“Wow! You lift all these boxes all day? You must be strong.”
“Of course when you come they give you all the heavy stuff. When the guys come they only have one small box.”
“You must be tough. Even most the guys don’t like this route.”
These are the small sexist comments I have to deal with almost on a daily basis. Yeah, I’m a woman and I do a “man’s job.” That’s because women are capable of doing work traditionally held for men only. Get the fuck over it and stop being condescending shit heads.
When I used to drive semis, almost on a weekly basis, someone would look at my truck and say, “That sure is a big truck.”
Do you think they would say that to a man?
“No, actually, it’s only thirty-eight feet. Most trailers are fifty-two feet. So it’s kinda small,” was what I would reply if I was in a bad mood. Mostly I would ignore them and pretend they didn’t even exist. Incredulously, I’ve had two people make that comment about the package car I was driving. Yes, women can drive. Shocking.
-----
“Are you going to carry that?” said a Hell’s Angel at the Harley shop.
“Carry what?” I replied.
“Those boxes,” he indicated a stack of boxes that I had been loading onto my handcart.
“Um, no. I’m going to roll them on my cart,” I said, in a kinda snotty tone.
“Well, I was just going to offer some help.”
“Why would I need that?”
“Geeze. Some women will slap you for opening a door for them,” he mused.
For the record, I love it when people open the door for me, especially if I’m carrying boxes. He wasn’t offering to be polite, he was implying that women shouldn’t be doing heavy lifting. He can fuck off.
----
“Hello, sir?”
That’s what I often hear when I’m in my truck and someone wants my attention. They assume I am a man because I’m in a truck.
“Yes, sir?”
That’s what I often hear when I walk into a business and I call out to get their attention. They see the brown uniform, the short hair and baseball cap, and assume I’m a man.
“Are you a man or a woman?” asked a man who I had just explained to that I will be out of his way in two-minutes.
I said nothing.
“You’re not going to tell me?”
“I don’t think I should have to help you out with this one.”
“Well, you look like a man, but you sound like a lady.”
No. No I don’t look like a man. And most people who “sir” me correct themselves the second they get a good look at my face. That’s because I have a soft jaw line. And I know my sports-bra bound b-cup is sometimes hard to distinguish in a loose fitting shirt, but they’re noticeable (not that I want people staring). Plus, I have hips, and my hips don’t lie.
But I have never been so angry to be sir-ed as when a pre-load supervisor said it to me the other morning. I was about to leave, but he knocked on my back door to get my attention. I opened the truck back up, and he was walking away.
“Hey! Did you knock on my truck?”
“Yeah, you have Easter flowers.”
He brought boxes of flowers down the line to different trucks. But, why, when we’ve been experiencing layoffs, was he doing the work of a union employee? So I went to find a pre-load steward to put an end to that. As we walked up together, I pointed to the supervisor and the boxes he was sorting. He saw me point.
“What’s your truck number?” the Supervisor asked.
I told him. He looked at the boxes and told me there was nothing for me.
“So you held me up for no reason?”
“Yes, sir.”
Oh, no he didn’t. Most people call me sir because they conform to gender norms, and I confuse them. Women look a certain way and engage in certain activities, but not others. Men look a certain way and engage in certain activities. A baseball cap—that’s men’s attire. Professional driving—that’s man’s domain. But this supervisor wasn’t confused. This was not the first day we ever saw each other. He was mad that I called him out first for handling packages when that’s forbidden by the contract, and then for his mistake in making me wait. So he fired back by using sexism, in combination with homophobia, as a weapon. He wasn’t being condescending, he was being vicious. He doesn’t need to fuck off, he needs to watch his ass.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Friday, April 10, 2009
Just a Silly Story
So, I could write about the hell my customers gave the poor driver who did my route last week. She got all the complaints I did when I started my route, and a couple even flat out yelled at her (I went back to them and told them no more yelling), but you all know about the cranky nature of my customers already.
I could write about the new $500 million investment the company has launched to help “save cost” by finding new ways to fire drivers. But I’m already in a bad mood, so harping on that might work me up to point where I’m a hazard on the road.
So, I’m gonna tell you about a funny story that happened months ago on another route. Before my name came up on the bid list for my current route, I had a temporary bid for someone else’s route. Basically, when another driver owns a route, but is absent (due to injury, alternate work assignment, or some other long term absence) they get to keep their route for when they return, but management will often allow (at the insistence of the union) a temporary bid so a floater driver has a more stable home for awhile.
I loved that other route. The driver came back to it only a few weeks before I was offered my current route. If he hadn’t come back, I would have passed up the other route to keep the temporary bid.
The route was half retail shops along the street (which provided many opportunities to double park and piss people off), and half residential (which provided many opportunities to meet interesting people who often did their best to piss me off). That route was certainly more colorful, and I miss the variety of it. But none of this is the funny part.
I once had a delivery for an empty shop—a shop that had been empty for months with nothing but naked mannequins in the windows. When I saw the boxes for the shop, I did stop to make sure it was still closed. I looked through the glass and saw nothing new—no desk with register, no new merchandise. So sent the boxes back as “address vacant.”
Later in the week, the woman in our office who fields the customer service calls asked me, “Do you remember a delivery for forty-two eighteen ____ Blvd that you sent back as vacant?”
“Yeah,” I replied.
“Why did you think it was vacant?”
“Because there’s nothing in there.”
“Nothing?” she asked. “There weren’t naked mannequins or anything?”
“There were naked mannequins.”
“Do you know why they were naked?” She started to giggle.
“Why?”
“Because you had their clothes in the boxes you sent back.”
Oops.
I could write about the new $500 million investment the company has launched to help “save cost” by finding new ways to fire drivers. But I’m already in a bad mood, so harping on that might work me up to point where I’m a hazard on the road.
So, I’m gonna tell you about a funny story that happened months ago on another route. Before my name came up on the bid list for my current route, I had a temporary bid for someone else’s route. Basically, when another driver owns a route, but is absent (due to injury, alternate work assignment, or some other long term absence) they get to keep their route for when they return, but management will often allow (at the insistence of the union) a temporary bid so a floater driver has a more stable home for awhile.
I loved that other route. The driver came back to it only a few weeks before I was offered my current route. If he hadn’t come back, I would have passed up the other route to keep the temporary bid.
The route was half retail shops along the street (which provided many opportunities to double park and piss people off), and half residential (which provided many opportunities to meet interesting people who often did their best to piss me off). That route was certainly more colorful, and I miss the variety of it. But none of this is the funny part.
I once had a delivery for an empty shop—a shop that had been empty for months with nothing but naked mannequins in the windows. When I saw the boxes for the shop, I did stop to make sure it was still closed. I looked through the glass and saw nothing new—no desk with register, no new merchandise. So sent the boxes back as “address vacant.”
Later in the week, the woman in our office who fields the customer service calls asked me, “Do you remember a delivery for forty-two eighteen ____ Blvd that you sent back as vacant?”
“Yeah,” I replied.
“Why did you think it was vacant?”
“Because there’s nothing in there.”
“Nothing?” she asked. “There weren’t naked mannequins or anything?”
“There were naked mannequins.”
“Do you know why they were naked?” She started to giggle.
“Why?”
“Because you had their clothes in the boxes you sent back.”
Oops.
Friday, April 3, 2009
A couple of updates
Sorry I haven’t been updating my blog. The problem is that now that I know my route well, and my customers like me, and I’m not forced to work unwanted overtime in areas where I get in people’s way or meet interesting people, nothing funny happens to me anymore. Basically, I’m fairly contented with my job, and my customers are fairly contented with me. That’s a good thing, but it makes for boring blog material. Plus, I’ve been on vacation this week, so I’ve been trying not to think about work.
But I do have some updates for you. The first is about my wrist injury. It only took four days before the company caved in. My steward (updates on the steward election next) helped me by talking to the woman in charge of dealing with worker’s comp claims. He told her that I would like a second opinion, and that he had advised me to get a lawyer. Four days later, I got a call from the doctor’s office informing me of a new appointment I had with the hand specialist. When I saw the worker’s comp woman, she explained it to me.
“Basically,” she said, “Dr. _____ said that if you ask ten doctors, five would say it’s industrially related, and five would say it’s not, so since it’s easy to treat, he said let’s go ahead and treat her.”
Wait, that’s it? But I had planned to dig in my heels, line up allies, and have a good ol’ fashioned righteous fight with the company.
Fine, I won’t call a lawyer, but I still insist on seeing my own doctor. I just don’t like the idea of my employer and doctor (who my employer uses on an ongoing basis for worker’s comp claims) colluding about my care. It makes me think that the doctor tries to give favorable outcomes to the company so they continue to choose that practice.
She tried to convince me not see my own doctor:
Gentle manipulation: “Why don’t you just try this specialist first and see if you like him.”
Scare tactics: “The problem I’ve run into with outside doctors is that they don’t submit reports in a timely manner and it delays payments and such for you if you end up off work.”
Intimidation: “Well, tell me why you don’t want to see Dr._____.”
Now, I don’t have to tell her that. It shouldn’t matter. She shouldn’t be asking. But I told her that I wanted someone neutral.
“He is neutral,” she tried to convince me. “He has his own practice and only comes to [this office] once a week.”
Any doctor hired by the company is a company doctor to me. I won’t ever be falling into that trap again.
Now, for the steward elections. My guy lost by one vote. The driver who won, was the other guy I considered supporting. He and I had many conversations over the weeks leading up to the election. I must have made an impression on him because as soon as the results were in, he called me and invited me to be his alternate steward. I had no idea he had planned to do that.
But alas, the final decision is up to our Business Agent (BA) because alternate stewards are actually appointed by him, not the steward. He just usually appoints who the stewards want to work with. My steward told me right away that the BA was not happy with him choosing me, but that he was still going to push for me because he felt we need strong leadership and we need women in power. We have one African American official on our Local leadership board, the rest are aging white men. He thinks that’s a problem, and feels we need more diversity in leadership. I like the way he thinks.
But I can be contentious (surprise!). I bring up topics the leadership would prefer not to deal with. And quite frankly, I challenge the union bureaucracy, and the BA relies on that Bureaucracy. So elevating my leadership status is threatening to the BA. And he finally won. My steward called me a couple days ago and said he was tired of arguing over my appointment. He felt that if he continued to demand me as alternate steward he would not have the support he needed from the BA when it came to fighting grievances, etc.
“But I’m still going to train you. I still want to work with you. Eventually the contract will be up and there will be another election and opportunity for you. And I still think we need women leaders,” he assured me.
He has chosen another woman driver to be his alternate. Someone who I think will do an excellent job because she already speaks up for drivers.
I would have liked to be the alternate, but the important thing is that I’ve already established myself as a leader among some of the drivers. I’ve earned their respect, and I’ve strengthened our working relationship. As this economic crisis deepens, management will crack down on us harder and harder. It will take a cohesive and strong rank and file response to protect us. We can build that in our workplace despite our BA.
But I do have some updates for you. The first is about my wrist injury. It only took four days before the company caved in. My steward (updates on the steward election next) helped me by talking to the woman in charge of dealing with worker’s comp claims. He told her that I would like a second opinion, and that he had advised me to get a lawyer. Four days later, I got a call from the doctor’s office informing me of a new appointment I had with the hand specialist. When I saw the worker’s comp woman, she explained it to me.
“Basically,” she said, “Dr. _____ said that if you ask ten doctors, five would say it’s industrially related, and five would say it’s not, so since it’s easy to treat, he said let’s go ahead and treat her.”
Wait, that’s it? But I had planned to dig in my heels, line up allies, and have a good ol’ fashioned righteous fight with the company.
Fine, I won’t call a lawyer, but I still insist on seeing my own doctor. I just don’t like the idea of my employer and doctor (who my employer uses on an ongoing basis for worker’s comp claims) colluding about my care. It makes me think that the doctor tries to give favorable outcomes to the company so they continue to choose that practice.
She tried to convince me not see my own doctor:
Gentle manipulation: “Why don’t you just try this specialist first and see if you like him.”
Scare tactics: “The problem I’ve run into with outside doctors is that they don’t submit reports in a timely manner and it delays payments and such for you if you end up off work.”
Intimidation: “Well, tell me why you don’t want to see Dr._____.”
Now, I don’t have to tell her that. It shouldn’t matter. She shouldn’t be asking. But I told her that I wanted someone neutral.
“He is neutral,” she tried to convince me. “He has his own practice and only comes to [this office] once a week.”
Any doctor hired by the company is a company doctor to me. I won’t ever be falling into that trap again.
Now, for the steward elections. My guy lost by one vote. The driver who won, was the other guy I considered supporting. He and I had many conversations over the weeks leading up to the election. I must have made an impression on him because as soon as the results were in, he called me and invited me to be his alternate steward. I had no idea he had planned to do that.
But alas, the final decision is up to our Business Agent (BA) because alternate stewards are actually appointed by him, not the steward. He just usually appoints who the stewards want to work with. My steward told me right away that the BA was not happy with him choosing me, but that he was still going to push for me because he felt we need strong leadership and we need women in power. We have one African American official on our Local leadership board, the rest are aging white men. He thinks that’s a problem, and feels we need more diversity in leadership. I like the way he thinks.
But I can be contentious (surprise!). I bring up topics the leadership would prefer not to deal with. And quite frankly, I challenge the union bureaucracy, and the BA relies on that Bureaucracy. So elevating my leadership status is threatening to the BA. And he finally won. My steward called me a couple days ago and said he was tired of arguing over my appointment. He felt that if he continued to demand me as alternate steward he would not have the support he needed from the BA when it came to fighting grievances, etc.
“But I’m still going to train you. I still want to work with you. Eventually the contract will be up and there will be another election and opportunity for you. And I still think we need women leaders,” he assured me.
He has chosen another woman driver to be his alternate. Someone who I think will do an excellent job because she already speaks up for drivers.
I would have liked to be the alternate, but the important thing is that I’ve already established myself as a leader among some of the drivers. I’ve earned their respect, and I’ve strengthened our working relationship. As this economic crisis deepens, management will crack down on us harder and harder. It will take a cohesive and strong rank and file response to protect us. We can build that in our workplace despite our BA.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
A Battle I Don't Want
Yesterday marked the beginning of two battles. One good, one bad.
I’ll begin with the good news. Steward elections have finally officially begun. A nomination sheet went up in our center and the voting will happen on Friday. I decided to support the guy who asked me to be his alternate. Although, no matter who wins, I think we’ll be in good hands. I just know that one day I want to be a steward, so if I think there is more than one good candidate, it makes sense to support the one who will support me back and help teach me.
Now, the bad news. I’ve have been getting treatment for a worker’s comp injury for a few months now. My wrist has been hurting me for about three years, and I finally told someone last October. I’ve been through two rounds of physical therapy and the pain has just never gone away. So last week they did an MRI and found a ganglion cyst.
My doctor, who is the company’s choice of a doctor, immediately told me that ganglions can form in anyone for any reason, so it’s not industrially caused and released me from worker’s comp.
But as someone I know who works in HR for another company told me, “That’s bullshit.” I know people both at UPS and in other companies who have been treated for ganglion cysts through worker’s comp. There may be many reasons a person develops a cyst, but I’ve been doing some Googling, and as it turns out, people who put repeated stress on their hands are at increased risk. One website sited gymnasts as an example of a population who frequently gets these. I imagine I put just as much stress on my wrist as a gymnast does.
Not only that, but the pain increases when I’m working. One of the treatment options is to do nothing. Because of my job, that’s not an option for me.
So I’m starting with a second opinion, and then I’ll move on to finding a lawyer.
Of course, if we had single-payer health care in this country, this wouldn't be an issue. Come on Obama, where's my change? Oh, wait, single-payer isn't on the table.
I’ll begin with the good news. Steward elections have finally officially begun. A nomination sheet went up in our center and the voting will happen on Friday. I decided to support the guy who asked me to be his alternate. Although, no matter who wins, I think we’ll be in good hands. I just know that one day I want to be a steward, so if I think there is more than one good candidate, it makes sense to support the one who will support me back and help teach me.
Now, the bad news. I’ve have been getting treatment for a worker’s comp injury for a few months now. My wrist has been hurting me for about three years, and I finally told someone last October. I’ve been through two rounds of physical therapy and the pain has just never gone away. So last week they did an MRI and found a ganglion cyst.
My doctor, who is the company’s choice of a doctor, immediately told me that ganglions can form in anyone for any reason, so it’s not industrially caused and released me from worker’s comp.
But as someone I know who works in HR for another company told me, “That’s bullshit.” I know people both at UPS and in other companies who have been treated for ganglion cysts through worker’s comp. There may be many reasons a person develops a cyst, but I’ve been doing some Googling, and as it turns out, people who put repeated stress on their hands are at increased risk. One website sited gymnasts as an example of a population who frequently gets these. I imagine I put just as much stress on my wrist as a gymnast does.
Not only that, but the pain increases when I’m working. One of the treatment options is to do nothing. Because of my job, that’s not an option for me.
So I’m starting with a second opinion, and then I’ll move on to finding a lawyer.
Of course, if we had single-payer health care in this country, this wouldn't be an issue. Come on Obama, where's my change? Oh, wait, single-payer isn't on the table.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Making Them Love Me
I returned to work yesterday after a two day absence, and I knew something wrong must have happened when my supervisor told me, “We miss you when you’re not here.”
“Thank you,” is what I said.
Ok, that’s weird, is what I thought.
But it wasn’t just my sup who was relieved to see me. I arrived at my first customer, who is always my first stop of the day.
“I only have three for you today,” I said, which is also weird since usually he has 10 or more.
“At least it’s here at a decent time. Yesterday we didn’t get our stuff until 4:30. I asked the driver, ‘Are these deliveries for tomorrow.’”
I laughed with the customer, but felt the frustration of the driver who had to put up that kind of comment after dealing with a shitty day.
Only three stops later, I had another comment.
“JD! You’re back! Hey, are we on your list of pick-ups?”
“No, somehow you got deleted out of it. I’ve been trying to fix it, but I think I’ve been talking to the wrong person.”
“Yeah, you know to stop, but that other guy—I had to track him down.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” he said, assuring me he wasn’t angry with me.
“Yeah, it’s not his fault either. I’ll make sure it gets fixed.”
Only two stops after that, I asked my usual polite question, “Hey, how’s it going?” expecting the usual response.
But what I heard instead was, “Great, now that you’re back.”
And later another customer: “Where have you been? It’s been a mess.”
Another customer: “Oh, good. You’re here early. The other driver was getting here late.”
Another customer: “Oh, good, our taxes! This package was given, and this wasn’t you, I know, but it was given by the other driver to the wrong address, I think across the street.”
“Oh no, I’m sorry.”
“Well it’s not your fault, but blah blah blah blah blah blah.”
“Wow, that’s annoying. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, it’s not your fault it’s just blah blah blah blah blah.”
“Right, well, I’m glad we could get it back for you, sorry it’s late.”
“Well,” she said still looking disappointed for some reason, “It’s not your fault.”
“Ok, have a nice day.”
Still another customer said to me, “We needed a pick-up yesterday and the driver never came.”
“Oh, no. Did you call it in?” This customer does not pay for everyday pick-up service.
“Yeah, I called the one-eight-hundred number.”
“Wow. I’m sorry.”
“Well, it’s not you’re fault, but it was next day air for the East coast, and blah blah blah blah blah.”
“Oh geeze, I’m really sorry.”
“Well, I’m going to have something going out today.”
“I will definitely be back to pick it up.” And thankfully, I remembered to do that.
I haven’t heard these people complain this much since I first started the route. Management sent a driver out cold. It’s not uncommon to be thrown out on route that we’ve never seen before, but generally, on a route like mine, they’ll send a supervisor to help train. This probably is no consolation for my customers, but that poor driver most definitely had a shittier two days than all of them combined.
And even though I had to deal with complaints all day, it sure felt good not to be the one complained about. Do they remember how much they hated me? That’s all over now. All I had to do was take a couple days off when they didn’t have a cover driver who knew the route.
So now my customers love me, and I love the route. I haven’t said this before because I didn’t want to jinx it (nothing is ever guaranteed or permanent at Big Brown), but I got management to take off the residential stops on my truck. I only work eight hours a day now! I’m actually looking forward to going to work today.
“Thank you,” is what I said.
Ok, that’s weird, is what I thought.
But it wasn’t just my sup who was relieved to see me. I arrived at my first customer, who is always my first stop of the day.
“I only have three for you today,” I said, which is also weird since usually he has 10 or more.
“At least it’s here at a decent time. Yesterday we didn’t get our stuff until 4:30. I asked the driver, ‘Are these deliveries for tomorrow.’”
I laughed with the customer, but felt the frustration of the driver who had to put up that kind of comment after dealing with a shitty day.
Only three stops later, I had another comment.
“JD! You’re back! Hey, are we on your list of pick-ups?”
“No, somehow you got deleted out of it. I’ve been trying to fix it, but I think I’ve been talking to the wrong person.”
“Yeah, you know to stop, but that other guy—I had to track him down.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” he said, assuring me he wasn’t angry with me.
“Yeah, it’s not his fault either. I’ll make sure it gets fixed.”
Only two stops after that, I asked my usual polite question, “Hey, how’s it going?” expecting the usual response.
But what I heard instead was, “Great, now that you’re back.”
And later another customer: “Where have you been? It’s been a mess.”
Another customer: “Oh, good. You’re here early. The other driver was getting here late.”
Another customer: “Oh, good, our taxes! This package was given, and this wasn’t you, I know, but it was given by the other driver to the wrong address, I think across the street.”
“Oh no, I’m sorry.”
“Well it’s not your fault, but blah blah blah blah blah blah.”
“Wow, that’s annoying. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, it’s not your fault it’s just blah blah blah blah blah.”
“Right, well, I’m glad we could get it back for you, sorry it’s late.”
“Well,” she said still looking disappointed for some reason, “It’s not your fault.”
“Ok, have a nice day.”
Still another customer said to me, “We needed a pick-up yesterday and the driver never came.”
“Oh, no. Did you call it in?” This customer does not pay for everyday pick-up service.
“Yeah, I called the one-eight-hundred number.”
“Wow. I’m sorry.”
“Well, it’s not you’re fault, but it was next day air for the East coast, and blah blah blah blah blah.”
“Oh geeze, I’m really sorry.”
“Well, I’m going to have something going out today.”
“I will definitely be back to pick it up.” And thankfully, I remembered to do that.
I haven’t heard these people complain this much since I first started the route. Management sent a driver out cold. It’s not uncommon to be thrown out on route that we’ve never seen before, but generally, on a route like mine, they’ll send a supervisor to help train. This probably is no consolation for my customers, but that poor driver most definitely had a shittier two days than all of them combined.
And even though I had to deal with complaints all day, it sure felt good not to be the one complained about. Do they remember how much they hated me? That’s all over now. All I had to do was take a couple days off when they didn’t have a cover driver who knew the route.
So now my customers love me, and I love the route. I haven’t said this before because I didn’t want to jinx it (nothing is ever guaranteed or permanent at Big Brown), but I got management to take off the residential stops on my truck. I only work eight hours a day now! I’m actually looking forward to going to work today.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
a union dilema
One side effect of the downsizing on my building is that we lost a center. We had 4 centers—each covering a different city or area, and to cut management costs, they decided to merge them into 3 centers. For the union, this means we need to have new steward elections.
I’ve only been driving for 4½ years, but I’m fairly active in the union. I ran last time we had steward elections and got my ass kicked. Winning wasn’t my objective though. I just wanted to put myself out there as a union activist.
This time around, the nomination sheets haven’t even been posted and I’m being courted by three drivers.
The first one to ask for my support is someone who is critical of the union bureaucracy and was steward before I started working there, so I don’t know first hand how he works, but from rumors, he has a good record. I thought he would be the person I supported, but in consequent conversations, he has been dismissive of my arguments around rank and file power to take on both the union and company. He keeps talking about how no one got fired when he was steward and his record filing grievances. Those things are important, but what I’ve tried to impress on him and my other co-workers is that in this economic crisis, the company will be coming down hard on us, and we need to shove back whether or not we have official approval from the Local leadership. We need to look beyond just the grievance procedure.
The other two have been more open to the idea that this is a new period requiring new tactics from us. Eventually, the company will want to re-open the contract, and when that happens, we can’t rely on the International to fight with the tenacity we need to resist concessions. We need to be ready to take action.
The next driver who asked for my support actually requested I be his alternate steward. We would run as a slate. Since I don’t feel confident to run for steward myself (the company would know I am inexperienced and walk all over me), learning the ropes as an alternate makes sense. At first though, I didn’t want to support this driver because he doesn’t come to work all that often. He was the alternate before, and he was gone on injury a lot. He also was on the safety committee which allowed him to sit in the office while the rest of us broke our backs delivering packages. The union has set a rule saying you have to be steward to be on safety committee. Could it be he just wants to be steward to remain on safety committee?
But when he was around, he was actually the steward I wanted to talk to. He was more responsive than the head steward and even though he didn’t actually file the grievances (because the head steward wanted to control them), he would confront management for me much more readily. And, I like some of the ideas he has of using the morning meetings to announce union stuff. He also agrees with me that we don’t have to wait for our business agent to call a driver meeting.
Plus, he was flattering when he asked me to run with him. He likes what I bring to the table, knows I go to the meetings and am active in the union, I think outside the box and have a lot to offer. Plus, I’m a woman. I bring a different dynamic and perspective that will be important for the members. These are all things he said. Which makes me believe he is sincere. So I agreed.
But that was when I thought there were only two people in the running. A third driver’s hat is in the ring. He was the steward from the other center we merged with. I originally was told he was not going to run again because he was going to start working with the International. Apparently, that was just rumor. He has a good track record and is respected by his drivers. He also has a broader vision of the labor movement. Not only does he agree that we need a driver meeting and that we don’t need to wait for the BA to call it, he knows we need to ask the drivers about what their issues are and come up with a good agenda so that we actually accomplish something at the meeting. He’s been active in organizing drives with the Local. The philosophy he espoused to me is that he can’t be steward by himself. He needs a team of people, like me, who will be active and support him. My support would be welcome because he knows he wouldn’t have to pull teeth to get me to meetings and such. He, too, seems sincere.
What the hell do I do?
I’ve only been driving for 4½ years, but I’m fairly active in the union. I ran last time we had steward elections and got my ass kicked. Winning wasn’t my objective though. I just wanted to put myself out there as a union activist.
This time around, the nomination sheets haven’t even been posted and I’m being courted by three drivers.
The first one to ask for my support is someone who is critical of the union bureaucracy and was steward before I started working there, so I don’t know first hand how he works, but from rumors, he has a good record. I thought he would be the person I supported, but in consequent conversations, he has been dismissive of my arguments around rank and file power to take on both the union and company. He keeps talking about how no one got fired when he was steward and his record filing grievances. Those things are important, but what I’ve tried to impress on him and my other co-workers is that in this economic crisis, the company will be coming down hard on us, and we need to shove back whether or not we have official approval from the Local leadership. We need to look beyond just the grievance procedure.
The other two have been more open to the idea that this is a new period requiring new tactics from us. Eventually, the company will want to re-open the contract, and when that happens, we can’t rely on the International to fight with the tenacity we need to resist concessions. We need to be ready to take action.
The next driver who asked for my support actually requested I be his alternate steward. We would run as a slate. Since I don’t feel confident to run for steward myself (the company would know I am inexperienced and walk all over me), learning the ropes as an alternate makes sense. At first though, I didn’t want to support this driver because he doesn’t come to work all that often. He was the alternate before, and he was gone on injury a lot. He also was on the safety committee which allowed him to sit in the office while the rest of us broke our backs delivering packages. The union has set a rule saying you have to be steward to be on safety committee. Could it be he just wants to be steward to remain on safety committee?
But when he was around, he was actually the steward I wanted to talk to. He was more responsive than the head steward and even though he didn’t actually file the grievances (because the head steward wanted to control them), he would confront management for me much more readily. And, I like some of the ideas he has of using the morning meetings to announce union stuff. He also agrees with me that we don’t have to wait for our business agent to call a driver meeting.
Plus, he was flattering when he asked me to run with him. He likes what I bring to the table, knows I go to the meetings and am active in the union, I think outside the box and have a lot to offer. Plus, I’m a woman. I bring a different dynamic and perspective that will be important for the members. These are all things he said. Which makes me believe he is sincere. So I agreed.
But that was when I thought there were only two people in the running. A third driver’s hat is in the ring. He was the steward from the other center we merged with. I originally was told he was not going to run again because he was going to start working with the International. Apparently, that was just rumor. He has a good track record and is respected by his drivers. He also has a broader vision of the labor movement. Not only does he agree that we need a driver meeting and that we don’t need to wait for the BA to call it, he knows we need to ask the drivers about what their issues are and come up with a good agenda so that we actually accomplish something at the meeting. He’s been active in organizing drives with the Local. The philosophy he espoused to me is that he can’t be steward by himself. He needs a team of people, like me, who will be active and support him. My support would be welcome because he knows he wouldn’t have to pull teeth to get me to meetings and such. He, too, seems sincere.
What the hell do I do?
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Lay offs
Last Saturday, I ran into a man from our Business Development (BD) department. BD is responsible for finding and keeping new customers. They have created “project lead” to encourage drivers to talk to customers who currently ship with the competition about switching to Big Brown. If we submit info from a company that starts to ship with us, we get a monetary bonus—the more they ship, the more we get for 3 months.
After BD guy and I exchanged pleasantries, he said, “So drivers are being laid off. Do you think you all will be more motivated to find new sales leads and grow the business?”
“No.”
He looked surprised and disappointed. “Why not? Why wouldn’t drivers want to secure their jobs by finding new business?”
“One, because there aren’t a lot of new opportunities cropping up. And two, because it won’t make a difference. Drivers are still over dispatched. We think the best way to prevent more layoffs is by stopping the over dispatching, and putting more trucks on the road. I mean, last Wednesday I got a call from my sup asking if I wanted the day off. I said no, and later that afternoon I was asked if I wanted to help someone who couldn’t finish their route. Why send drivers home when others have so much work they can’t even finish?”
“Well,” he said in an apologetic tone, “It’s all about the numbers. The company wants us to run numbers that will help us stay profitable. We have to answer to the investors.”
He rattled off that answer thinking I would see the common sense in it. Instead, I challenged him. “Why are you more worried about investors than the workers? We’re the ones who produce the profit in the first place.”
He nodded in an unsettled manner. Finally, he decided a change of topic was in order, he reached for the flyer I had been handing out to people, “So what’s this event your advertising? Who is Howard Zinn?”
Oh, the logic of Wall Street. When he says “stay profitable” he means fewer trucks equals less gas and maintenance, and fewer drivers means less benefits to pay. It’s cheaper to pay overtime. So some drivers must be overworked, so that others can be laid off.
There are many backwards aspects about Capitalism, the most glaring being the prioritization of profits above all else. The current crisis has exposed this fact in no uncertain terms.
But here’s the twisted thing, Big Brown has stayed profitable so far. In 2008, revenue was up 3.6%, and they raked in $829 million in the 4th quarter alone. To be fair, volume has fallen dramatically, so profits have declined causing stock prices to decrease also. So share holders want to know what the company is doing to minimize profit loss. What they are doing is violating the contract by eliminating full time jobs (forcing people into part time work only), and laying off drivers. This makes sound business sense, but is a disaster for the families affected.
This brings me to the question of what do I work for? Of course I work because otherwise I would be starving and homeless (Capitalism is a system that withholds everything unless you pay money for it, otherwise no profit could be made). But I do not work for me and my family. If that were the case, I would deliver at least 100 fewer packages a day and never work a minute over 8 hours, no, make that 7 hours, a day. Nor do I work for you. The service I provide is secondary to the main goal. I work so other people can get rich—the bosses, the shareholders, they all benefit from paying me less money than my labor produces. That is why I work, that is why you work, that is why we get laid off even when there is plenty of work that could be done. If our labor isn’t making a profit, what is our labor good for?
Unfortunately, the Union also accepts this logic. At the threat of layoffs, they sent around a handout for advice. They didn’t call us all into a meeting to address the problem and come up with a solution. They wrote up a flyer. Advice point number one? Accept a layoff. Two? Get on the 9.5 grievance. The 9.5 grievance still allows them to work us past 9.5 hours two days a week, so technically they could force 12.5 hours of overtime on a driver in a week without paying penalties. The last point? We have seniority over inside jobs, so we can take one of those. I wonder what the union’s advice was for the loaders.
Of course, BD guy’s advice is to find more sales leads, but that just sounds like more work for me when I already have more than I can handle.
My solution? Well, short of the advice given by Marx in the Communist Manifesto, there are still actions we could take to alleviate some of the impact today. Work-to-rule tactics can be tried. Solidarity rallies can be held with other unions to embarrass and pressure the employers. Anything that involves rank and file militancy to shift the balance of power from the bosses to the workers. If you have any concrete ideas, I’d love to hear them.
http://makeupsdeliver.org/news.php?extend.205
http://socialistworker.org/2009/02/16/return-of-marx
After BD guy and I exchanged pleasantries, he said, “So drivers are being laid off. Do you think you all will be more motivated to find new sales leads and grow the business?”
“No.”
He looked surprised and disappointed. “Why not? Why wouldn’t drivers want to secure their jobs by finding new business?”
“One, because there aren’t a lot of new opportunities cropping up. And two, because it won’t make a difference. Drivers are still over dispatched. We think the best way to prevent more layoffs is by stopping the over dispatching, and putting more trucks on the road. I mean, last Wednesday I got a call from my sup asking if I wanted the day off. I said no, and later that afternoon I was asked if I wanted to help someone who couldn’t finish their route. Why send drivers home when others have so much work they can’t even finish?”
“Well,” he said in an apologetic tone, “It’s all about the numbers. The company wants us to run numbers that will help us stay profitable. We have to answer to the investors.”
He rattled off that answer thinking I would see the common sense in it. Instead, I challenged him. “Why are you more worried about investors than the workers? We’re the ones who produce the profit in the first place.”
He nodded in an unsettled manner. Finally, he decided a change of topic was in order, he reached for the flyer I had been handing out to people, “So what’s this event your advertising? Who is Howard Zinn?”
Oh, the logic of Wall Street. When he says “stay profitable” he means fewer trucks equals less gas and maintenance, and fewer drivers means less benefits to pay. It’s cheaper to pay overtime. So some drivers must be overworked, so that others can be laid off.
There are many backwards aspects about Capitalism, the most glaring being the prioritization of profits above all else. The current crisis has exposed this fact in no uncertain terms.
But here’s the twisted thing, Big Brown has stayed profitable so far. In 2008, revenue was up 3.6%, and they raked in $829 million in the 4th quarter alone. To be fair, volume has fallen dramatically, so profits have declined causing stock prices to decrease also. So share holders want to know what the company is doing to minimize profit loss. What they are doing is violating the contract by eliminating full time jobs (forcing people into part time work only), and laying off drivers. This makes sound business sense, but is a disaster for the families affected.
This brings me to the question of what do I work for? Of course I work because otherwise I would be starving and homeless (Capitalism is a system that withholds everything unless you pay money for it, otherwise no profit could be made). But I do not work for me and my family. If that were the case, I would deliver at least 100 fewer packages a day and never work a minute over 8 hours, no, make that 7 hours, a day. Nor do I work for you. The service I provide is secondary to the main goal. I work so other people can get rich—the bosses, the shareholders, they all benefit from paying me less money than my labor produces. That is why I work, that is why you work, that is why we get laid off even when there is plenty of work that could be done. If our labor isn’t making a profit, what is our labor good for?
Unfortunately, the Union also accepts this logic. At the threat of layoffs, they sent around a handout for advice. They didn’t call us all into a meeting to address the problem and come up with a solution. They wrote up a flyer. Advice point number one? Accept a layoff. Two? Get on the 9.5 grievance. The 9.5 grievance still allows them to work us past 9.5 hours two days a week, so technically they could force 12.5 hours of overtime on a driver in a week without paying penalties. The last point? We have seniority over inside jobs, so we can take one of those. I wonder what the union’s advice was for the loaders.
Of course, BD guy’s advice is to find more sales leads, but that just sounds like more work for me when I already have more than I can handle.
My solution? Well, short of the advice given by Marx in the Communist Manifesto, there are still actions we could take to alleviate some of the impact today. Work-to-rule tactics can be tried. Solidarity rallies can be held with other unions to embarrass and pressure the employers. Anything that involves rank and file militancy to shift the balance of power from the bosses to the workers. If you have any concrete ideas, I’d love to hear them.
http://makeupsdeliver.org/news.php?extend.205
http://socialistworker.org/2009/02/16/return-of-marx
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