roles. Meaning, you start off in the company with a position at Level 1, then get promoted to Level 2 and so on. He seems to be saying that this returning employee needs to start all over again at Level 1, i.e. an entry level worker. This is not a worker vs management issue. Management would generally be indifferent as to the rules of who has seniority for job roles, and if anything they would prefer to have experienced workers in more senior roles, even if they got that experience elsewhere. But this is an employee vs employee issue. Who gets the next available promotion? It’s only going to be one guy and it’s either going to be a guy who never left the company or a guy who left and came back. Unions would be incented to support the guy who never left over the guy who left and came back. That’s because the union negotiates on behalf of the current membership, and the current members would generally prefer that they have priority over anyone who may have left, and are generally not keen on the notion of someone who is not currently at the company coming back and cutting ahead of them in line.
So unless I’m misunderstanding the OP - and the OP can correct if this is so - then it’s very likely that this was a union demand.
That assumes that the promotion to level 2 or level 3 is based strictly on the time you’ve been doing the job - for example, that when there is an opening for a Level 2 position, it automatically goes to the current level 1 worker with the most seniority. Not all union jobs work like that - in fact, I’ve belonged to three unions and at none of them was seniority given that sort of weight in promotions. Some promotions were based on test scores ( and 5 points of the score were based on seniority) and for some, management simply conducted interviews and made their choice. People who were there for five or six years were often promoted over those with ten or even twenty.
Those were real promotions where the level 2 job had different duties and responsibilities than the level 1 job. There are other sorts of jobs where a Level 1 Widget Maker becomes a Level 2 Widget Maker after X number of years and the difference is the Level 2 gets paid more to do exactly the same work - but in that sort of job, Jim wouldn’t have been promoted just because Joe left. Once Jim had X years, he would have been promoted whether Joe was there or not and if he didn’t have X years, he doesn’t get promoted even if Joe leaves.There’s no issue of the “next available promotion” because the “promotion” is based strictly on years of service -if all 20 of the Widget Makers have X years of service, then all twenty are level 2.
I’ve actually never heard of a job where there are a limited number of level 2 positions and someone is promoted into one of those positions based strictly on years of service, but I’m sure there are some. OP, how do union promotions work at your job?
Bus and train operators for transit agencies start out as “extras” where they come in to work as needed. When an opening occurs on a full-time split shift (where they come in for morning rush hour, go home, and come back for evening rush hour) they can bid on that and the most senior wins the bid. Then if an opening occurs on a regular shift (work 8-hours straight with no break except for lunch), the split-shift operators can bid on that.
I believe that airlines work on the same principle. Pilots and FAs start as on-reserve where they wait around to be assigned and have to be able to report to their home base within 2 hours of a call. After that, they can bid on tours, where they have a fixed schedule in advance (subject to change if conditions require). The most senior bidder wins, meaning that if you don’t have seniority you will never win a bid and have to stay on-reserve.
In my experience, that’s not really a promotion. It’s a version of “the person with the most seniority gets the first pick and the person with the least gets whatever’s left” and it happens all the time with vacations, days off, shifts, bus routes, work locations and so on. It means seniority is important but it’s not what I’m saying I’ve never seen. The thing I’ve never seen is when the bus dispatcher retires and the bus driver with the most seniority automatically gets promoted to dispatcher based solely on seniority.
Yes, this is almost certainly true. You might pass along to your superiors in management how this contract provision is now working against the company, and that they should consider deleting it in the next contract.
The union would much prefer not only that this provision was gone, but also to have this employee help encourage unionization of the competitor company. Actually, that would probably help your company, too – level the playing field – but few companies of today recognize that.
On the other hand, management does not like turnover. If a person who is thinking about leaving for greener pastures knows that he or she can come back at the same level they might have more incentive to try another job.
Current union members are the ones who are thinking about leaving, so this policy hurts them.
I bet the union traded this provision, which hurts relatively few people, for something that helps everyone in some contract negotiation in the past. Too bad, but neither side can get everything.
Many people would probably tell you “just get another job” (which is only changing the subject and ignoring the problems which will be there no matter who is working at said crappy job), or “just negotiate what you want with the management on your own” (which is probably not an option).
Despite the recent SCOTUS decision, the union at my college (workplace) is still functioning well, bargaining, requesting input from all faculty, etc. There are also two other unions (for the non-faculty employees) combined as a single one for purposes of negotiations.
At my former campus, the admin fought tooth and nail against adjunct faculty having a union. The full timers didn’t even want us to be part of theirs. But the adjuncts prevailed in the end. If they hadn’t, they would still be nameless, faceless, voiceless “Professor Staff” and friends.
There is no channel or protocol I know of whereby we could negotiate with someone higher-up. And who would that be? HR? The college president? Someone else? You can’t negotiate with your own dept. head or division deans, since they don’t have the power to alter your pay, benefits, or anything else.
No one who leaves has “the right” to come back at any level. Generally people who leave are not thinking about coming back, and this is not a big factor in their decision making.
For current union people, the issue of former employees coming in and getting ahead of them in line is a much bigger deal than “what happens if I leave and then want to come back?”
You will not encounter a non-union situation where the management unilaterally institutes such a rule - as they would have every right to do. I would be very surprised if this was a management demand.
We had a union salter rally the troops and for a brief time we were unionized during a period of discontent.
The seniority thing in the proposed contract was put there by the union. The entire proposed contract was written by the union. There was some give and take by both sides, and the two versions of the contract that we ultimately rejected kept the seniority rules because the union required it and would not negotiate that point.
This wasn’t limited to leaving the company. If you took, say, a one-year rotation into Product Development and then came back, you had to start from zero. If you moved into another Bargaining Unit, you started from zero there, too. There was never any question of benefits, because the contract specified the same salaried benefits we already had.
The union’s perspective was that it served the people it represented, and tough shit to you if you choose to leave.
We never ratified the contract, and I managed to lead a de-certification drive that was ultimately successful.
Sorry, I thought this thread had died and I didn’t see this. You are correct. His years of service from a pension perspective would not be impacted. he would just have to start off at a lower level, performing a different function and being paid less. Because he would be at the bottom, seniority-wise, it would take several years before he could get back to where he was, regardless of the experience and knowledge he has.
Your logic was why I originally thought this was something the union wanted in the contract.
As I said, I don’t really know who wanted it, union or management. Either way, management would have to give something up to have it removed and this is small potatoes for them. It is a rarity and not worth whatever it would cost. My leadership is aware of the situation and doesn’t seem to be interested in pursuing anything. The current contract is good for another 2 years anyway.
This does hurt the union somewhat. The position will go unfilled for several months and will just mean more work contracted out.