General Items
A jacket order is being put together at this time. Anyone interested in ordering one should contact me with the size, embroidered name desired, and a check for thirty five dollars to Local 210. I will also order t-shirts if anyone is interested.
There are not a lot of department specific items to report this week as every day except Friday was spent in DC lobbying and negotiating. I felt both the lobbying effort and negotiations were productive. We achieved a major goal this week with the temporary implementation of a Board of Adjustment in place of the traditional third step of the grievance process. The idea is that this will facilitate the clearing of the approximately 300 backlogged grievances in a fair and expeditious manner. Instead of having one person from Labor Relations preside over the third step decision a board of four members, two from the Teamsters and two from the Company will control the process. Several other Teamster carriers use this process with great success. The official negotiations update can be found at the top of the page. The previous blog post deals with the lobbying efforts put forth.
The Negotiating Committee was scheduled to meet with President Hoffa on Thursday, but that never transpired. Instead President Hoffa was called to the White House on urgent business. It is refreshing change that the IBT has that type of access.
Bill Wilder is an attorney with the firm Baptiste&Wilder and he does some work for the Teamsters. For those that remember, Bill did the work on the 20% outsourcing grievance, and here is a copy of the brief he submitted on our behalf. The reason I bring this up is Bill also has an RLA blog that is quite interesting. He explores topical issues dealing with the RLA including his most recent piece on a possible substantial change in the election process governed by the NMB.
MM
Some items were brought to my attention on Friday. Among other things, there were problems with RDO choices and discipline was issued to one member with no actual violation being recorded on the form. The administrative problems were mostly cleared up and I have a meeting with Stuart on Monday to go over a few more.
GQ
I spoke with Greg at some length on Friday regarding the shop. They are reviewing the equipment and staffing similar to the process all hub stations are currently performing. At this point it's too early to make any reasonable guess as to the outcome, but I will keep you informed as we move forward.
PV
I met with the new Manager, Brandon, and we are trying to schedule a meeting to discuss open items in the shop.
That's all for now,
Bob
