If the Teamster National Grievance Committee was a UPS employee it would be fired for poor job performance.

Our union won just four out of 59 cases at the last national grievance panel.

The decisions are in from the June meeting of the National Grievance Committee in Philadelphia and the results aren’t pretty.

In four days of hearings, the highest UPS grievance body under the contract ruled in favor of the union just four times.

The company won 13 cases outright. Another 42 cases were deadlocked. An incredible 78 cases were postponed. Only two of the 59 cases heard resulted in the company having to pay the grievant. One of these cases involved just 4 hours of overtime!

In the other two “victories” won for the members, the company was instructed to comply with the contract and a monetary reward was either assigned to another grievance body to decide or denied outright. What a system!

Thirty-five cases were settled or withdrawn with no details given.

The UPS National Grievance Committee will meet just one more time this year: Oct. 12-15 at the Hilton San Diego Resort and Spa.

TDU makes the docket and minutes of each national grievance panel available to UPS Teamsters online. The International Union does not. With results like this, who can blame them?

Read the national grievance panel minutes online at www.makeUPSdeliver.org.

July 21, 2009: Last month’s National Grievance Committee meeting was the International Union’s opportunity to make UPS create all 20,000 full-time combo jobs that are required by Article 22.3 of the contract.

Instead, Hoffa and Parcel Division Director Ken Hall continued to let management have its way with eliminating the full-time jobs we won in the 1997 strike. The number of full-time positions lost in violation of Article 22.3 has reached the thousands.

UPS Teamsters across the country signed petitions calling on Hoffa and Hall to fight for the full-time jobs we’re owed by the contract by consolidating the violations into a national grievance.Dan Kane, UPS, Local 63, Los Angeles

Instead, the International Union dealt with the violations on a case by case basis—and even then delivered no results.

The only Article 22.3 case settled at the panel went in management’s favor. That case (N-11-09) involved the Texas Full-Time Job Massacre where, in one blow, UPS eliminated more than 100 combo jobs at the Dallas-Ft. Worth airport.

Of the dozen other grievances on combo job elimination slated to be heard at the panel, one was withdrawn and 12 were postponed.

Management continues to claim that they are relocating combo jobs, not eliminating them—but they refuse to turn over documentation about where the jobs have been moved.

UPS was required by the contract to provide the International Union with the job description and location of every Article 22.3 position in the country. The International hasn’t shared this list with local unions and it has ignored calls by UPS Teamsters to conduct a nationwide audit to find and fill all of the missing full-time combo jobs.

“UPS is playing a big shell game, and the International has totally dropped the ball on holding the company to the contract,” said Dan Kane, a combo Teamster at Ontario Airport in Los Angeles, where UPS has eliminated 68 combo jobs.

“If our locals care about this issue, they’ll stop covering for Hoffa and start demanding contract enforcement,” said Kane. “We went on strike to win these jobs. We expect our union to defend them.”

July 17, 2009: The decisions are in from the June meeting of the National Grievance Committee in Philadelphia and the results aren’t pretty. If the National Grievance Committee was a UPS employee it would be fired for poor job performance.

In four days of hearings, the highest UPS grievance body under the contract ruled in favor of the union just four times. The company won 13 cases outright. Another 42 cases were deadlocked. An incredible 78 cases were postponed.

Only two of the union wins required the company to pay the grievant and one of these cases involved just 4 hours of overtime.

In the other two cases, the company was instructed to comply with the contract and a monetary reward was either assigned to another grievance body to decide or denied outright. What a system!

Thirty-give cases were settled or withdrawn with no details given.

Panel Fails To Enforce Contract, Protect Full-Time Jobs

The National Grievance Committee meeting in Philadelphia, June 8 to 11 was the International Union’s opportunity to make UPS create all 20,000 full-time combo jobs that are required by Article 22.3 of the contract.

Hoffa and Hall continued to let management have its way with eliminating the full-time jobs we won in the 1997 strike.

The only Article 22.3 case settled at the panel went in management’s favor. That case (N-11-09) involved the Texas Full-Time Job Massacre where, in one blow, UPS eliminated more than 100 combo jobs at the Dallas Ft. Worth airport and reduced full-time Teamsters to part-time pay and assigned them to work split shifts.

Local 767 officials report that the massacre will stand. The union will not require UPS to fill the more than 100 combo jobs eliminated at DFW Airport even though the company is thousands of jobs short of maintaining the 20,000 combo jobs required by the contract.

Of the dozen other grievances on combo job elimination slated to be heard at the panel, one was withdrawn and twelve were postponed.

The UPS National Grievance Committee will meet just one more time this year: Oct. 12-15 at the Hilton San Diego Resort and Spa.

Click here to download the decisions from the June national grievance panel.

June 5, 2009: Grievance action by UPS Teamsters across the country has forced the National Grievance Committee to hear almost a dozen cases on the elimination of full-time combo jobs at the national grievance panel, June 8 to 11 in Philadelphia.

Just three of the locals on the docket account for more than 250 full-time combo jobs that have been eliminated: Dallas Local 767, Sacramento Local 150, and Los Angeles Local 63.

TDU and Make UPS Deliver has documented full-time job elimination in violation of the contract in more than 30 local unions.

Fewer than half of these local unions will have cases heard at the national grievance panel. Thousands of UPS Teamsters signed a national petition urging the International Union to consolidate all Article 22.3 job elimination into one united national grievance.

UPS has eliminated thousands of full-time combo jobs in violation of Article 22.3. UPS is required by the contract to maintain 20,000 full-time combo jobs.

Combo jobs are full-time positions that are created when two part-time positions are combined. These are the full-time jobs UPS Teamsters won in our 1997 strike.

Will the Hoffa administration finally take action to make UPS deliver all 20,000 full-time combo jobs that members are owed under the contract?

Click here to download the docket of cases to be heard by the UPS National Grievance Committee.

May 26, 2009: Thousands of UPS Teamsters have signed a petition calling on the International Union to take up a national grievance on the company’s elimination of Article 22.3 full-time jobs at the next national grievance panel in Philadelphia, June 8 to 11.

Our 1997 UPS strike victory won contract language that requires UPS to maintain a minimum of 20,000 combo jobs—full-time jobs that are created by combining 40,000 part-time jobs. Management is violating this language and eliminating full-time combo jobs through layoffs and by not filling vacant positions.

Enforcing the contract would make UPS create thousands of more good full-time jobs.

UPS stewards have contacted Package Division Director Ken Hall to request a meeting before the national grievance panel to deliver the petitions, provide information about full-time job elimination in more than 25 local unions, and discuss what union action can be taken to enforce the contract.

Click here to read the letter to Ken Hall.

TDU will inform members of Brother Hall’s response and continue to monitor UPS full-time job elimination.

April 30, 2009: UPS Teamsters are petitioning the International Union to protect full-time jobs at the national grievance panel in June.

Petitions are due May 15. There is still plenty of time to circulate the petition and stand up for the full-time jobs we won in the 1997 UPS strike.

Management is violating Article 22.3 of our contract which requires the company to maintain 20,000 full-time combo jobs. The company is thousands of jobs short of the 20,000 quota—and is eliminating more full-time combo jobs every day.

The International Union has the power to make UPS return laid off Teamsters to work and create more full-time combo jobs.

The goal of the petition drive is to get the International Union to use this power by taking up a national grievance on Article 22.3 violations at the next national grievance panel, June 8-11 in Philadelphia.

Please return signed petitions to Make UPS Deliver by May 15 so they can be delivered to International Union Vice President and Package Division Director Ken Hall in advance of the national grievance panel.

Click here to download the petition.

Send completed petitions to Make UPS Deliver, 104 Montgomery St. #4, Brooklyn, NY 11225, or fax them toll-free to 1-866-860-9331.

Concerned members are working hard in these final weeks to get as many petitions signed as possible. Here’s what they’re doing:

“There are about twenty missing jobs in Sharonville—and we’re taking action to get the jobs we deserve.”

Sam Bucalo, Local 100 Steward Sharonville, Ohio

 “I took time off and got hundreds of signatures. Members know in this economy we’ve got to protect full-time jobs.

John Collins, Local 509 Steward Myrtle Beach, South Carolina

“We’re retired, but we still want to help our union. We got a lot of support for this petition drive in Local 71.”

Brad Colesworthy and Wayne Turner, Retired Charlotte, North Carolina

March 2, 2009: The decisions from the February meeting of the National Grievance Panel in Ft. Lauderdale are now available online.

Click here to download the decisions.

The UPS National Grievance Committee settles national disputes and grievances that have been deadlocked at both the local and regional levels.

The Package Division has a computerized record of all panel and arbitration decisions. Why don’t they make it available to stewards and members to help with contract enforcement?

The panel will meet two other times this year: June 8-11 in Philadelphia and Oct. 12-15 at the Hilton San Diego Resort and Spa.

TDU will continue to make the docket and decisions available to the rank and file.