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Presidents Report

April 2010

Steelworker Sisters and Brothers:

          Here is a summary of the issues and discussions that I’ve had that at meetings to report on this month. If you have any questions about any of this report feel free to call. There were many topics to report on.

20^th Street Pedestrian crossing

            According to US Steel the City of Granite has been complaining that Steelworkers crossing 20^th street are walking against the crossing light, in other words jay walking. These complaints are originating from motorist calling the police department and reporting that Steelworkers are walking in front of them when the auto traffic has the right of way. US Steel in response to this has stated they’ll be out issuing citations to those who jaywalk if we can’t correct the behaviors of those causing the issues. I know as well as you do that this is only one side of the story. The other side is the behavior of the motorist. Since I cross at the 20^th street I’ve have had as much experience with motorist’s bad behaviors as you all have. Since the City believes this is a pedestrian only issue I suggest we use our cell phones and call the Granite City Police Department (618.876.9027) and report all those who are breaking the traffic laws. While your at it call Mark Tade (618.451.4940) and let him also know that someone has run the traffic light. In the mean time though I’m advocating that we all push the button (which by the way didn’t work for about a year because somebody forgot the sensors in the road when they were rebuilding it and later the cost delayed putting them in) at the pedestrian crossing to stop the traffic for us. If these complaining motorist want to stop I’m going to oblige them. I hope you all do the same. Also this applies to the Madison ave crossing, which I understand has cars that run the pedestrian light pretty often. Lets find out who’s on the right side of this issue.

 Veeder Health Right to Examine (HIPPA Rights)

When the plant was idled US Steel started scrutinizing absences (call offs) trying to determine when someone reported off sick whether they were fit to return to work before they returned for work. Your absence may be one turn or more. It didn’t matter. Now if you report off sick the report off operator asks you questions so Veeder Health can evaluate whether they want to have you report to Veeder Health to get your medical information and examine you. I know what most of you think that your health information is protected by HIPPA. That’s correct but I want to clarify this. It’s true you don’t have to supply your medical information to US Steel but they have the right to deny you to return to work if they determine they need to know more about your medical condition. All this being said I’m not for a moment stating you should trust Veeder Health. Remember Veeder Health represents US Steel’s interests not yours. Don’t think they have the same interests as your personal physician. You need to know your rights when you fall into this. Under the Local Seniority Agreement the Union bargained if US Steel wants to examine you they must have a doctor available to examine you within 24 hours. They can (and have) ordered tests after they learned what medical condition someone has. This also can add time being lost from work before you are allowed to return to work. If there’s a dispute about whether your fit to return to work then the dispute language in the Program of Insurance Benefits should be followed (Sickness and Accident language).

PLMC

We had our monthly Plant Labor Management meeting last week. I’d like to report on all of what’s happening with the plant but between getting this sparse sanitized information and being bound by the confidential agreements here’s all I have. With safety Granite City is no longer leading the other plants with injuries. Of course the goal is still zero. The area with the most injuries is Iron-making followed by Steel-making and then the Hot Strip. The shining star with Safety is Cold Roll with no injuries. As you all know US Steel Granite City has hired 92 people in the last 2 months. Sometimes we tend to not focus on how dangerous this operation is. We need to watch out for these newbies and make sure they go home whole as well as set a good example by showing consistent good safety practices. Operations, Coke making is close to being 100% and we as a plant are almost coke sufficient. Our Blast furnaces are running very consistent with few operational delays.  The BOF is making repairs to the precipitator to prevent environmental non-compliance’s. The first part of the month BOF production was ahead of the target but the later part of the month there were issues that kept us from meeting the goal. The Hot Strip has been having issues with slab furnace roofs, which has resulted in running more turns to make our production target. There is presently a study to determine what has changed to cause these roof failures. Presently the 3G are now running coils that were processed on our Cold Mill and Pickle Line. The line is now running full. The Co Gen is not at full output (electrical) due to Sun Coke not giving us enough Steam. Theses issues should be taken care of soon bringing the Kilowatt Hour output backup close to capacity.  Granite City has had its second month in the black with March being better than February. I know there’s not a great amount of detail here and that is intended. I just want to summarize the meeting here but if you have further questions fell free to ask. I feel better about verbally sharing information about plant operations than putting them in writing.

Training

            At our monthly training committee meeting this month we discussed the learners and 2008 bargaining issues. We will have a new group of 30 learners starting in May (15 MTM’s and 15 MTE’s). These new learners will have will have an improved training structure. These improvements came about through bargaining and we’re in the process of implementing them. One of which is improving the structure of the On the Job (OJT) training. The incoming group of Learners starting in May will have tasks to complete after their week in school to identify if the Learner understood the classroom training they just completed. Also the new learners will rotate to a different area after each class is completed. Also at bargaining US Steel agreed to build a training center here at Granite City to be used for all production and maintenance training. At this time US Steel hasn’t set aside enough money for the training center. We need to have 2 good quarters to put Money aside for new Training center. Since we’re in the process of bringing on a new group of learners that means that we’ll also be restarting the burning and welding training at the Omaha-training center. Presently there isn’t a burning and welding instructor. We have agreed to use the same process as we did for the planners/inspectors to fill that vacancy. In case you don’t remember this is a process where a bid is posted and a committee of the Union and Company interviews those who bid on the posted position to a see if they have the ability to perform the work. The bid is awarded to the senior employee with ability to perform the work (as long as ability is relatively equal). Watch for the bid if you’re interested. Another Local 68 issue is the Systems Repair test. For all those who don’t know this is the test you must pass to get the labor grade 5 and also be eligible to bid into the Control Specialist group. This is only given to qualified MTE’s. So learners won’t be able to take this test till they’re fully qualified. The issue we had here was the hands on test weren’t available at Granite City because Granite didn’t have the test apparatus. US Steel wanted to send our members to Gary for the test but getting employees up there and back was a logistics nightmare. So now in interim before we get our Training center, the test is going to be given at Ranken Technical College. Presently we have 5 members who have passed the written part of the Systems Repair test and will be offered the hands on part at Ranken on April 17^th.

Grievance and Arbitration

          I’m sure with all the talk in the plant your aware that the Local 68 grievance for members recalled after a layoff of greater than 90 days and given a hair follicle test for drugs and alcohol will be arbitrated April 6. The Company’s position is that they are not restricted from using a hair test as part of the return to work physical. The Unions position is that hair testing is restricted to Last Chance agreements and Urine tests are used as part of the return to work physicals after lay-offs greater than 90 days. As part of the remedy the Union has asked that all employees on LCA’s have their discipline removed along with their LCA’s.  I can’t say how long it’ll take to get an answer but I’m guessing around 3 months.

We had a 2^nd step meeting in March. We discussed the preferencing grievances a discipline for an absence and a vacation allotment issue (not vacation scheduling). I believe the preferencing grievances will be resolved with US Steel returning those who they moved to the Cold Strip back to their preferences. Their original position was that the preferencing only applied to the original slotting at the beginning of the year. They now agree that an employee’s preference applies all year.  We didn’t have a 3^rd step grievance meeting in March. There’s a number of discipline grievances stacking up which will be heard at the next 3^rd step meeting. If not resolved then they go to the Mini arbitration process. Presently we have a member who is discharged and not retained at work on justice and dignity. I’m not going to go into any detail here since I have US Steel folks that read this. I will say the discharge involves a Steel-making electrical manager who has had many problems. If you haven’t had problems with him you probably haven’t worked for him.

MBFML Overtime

            We’ve been discussing the overtime associated with the Contracting out MOU (the Maintenance Base Force Manning Level, MBFML for short) the last couple of months. This is work that pertains to day-to-day repair work not large new construction jobs. This agreement is suppose to reduce the contractors in the plant (which isn’t an issue here at Granite City) and bring more of the work back to the bargaining unit. With the MBFML agreement in force US Steel has the right to use contractors without first giving us notice and discussing the use of bargaining unit employees to do the work. Through our meetings we have ended up with three major disagreements.

The first issue was with overtime canvassing. Local 68 ended up with a deal breaker that we couldn’t get around. US Steel wants you to commit to 8, 16 or 20 hours for the operating areas (the Electric shop would be offered either 8 or 16 hours) two Thursdays (9 days) before the schedule week. After you turn in your slip indicating the overtime hours you’ll commit to, then they will give you a choice of the days and shifts that are available to choose from. From there we would use our overtime agreement and you would select your day/shift preference. Of course the rub is if you commit to work then realize that you need to be off on the days and shifts that US Steel has available for you to work you’ll get an absences if you don’t work and if your absence is unexcused then you’ll get discipline. In case you hadn’t noticed our new Labor Relations manager swings her hammer as often as she can. I indicated for me to sign on to this canvassing agreement it needs to allow you the option of indicating the days that you could work. Lets face it, we argue with US Steel over absences like snow days and sick days all the time (absentee issues). These types of Absences shouldn’t be an issue. Signing a canvassing agreement that makes you commit to shifts and days that US Steel specifies will only cause more grievances over absences. The way I see it, if I did sign the agreement the way they want it, hardy anybody would sign up for the MBFML overtime. Instead those who wanted to work overtime would just sign up for the overtime as indicated on the needs overtime sheet the Thursday before the schedule week. That way you would avoid getting in trouble and get an unexcused absence when you have a family event or you have to take your son or daughter to college.

            Another big disagreement with the MBFML overtime is the Electric shop overtime (8 or 16 hours). This part of the agreement was meant to bring shops work being shipped outside the plant back to the bargaining unit. The Union believes these 16 hours of work that is offered is shops work as described in appendix B2. US Steel believes it’s work that they have available, whether it is in the shop or in the operating areas. In other words they don’t have an obligation to bring shops work back to the shops.

The last issue is the availability of the MBFML overtime. US Steel believes the MBFML overtime will only be offered if work is available. The Union believes that US Steel has to offer you the MBFML overtime every week unless you’re on vacation. One of the Gary Locals will arbitrate this issue May 11^th.

 Don’t forget the Union meeting this Wednesday.

In Solidarity,

Jeff Evans

March, 2010

Steelworker Sisters and Brothers:

You all know the good news that the Cold Mill and the Pickle line is starting up in late March. This is the last piece of getting the plant up and running full throttle and I can’t say enough how glad I was to hear it. As far as I know everything is testing OK and there isn’t any major issues with the equipment. With all the good news we have some issues with how the Cold Roll area is being staffed. In January we did the preferencing and everybody was slotted into the area that their seniority took them. With the the restart of the CM/PKL there should have been a reshuffling of the manpower to staff the CM/PKL using seniority and the preferences that  were indicated on the preference sheets last October. Well that picture wasn’t clear to the folks in Labor Relations. In fact they had a different idea. They believe that their obligation to use the preference sheets is only good the first time. After that they have the right to assign. Of course you won’t find that written in the preferencing appendix in your 2008 agreement. I would have to say that this is US Steel once again trying to get something they never got in bargaining. There has been 5 grievances filed so far for those reassigned to the Cold Roll area. I say so far because I’ve been denied access to review the preferencing sheets (another grievance). So if you believe your preferencing is being denied you need to contact me ASAP. I’ll have a 2^nd step meeting in March to hear these grievances. 

Recently there has been a number of hand injuries in the plant. I don’t know the number of hand injuries just that most were just small cuts treatable with a band-aid. As unfortunate as this was to have these hand injuries we now have to deal with a new mandatory glove policy. Our Plant manager informs me that he wants our members to be more aware of their hands to avoid hand injuries but I believe this policy won’t reduce hand injuries but increase the discipline. I hope I’m wrong. When it has been brought to the managers attention that you can’t do your job with your gloves on the response has been to use common sense when working and take off your gloves when you need to. Of course I didn’t read that in the policy and in the latest discussions with Labor Relations they didn’t agree with that common sense suggestion. In fact when given the example of that if you need to remove your gloves to perform a part of your job that requires greater dexterity  and you cut your hand they would discipline you for not having your gloves on. Currently were in the process of talking to the business unit managers to get variances from the policy for those jobs requiring greater dexterity.  As it is now US Steel get the best of both, requiring you to wear gloves yet disciplining you if you cut your hand should you remove your gloves. This all being said though Rick Veitch has directed us to get exemptions from this policy from the area managers where the jobs require greater dexterity. Until then keep your gloves on. 

Coming up in the first part of April Local 68 will arbitrate the grievance for using hair testing for return to work physicals. The Company’s position is that they are not restricted from using a hair test as part of the return to work physical. The Unions position is that hair testing is restricted to Last Chance agreements and Urine tests are used as part of the return to work physicals after lay-offs greater than 90 days. As part of the remedy the Union has asked that all employees on LCA’s have their discipline removed along with their LCA’s.

As you all know the Electric Department in the Steelworks is one department for the plant. Most all of us have worked through out the Steelworks during our careers here at Granite City Steel. During the 2008/2009 layoff period US Steel did not always lay off by plant seniority. We filed a grievances for those who had their seniority violated. At the third step meeting a few months back a settlement was proposed and we have been working on this settlement for a couple of months. We recently signed the settlement which pays 4 grievants 7 weeks pay (the difference between sub, unemployment and their wages if they had worked) and we withdrew two grievances. From our discussions we had with the company I won’t say we settled anything here, other than we had some violations that were paid. US Steel maintained they had the right to use the area MTE’s to idle the facility’s and then bring back the senior MTE’s after the plant was idled. I can say that US Steel applies the principal of reduction of forces (ability first and if ability is relatively equal seniority will be the deciding factor) differently than we had under National Steel. If we go through lay offs again I anticipate more violations and more grievances on this.

A couple of weeks back I meet with Labor Relations on absenteeism. The new Labor Relations manager Laura Kocel was informing me that employees will be expected to adhere to their work schedules and only excused absences would be excepted.  The fact of whether a absence is excused or unexcused is largely up to your supervisor. If you receive discipline it’s probably because your manager doesn’t believe you had a reason to be absent or be tardy. All unexcused absences would result in discipline. Your discipline would depend on your present level of discipline (if any) on your record the level of discipline. In other words this this discipline would be added on to any other previous discipline you have on your record. We’re still having discussions about the absentee policy so stay tuned.

The Training committee has been meeting the last few months. We’ve working on solving some the issues associated with the learners program. At contract time we negotiated an agreement that gave us greater involvement in the learner program. Our concerns that given the shorter period of training we wanted to be sure that the learner program was working. By this I mean that the learners are getting adequate schooling and time to train. We all know that many times that learners are an extra set of hands. There’s nothing wrong with this if the learner is not being denied the on job training they need. The new group of learners will be evaluated on tasks to be completed that is related to their class that they had just completed to show they comprehended what they were taught.

Some of you took and passed the written systems repair test (control specialist test). That was back in December. Because the only place to take the hands on part is at Gary Works and there isn’t anyone to administrate the test, the test hasn’t been available. I filed the complaints in February for the hands on test not being available. Presently Rich Diak is looking into using either Ranken or a technical college that has a process control trainer to give the test. I’ll update you later on what is decided.

Presently it looks like we have 16 outside MTE’s and 5 MTM’s who have passed the written test for employment at Granite City works. These new employees will be split between the Steelworks and Ironmaking. They’ll be additional learners put on to make up for what the needs will be as far as MTE’s and MTM’s. It looks like most of these tradesman are coming from the auto plants.

In closing here I still have a few topics to cover but I’ll cover them next time.  Don’t forget the Union meeting tomorrow.

In Solidarity,

 Jeff Evans

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