This is my first post on pen-l. I've been sort of a long time lurker. But to add to this, part time inside workers face this kind of problem at UPS except the issue is the hours keep getting shorter even when we have large volumes to work with. The company picks the length of the working day one day ahead of time and typically picks the lowest amount of hours they can give us based on our contract: 3 1/2 hours. They then try to get all the work done in about 3 hours and get us out of the building. Recently they have been threatening to cancel entire shifts due to people saying they want to work their 3 1/2 when the day ends early.
Each year the company makes a decision on the amount of work per hour that workers should be doing, not because they gave us better equipment or fixed what we already have, just because they want to push more out. Due to the fact that they've decided we should be more productive they determine that we are "light" on work so they try to send people home or tell them not to come in(they have a right to). This leads to situations where a loader will have to load 3-4 trucks at the same time because there simply aren't enough people working. It also means that the supervisors end up loading and unloading trucks along with their workers, which is also a big a contract violation but most people are too scared to grieve about it. When you are light on staff, heavy on volume, you have to cut corners to get your job done and thus you are always guilty of some kind of safety or quality violation. The supervisors ignore these violations when it adds to their productivity, they take note when you bring up the contractual issues. They have been more and more egregious lately and it frightens me because we are renegotiating our contract. What scares me even more is that from what I have heard the Teamsters want an early settlement. Most workers I work with do not think the union looks out for them at all. I once asked our shop steward about getting breaks during the winter when the part time workers work for 8+ hours in a single shift. I was told to hide in the bathroom. I don't know what the solution is because the IBT isn't looking but I am happy to see writing that acknowledges the problem. I really enjoyed the article. On Sat, Feb 2, 2013 at 11:07 AM, michael yates <[email protected]> wrote: > > Full at http://cheapmotelsandahotplate.org/2013/02/02/lucky-to-have-a-job/ > > "Workers in a hospital are sick of management violating their collective > bargaining agreement. Their work is ever more stressful: hours keep getting > longer; patient loads rise; safety rules are ignored. They tell their union > steward that it is time to bombard the bosses with grievances before they > explode in rage. He tells them, “You better not do that. You’re lucky to > have a job.” > > > > In every industry in the United States, there are more people seeking > employment than jobs available. Conservatives and liberals alike say we > have to put men and women to work. They differ in how they would achieve > this, but both shout out the mantra, “jobs, jobs, jobs.” Little is ever > said about the kinds of jobs that need to be created. What will they pay? > Will they provide benefits? Will they be interesting, safe, fulfilling, > socially useful? > > > > Perhaps the reason we don’t ask such questions is that we take our work > for granted, beyond our control and as inevitable as the rising sun. But > looked at in the long sweep of human existence, the jobs we do and the way > we do them are unlike anything we did before the rise of capitalism" . . . > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l >
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