Today July 24th the workman’s committee signed the ratification document for the contract. Now it’s time to move on to other business we need to address. At times we tend to make knee jerk reactions when emotions are high. The last few weeks have definitely fallen into this category for most of us, especially those of us having deal with the company on a daily basis. The committee has decided to take a more organized approach to team involvement than emotions initially caused.
A “Data Demand Letter” has been issued to the company requesting information on all teams involving represented employees at the LCR/EXCEL complex. The information requested is 1. Charter, 2. purpose and function, 3. membership and makeup of the teams.
Once this information is received, it will be reviewed by the committee and the International Representative to determine the path forward on team participation.
The following guidelines were issued by the International in the past to govern how teams should be set up. This is some of the information we will be considering when we review the data and make decisions on the teams currently in place.
The following guidelines will govern represented employee participation on any joint teams or programs.
1. The chairperson or other co-equal member of the team should be chosen by the Union in a manner determined by the Union. The leadership of the Local Union shall be fully empowered to act in an equal capacity as management representatives.
2. The Local Union representative(s) reserve the right to veto any issue coming before a joint team to the same degree as any management official may retain such a right.
3. Union representative(s) to the team(s) report regularly to the Union Bargaining Committee and the membership, during the monthly Union meeting.
4. Clear guidelines for the team’s work are developed and agreed, to-wit:
a. Agree on a mission statement; that is a clear statement of the purpose of the team. The mission statement must unequivocally state that the company respects the Union’s legitimate role in the work place.
b. Decide on key goals-what two or three elements are crucial for the Union to achieve in the immediate period of time following implementation, in part to determine whether continued participation is worthwhile.
c. The team(s) shall not deal with or discuss matters covered under the collective bargaining agreement.
5. The company will permit representatives of the International Union to attend any meetings at any level of the program at the discretion of the Union.
6. The Union retains the right to select all Union representatives without any input from the company.
7. Either party retains the right to withdraw from participation on joint teams or programs.
We will have updates as soon as we get the information and can make a decision.
We have had a couple of members ask about taking set-ups to do non-represented work. The Workman’s Committee’s position, and the position of the International Representative is that represented employees should be doing represented work. One of the issues we took to the table for negotiations was elimination of mandatory call for operations. We had no success on this, although we did make some improvements around mandatory call when persons were doing work outside the schedule. Along with operations, mechanical now faces mandatory call. The reason we take the position that represented employees should not do non-represented work is that Conoco staffs our jobs only to the level needed to cover our work. As an example, operations staffing is calculated using the number of schedule jobs in a unit, the vacation time available to employees, and nominal sick time. Anyone pulled from the schedule to do non-represented work increased the overtime and possibility of mandatory call for the represented employees left. Likewise, anyone removed from represented work in mechanical to do non-represented work, increases the overtime and call out response needed from other represented employees.