My work like to come out with little notices and asks for signatures to say we have read and will comply.
These can be about anything: parking stall usage, till counting and reporting, lunchroom use, phone use, procedural changes, privacy changes, whistleblower diciplinary action, changes to our duties.
Some carry more weight than others.
The local union rep is a don’t rock the boat sort that just says “well.”
I wondering, is it legal? Can a memo be writen up and blanketed out to every employee become legaly binding over the union contract?
Can they continual barage until we just blindly sign what they put in front of us? Thats what my coworkers all do, I take flack from them for being the difficult guy. (Is true I don’t want to sign that I will alway tie my right shoe before the left, and dont feel any of us should have to or even be asked to).
Don’t these constitute changes to the already existing work contract? Being that I am already employed under contract can I say I wish to remain under the contract that was negotiated and will only accept union approved changes?
What point does right to manage overstep the boundry?
I would apreciate hearing from union, nonunion, managment or anyone else and any links you think relevent I will have a look at. At this point just some good search terms would help.
I have sent a message up the union flagpole, no response yet.
This is not a simple situation. Employers have the right to vary a contract but they are supposed to do it by negotiation and agreement, not diktat.
Many of the things you mention may already be covered in your contract by some ‘catch all’ clause. This does not give an employer the right to make carte blanche changes that affect an employee’s terms and conditions but the time to protest is before you sign to accept them.
As with all these things you need to choose your ground carefully. It’s no good trying to make a big deal out of something like phone use which most people now accept as reasonable, but a new rule about disciplinary procedures is a different matter.
As an individual, you can simply refuse to accept the new rule. If they then fire you, you can take them to a tribunal. What you have to consider is whether the hassle is worthwhile.
I’m a unionized worker and have been active in union work in various capacities for decades.
bob++ gets close, IMO.
At least in the US, the written contract is sacrosanct. Management absolutely cannot come up with some policy that has the effect of violating a written term. e.g. The contract says 60 minute lunch breaks are required and management puts out a memo saying they’re now 50 minute breaks: total non-starter. Do not comply with the memo & file a grievance immediately.
The next level is “past practice”. This is the fuzzier stuff where the contract specifies the what, but not the how. Or goes into some detail on how, but not to the nth degree. A general rule of unionized workplaces is management cannot unilaterally change significant past practice. What’s significant? Depends on the circumstances. e.g. For the last umpteen years the sick leave practice was that if you’re going to miss work you must call your supervisor prior to shift start time in order to have it be a paid sick day and not a no-show subject to the generic contractual disciplinary process. The contract doesn’t specify any of this; it describes your allotment of paid sick days, and separately describes the process the company must use for any disciplinary matter.
So what happens if management puts out a bulletin saying you now have to give 2 days notice before calling in sick or else it’ll be treated as a no-show? The contract is silent, but the past practice is clear. Do not sign, do not comply, file a grievance immediately on the basis of the policy and again for each instance where any worker doesn’t receive a paid day despite calling in before shift start time.
Last of all is the stuff totally within management’s purview, as long as it doesn’t impinge on the contract. If they now want all vehicles backed into parking spaces you need to read, sign, & comply. If they now want all vehicles washed & waxed at the end of the shift, but want you doing productive work up to the last minute of the shift then doing the wash/wax on your own time, that’s a clear violation. Etc.
If you have a supine local rep / steward / whatever you call them, it’s time to complain up the union chain of command and get some local activism going. Heck, you might have to take on the job yourself. The union is exactly as good, and as powerful, as the local workers choose to make it. My union work over the years has been some of the most satisfying and gratifying stuff I’ve done in my entire life. Also often some of the most frustrating. I like to think I’ve improved the working life of not only myself but everyone around me. Many of my co-workers seem to agree.
You have to be somewhat familiar with your contract. I’ve belonged to three unions, all of which had members in various job descriptions at various work locations, and the contracts usually cover generally applicable work conditions rather than specific details of how you do your work. For example, the contract will have sections about how leave time is earned and a general procedure for requesting time off (you must make your request in writing and you must receive your approval in writing within X days of your request) but that doesn’t mean that your employer can’t require form XYZ for requesting time off rather than an email or memo. Contracts will have sections about out-of-title work (and some reference to job descriptions and duties) but those are about what the duties are and not so much how they are be done - if your job duties include maintaining records, it is probably not a violation of the contract for your employer to change from paper records to to electronic records nor if they want you to start recording the mileage and stops when you use a company vehicle.
I know of one contract that prohibits the employer from using timeclocks or any method of timekeeping other than self reporting. But other unions at the same employer have no such bar- and their contract doesn’t speak to the method of timekeeping. It could be a timeclock, records obtained from an electronic entry system , a sign-in sheet with a red line drawn every 15 minutes - almost any method.
What about deliberately vague contracts? We have to sign one every year saying that we have to do whatever the boss or supervisor says whenever they say to do it. No time limits are given or anything like that, and it almost reads as if he could call us at 11 PM at night and make us go to work all night even when that’s not our standard shift, and do things that have nothing to do with our job, like babysit his kids. if you don’t sign it, you’re fired, although it’s usually for some other equally vague reason.
I should’ve mentioned that this is nonunion, but it’s kind of important to me.
Nonunion in the US, you have essentially zero rights. Except the right to quit. Or to not take the job in the first place.
About the only thing they can’t do is make you sign a contract which says you waive rights provided to you explicitly under what few employee protection laws there are in the US. Actually, they can make you sign something like that or fire you if you won’t. Your only response then is to sue them on your own dime and maybe collect after a few years of paying for attorneys.
Most states have some basic laws regulating workplaces. For example, many states have laws requiring that if you work an 8-hour shift, they must give you a lunch break during that shift. Etc. But these are usually only minimal protections, often more related to protecting the public (from over-tired employees) than protecting the employee.
I am retired from a large government agency that delivers stuff. I was in building maintenance and I primarily did HVAC work. The only thing we were required to sign for was for attendance at safety meetings, service talks and the like, and it only meant that we were present and heard the message. That way we couldn’t say later that we didn’t know we were supposed to do/not do “THAT”.
This could be anything from asbestos work to sexual harassment. We had a union with a contract (although we were open shop) and we never had to sign anything that changed any negotiated practices. Our shop steward and local president wouldn’t have stood still for it.
Most union contracts have the clause in them that the contract can only be altered (or clarified) by an agreement with the union - so as mentioned, anything contradictory is void; whereas the place I used to work, there were a number of union-management “Letters of Understanding” to clarify or amend the terms. IIRC, the contract also had the clause that the management could not negotiate with workers outside the contract - which got one overeager boss in trouble for trying to get his employees to switch to 10-hour-4-day weeks.
Most of the memos that needed signatures dealt with management prerogatives. I.e. acceptable use internet policy, you signed, they then had the ammunition if they caught you that you could not fight back with “I did not know it was not allowed”. Often they announced “starting zero tolerance” so they could override past practice. You sign, you knew the rules had changed, you couldn’t plead “past practice”. Not sure how this would stand up legally, but I assume the company’s lawyers were relatively confident.
A contract is only as good as the willingness to back it up - with grievances, arbitration, etc. if the union rep rolls over and takes it, then what’s the point of the union?
No not each item. Only items that would require you to break the law or safety. It is within your right to make a copy and send it to the union for their for their input.
I was in the union hall when two calls came in from different hospitals about the same thing. We were paid first day sick leave in the hospitals. Both hospitals decided to demand a doctors note from anyone calling in sick.
The call from the first hospital came in from the shop steward. The business agent asked if the employees were abusing sick leave. The answer was no. The agent then called the hospital personal department. The agent ask if there was a problem with excessive sick use. The answer was again no. The agent then called the hospital administrator and ripped him a new one. And that was the end of that.
The second call came from the 2nd hospital’s administrator. They were having excessive use of sick leave, and were willing to provide the figures showing the problem. They wanted to require the doctors note. The union rep had no problem with it and called the shop steward to let him know about the new policy.