The New and Improved Cynical Idealist

Steelworkers and Grievances

Couple of curse words in this one guys, sorry.

Been a couple of days, I'm back on a day shift schedule, so naturally, I'm waking up at 9:30 PM because going from nights to days is pretty much impossible for me to get right. Friday was our first day back on day shift.

I work in a steel mill, and we're a union shop. I'm not a member of the union officers but I get pretty involved with it. I hardly ever miss a union meeting, go to the scheduled events and appearances outside of work, and work to support all the members of the local rather than just our shop. That said, I'm pretty familiar with our most recent union contract. I keep a copy of it with me at all times at work, not to be a shit stirrer, that's not my thing. I keep it to make sure that policy, management, and S.O.P. keep in line with what was negotiated. Most of the time when someone has a problem with something, I can refer to the contract. 9 times out of 10 they're wrong.

This time, however, was my first grievance I've had to file.

To put some context on this, I spearheaded a grievance due to a pay dispute with my entire crew. Our department generally shuts down at least for 24 hours on a holiday. This particular day in question was New Year's day. Sadly, we were on an 11-7 shift for that. How the company normally operates is holding startup time back an hour to avoid paying the 2.5x pay rate for the holiday. Fair enough, I'd rather be home anyway. This time however, we were scheduled to go in at 11 on January 1st.

There are some on my crew that think we should be entitled to 8 hours of 2.5x pay, I'm not quite that zealous but I do believe we are entitled to the 1 hour of holiday pay. Which was not on our paycheck. I called payroll about the issue and was told there was nothing they could find wrong with the paycheck. Welp, wrong. Took it to a griever, and the union president after going hour for hour what our pay should have been, it was determined we were shorted 1 hour at 2.5 times pay, as stipulated in the contract.

I really didn't think it would have had to go that far, but it did. So here we are at a grievance meeting over 1 hour missing from our pay. How stupid is that? That's really the simplicity of this grievance. It's not entirely a breach of contract (it kind of is just because of how they disperse holiday pay) but I'm not splitting hairs with that. As long as mathematically it adds up, I don't care how it's done. That said, its 1 hour. 5 guys - 1 hour.

The company had an explosion a couple weeks ago at a different plant. Sadly, we lost a guy. Third generation steelworker, 20 years old. Absolute tragedy. Same plant 2 weeks later, oil spill into the Allegheny River. As you can imagine, it's been a bad couple weeks for management. While they could have been better spending their time sorting that mess out (and really the way the whole company came together for the young man that lost his life was heartwarming) instead, we're getting fought about an hour of pay.

That little tangent aside, our griever for this was new, as a matter of fact it's his first grievance since being sworn in. That's fine with me, so far of my representatives he's been the most active. That said, by about 5 minutes into our meeting, I didn't know what we were talking about anymore.

The argument between him and H.R. involved Overtime pay paid at 2.5 times rate... I don't even know where that came from. Really, that was from left field. All we want is for our paycheck to reflect the 1 hour we worked on the holiday. H.R.'s words:

"You were paid 8 hours straight time for the holiday, and an hour of overtime on top of that for the hour worked, that equals 2.5 times for the hour"

Granted he's not wrong and I didn't argue that mathematically that is correct. The argument is:
Where's the 1 hour of overtime? It's not there. That's the argument. Regardless of how you pay it, we didn't get it... that's all.

At this point, our griever and the HR manager are basically yelling at each other about going to arbitration. This really baffles me, because we're now talking about litigation with lawyer's that probably cost a few thousand dollars, for a dispute that totals about 300 bucks. (TOTAL among 5 guys) The absurdity of this really spins my head, and they were both all for it. I think our company V.P. kind of settled things down, despite what everyone feels about the guy, he is kind of a more level-headed individual than some others we got.

Not calling anyone out mind you, after all its a steel mill. Working around 3000+ degree metal all day long tends to instill a certain overzealous demeanor in people. That on top of the accident at our sister plant, there's gonna be some emotion. You short guys on their paycheck there's gonna be a lot of emotion, just how it is in the blue-collar world, losing your shit is part of the process of making shit.

All that now out in the open, I actually considered becoming a griever during the last election. I was even kind of pushed that way from the former union president and board members. After this nonsense, I'm kind of glad I didn't do it. I'm still glad to help the union whenever I can because we are still all on the same team.

It's weird thinking about that. When I worked in the nuclear industry, I was about as anti-union as it came. Nowadays I'm 100% for collective bargaining. We live in a world that sadly has outpaced the workers' ability to provide for their family, now we have this mentality of side-hustles, and second jobs, uber eats, ridesharing, dog walking on top of the 8 hour day we do at our jobs. Not bragging here, but it is really a lot of peace of mind knowing I can do a 40 hour week and not scrape to get by. Around here, the shop I work at is probably the highest or 2nd highest paying place around everywhere else is at least $10.00/hour less. It's not a perfect job. Seriously just ask anyone that works there, they'll tell you its the worst place they've ever worked because they're divas. That said, it's a good job, and I couldn't even imagine it without the USW presence it has. It would quite honestly, be a shit show more than it already is.

I know they get a bad reputation sometimes, and sometimes that reputation isn't wrong. But damn I'm glad I'm in one.