The Central Region Supplement is out—and the contract loopholes are still in.
UPSers in the Central Region demanded that the new supplement close loopholes that let management fire members for cardinal offenses that are so vague that they can mean just about anything.
Well, the proposed new supplement is out—and the loopholes haven’t closed.
UPS management has long abused Article 17i in the Central Region Supplement—a catch-all clause that lets the company fire workers for the undefined umbrella category of “other cardinal offenses.”
Members were promised that the 17i loophole would be eliminated from the new supplement. Instead, it just got longer.
The proposed new 17i now reads:
(i) other cardinal offenses, the Company and the Union agree that there are offenses where an employee may be suspended in lieu of discharge. Discharge under this subsection should only be used in situations where the employee’s actions are so egregious that he/she needs to be removed from the workplace immediately to protect employees, customers, and/or the Company. When an employee is removed from service, the Union will be notified by the District Labor Manager or his/her Labor designee.
The new 17i adds more words and more loopholes, but no more protection than the old language. It is still a catch-all clause for anything the company wants to turn into a cardinal offense.
Management is capable of turning just about any incident into a danger to “customers and/or the Company.” After all, that’s what UPS has been doing with “dishonesty” for years.
Dishonesty used to mean theft. Now it means anything the company says it does.
The only change in the proposed Central Region Supplement is to incorporate the new dishonesty language from the national contract into 17a.
“The proposed national contract is a big No for Ohio Teamsters—and so is the Central Supplement,” said Local 413 steward Nick Perry. “We only get to negotiate a new contract every five years. We can’t surrender our opportunities to close these loopholes—and we can’t surrender givebacks either."