MAY 2009 PRESIDENT/BUSINESS AGENT MIKE MAHAR There is no shortage of issues to write about these days, the problem is finding time to write about them after dealing with them. We have an update on the firing of our Union Steward out of Anderson Garage by the Garage Supervisor. I won’t repeat all the details covered in a previous newsletter but the main points now are that the Director of Calgary Transit upheld that discipline was warranted for our steward and reduced his dismissal to a suspension from December 18, 2008 – January 12, 2009. It is the Director’s opinion that his own investigation showed no evidence to support our steward’s allegations that his Foreman made derogatory remarks or that his Foreman either condoned the use of alcohol, drank on the job or was intoxicated on the job. This is in spite of the fact that I personally witnessed at least a half dozen co-workers corroborate to Transit management exactly what our steward had stated and Walter Moodie personally witnessed the Foreman yell derogatory comments at him. Additionally, the Garage Supervisor and Human Resources consultant’s presentations changed at each level of the grievance . It was their evidence which was inaccurate. John Hubbell recognized the problem and offered to reduce the discipline to a five-day suspension. The problem with that is our Steward did nothing that would warrant discipline and accepting a five-day suspension would be an admission of guilt. Also, without the Supervisor and HR consultant being held accountable for their actions against our Steward and this union, they can simply fabricate any story they want and our Steward is gone. With accepted discipline on file, it becomes a fact. An arbitrator would base any subsequent discipline on laws of probability and we would not win any arbitration.
I witnessed the statement made by our members that the Director of Calgary Transit claims don’t corroborate our Stewards statements. They do and I have copies. I will testify to this at the arbitration. Our Steward was fired for saying the exact same things our members have confirmed yet none of them were disciplined for being dishonest. Walter Moodie witnessed the Foreman yelling derogatory remarks at our Steward and the Director says that didn’t happen. Mr. Moodie will also testify to this in arbitration. They have not been honest or forthright with the Union, which may not be a surprise to anyone, but they have not been honest and forthright with the Director of Calgary Transit or the General Manager of Transportation either. The fact they remain unscathed is remarkable, and here is why. We have a thirty five year employee that didn’t offer all the information in an investigative meeting because Management never asked the right question. He was 100% forthright and honest at the next opportunity. He had a blemish free record. Normally the original incident would have warranted minor discipline but they said because he was not forthright and was dishonest they were going to fire him. Because of his 35 years service they told him if he were willing to retire they wouldn’t fire him. Of course Calgary Transit never being one to miss their opportunity to extract a pound of flesh, withheld his “vacation match” retirement bonus of seven weeks. If he didn’t agree to this then he was fired. He couldn’t afford to be fired and risk losing all his health benefits so he had to agree. They wouldn’t just let him leave. Even though there was no benefit to the company and it flies in the face of well-established labour principles that workplace discipline is not supposed to be punitive, they had to punish him. It’s Calgary Transit’s “crack” cocaine. He lost a seven-week entitlement that he spent 35 years earning. Absolutely ruthless. We have had at least 5 or 6 discipline cases in the past week that have all referenced that the reason for discipline was due to not being honest or forthright and there no longer seems to be any benefit for coming clean at an early opportunity. The discipline has been with a very heavy hand. Three points of interest, Management is exempt from the generally accepted principles of dishonesty, the practice of disciplining with an iron fist will remain as long as the recession does (and the employer has trouble hiring again) and the Union will no longer advise members that honesty is the best policy because we no longer know that to be fact. I look forward to seeing Calgary Transit’s Employee Survey next spring. Please watch for negotiation updates under separate bulletins. EXECUTIVE VICE-PRESIDENT/ OPERATIONS DOUG JOHANNES In a recent newsletter I wrote about an Operator that was stuck in the snow for over eight hours. Management called me and asked for all the details as they wanted to follow up. They as much as accused me of being a liar as I did not forward the information for a couple of days. Once I did, I never heard back from them for a couple of weeks. However, they did contact the Operator. She had the audacity to be on vacation and did not call back the minute a message was left. When she did call back, the Lead Controller, Shiraz Dossa did not apologize for what happened. In fact the feeling the Operator got was that he was blaming her for the entire incident. He told her she could have left the bus even though the Controller told her not to. I have seen employees disciplined for not following the direction of a Supervisor. The Controller stated that she should wait for a Supervisor. Well, it was a good thing that she was allowed to leave when the bus was finally pulled out by the tow truck as the Supervisor never arrived either. I would have expected nothing less than what she received from Mr. Dossa. However, I did truly enjoy his closing remarks. He told her he had listened to the radio conversations and when she arrived at the garage she had contacted control and said, “thanks for all your help”, in his opinion that meant she had no issue with control. Let’s be upfront here, “I do agree”, control is there to assist the Operator’s not just to maintain service. Don’t get me wrong, we have some great controllers. There are also some that are not so great. On the day in question they would have been up to their waist in snow like the Operator’s, but a second to ensure that the Operators are being looked after and that they are not being forced to stay with a bus when they have other needs should have been a priority. Mr. Dossa certainly should have apologized for the oversight of the people working in his area. Radios - Pull Bus Over To Talk We are constantly getting calls in the office about the radios on the buses. They are next to impossible to use especially when they seem to have been designed for a left handed operation. We get comments from Operators who can’t get the hand set out of the cradle to issues with the volume. What a number of Operators are doing is pulling the bus over to a safe location before they are using the radios. I think that this is a good practice to follow. No one wants to see you get into an accident with the equipment provided by the employer who state they believe in safety first in all cases. So please be sure you are following the safe course in all you do. As you know the City has put in place a policy that states in part that no electronic device can be used while operating their vehicles. What this means is no radios or I Pods and especially no cell phone use. When an employee has a problem, one of the first questions that Management asks is, “were you talking on your cell phone?” and in some cases, “will you provide your cell phone bills to Management?” My only thought as to why they want your bill is they don’t believe their staff. My advice to you is be sure you do not use your phone while operating your bus. If you are expecting a call and have to answer it use common sense. Pull your bus over, put the maxi on and step outside, this way no one can say you were on the phone and operating as well. In closing, I would like to thank the other Officers, Mike, Rick and Walter for taking on a lot of extra work while I was recovering from recent surgery. It is always hectic in the office but when someone is absent it is quite unimaginable. I am happy to be back and look forward to getting back into the swing of things. FINANCIAL SECRETARY-TREASURER RICK RATCLIFF On Vacation. RECORDING SECRETARY – MAINTENANCE/OFFICE REPRESENTATIVE WALTER MOODIE In these days of uncertainty with world economics and bailout packages, the only thing for certain are the constant attacks on workers and their working conditions and concessions on wages and benefits. ATU Local 583 has started bargaining for a new contract, as you know. The world economics issue will be raised as we get deeper into negotiations. Other Civic Unions in Calgary are already in negotiations and some have already applied for mediation and gone through that process. Yes, the City is wanting concessions from ATU 583. I find this hard to comprehend when elected officials believe they should take their increases and then request their employees to be fiscally responsible. This is now the time that ATU 583 members stay UNITED and stay the course as a UNION. As I have stated before, we are a very diverse Union with very distinct work areas. Safety concerns come in daily to the office and your full time Officers address these issues as quickly as possible. An issue that I keep getting is the amount of exhaust fumes in our storage barns. I personally have checked into this and do find that we still have Operators running buses longer in the storage barns and turning buses on for other Sisters and Brothers. This is a novel idea but the buses are filling up the storage garages with diesel smoke. Please do not run your bus any longer than you have to, to build up the air. Once the bus air is built up please take the bus out onto the tarmac and finish your checks and set ups there. If everyone pinches in then a lot of this diesel smoke issue will dissipate. Face masks can be obtained at dispatch if you desire. Another safety concern that is raised is around change offs of defective buses by Operators. These buses are being changed off for a reason and for an Operator volunteering to do a change off request you are putting yourself responsible for the safety of that vehicle. Trained Maintenance personnel can and do decide if a defective bus can be driven or towed back to the garages. You might think you are helping but you are putting yourself in possibly a dangerous situation along with taking another trained persons job. Joint Work Health and Safety Committees in Operations and Maintenance have raised the concern about lighting around the garages. This issue is currently being assessed by lighting specialists. With spring time here, dust is also a major concern. The garage maintenance cleaning groups are doing the best they can to keep this to a minimum. We will hopefully again have a large sweeper come in to all the garages and clean up the winter dirt accumulation that has come in with the buses. Again, if we all keep our speed down in the garage areas this road dust will not be stirred up causing problems in our garages. ATU 583 attended and laid a wreath at the International Day of Mourning ceremonies on April 28th. It is startling to hear that there were 166 people that died last year while doing their jobs in Alberta. This is unacceptable and must be addressed. Mandatory Joint Work Site Health and Safety Committees need to be put in place in the Province of Alberta, just like in other Provinces. ATU members need to support each other and stand united during these difficult times. Show your ATU Pride as you are the people that do the work and make buses, trains, trucks and Administration run. You are the backbone of the system and without you the system would not be what it is today. Congratulations to all ATU members. FOR YOUR INFORMATION….. TO ALL RESIDENTS, PAST AND PRESENT A monument will be placed in McIntosh Park, 76 St. and 37 Ave. NW to honor Bowness residents who have lived in Bowness and have passed away. We need to get the names of any deceased submitted as soon as possible so that work can begin on this very worthwhile community project. Please contact Don and Marg Weber @ (403)288-5561 or
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for further information and to receive the Parks Foundation form for submitting your loved ones name. THANK YOU CARDS RECEIVED Family of Len Balicki Nino Pedrini Brian Beattie Family of Bill Schafer Ericka Buhler Family of Al Schewaga George Campbell Arnie Scott John Donohoe Chat Sharma Ron Ference Family of Len Strandlund Mark Gourdeau Richard Tremblay Amarjit Grewal Chuck Von George Hampton Family of Art Watt Doug Johannes Zul Vira Rebecca Miller Did You Know…. Support Group This is my yearly newsletter about the ATU Support Group. We have many new ATU members so I would like to explain the purpose of our group. We raise money to help ATU members who find themselves in very difficult circumstances. We will help pay essential bills, supply groceries, at Christmas we give away food hampers to those who need them. We also are there for the members if and when we are on strike. We are there on the picket lines with hot coffee and sometimes cookies and donuts. At this time we would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to those members who donate money to us: to Local 583 and to the Retirees group who help us out at Christmas as well as HandiBus ATU members and Calgary HandiBus donate generously every year. Without all of you we would really struggle. Thank you! We also raise money by having raffles at the Retirees Banquet and the Children’s Christmas party. We have great support there with everyone gladly buying our tickets. We also have the book shelves at the garages with donated books in them. Thanks to those who donate them. It is so frustrating though when you put 20 books on the shelf and check the money a couple days later when those books are gone and there is only $3.00. The books are only 50 cents each which I think is very reasonable. So please, pay for each book you take. There is also one of our Retiree’s, Buster Schweiger, he donates wooden crafts that we sell. We receive half the money and the cancer society receives the other half. Last year our fund raising brought in $4,382.20 and we spent $4,055.15 helping our members. We are just holding the line. Because the cost of everything has been going up we really need to generate more donations. When helping a member out, it usually ranges from $350.00 - $500.00 in some cases we would like to help more but we don’t have the funds. I was thinking the other day, if every member donated 10 cents a month into the book boxes that would be $281.00 a month. Then I thought, 25 cents would be over $700.00 a month. We could really do a lot of good for ATU 583 members. We have so many single parent families on the job that struggle constantly. Wouldn’t it be nice knowing that a quarter a month could make such a huge difference in our fellow workers lives? We are always looking for new members. If you are interested call me at 403-948-8758 or we meet every third Monday at 7:00 p.m. at the Union office (side door). Thank you for your time and your contributions to us. Colleen Holden, President ATU Support Group CONGRATULATIONS On Their Retirement David Heath – Operator – March 2009 Louis Cimino – Maintenance – March 2009 Jim Cooper – Maintenance – March 2009 Helen Ray – Operator – April 2009 Ozie George - Operator – April 2009 William Swizdaryk - Operator – April 2009 Keith Boddy – Operator – May 2009 Elizabeth Hart – Operator – May 2009 Gary Wise - Maintenance – June 2009 UPCOMING MEETINGS A.T.U. LOCAL 583 CHARTER MEETING TUESDAY, JUNE 9, 2009 10:00 A.M. & 7:30 P.M. AGENDA: - Regular Business - Motion to suspend the July & August Union meetings ************************************ HANDI-BUS LOCAL 583 THURSDAY, JUNE 11, 2009 9:45 A.M. & 7:30 P.M. ************************************ CAFETERIA LOCAL 583 WEDNESDAY, JUNE 17, 2009 5:00 P.M. ************************************ A.T.U. 583 UNION OFFICE
5325 – 1A STREET S.W.
ONLY SIGNED UP MEMBERS
OF LOCAL 583 MAY ATTEND May 27 /09 - Stewards Meeting - 7:30 p.m. June 1/09 - Social Committee - 7:30 p.m. June 17/09 - Health, Safety & Assault Committee - 7:30 p.m. June 23/09 - Women’s Committee - 7:30 p.m. RETIREES CORNER Just a Reminder: The next meeting will be June 1, 2009 @ 7:00 p.m. at Spring Gardens garage. The next luncheon will be June 16, 2009 @ 1:00 p.m. at the Elk’s Golf Club – 2502 – 6 St. NE. There will be no luncheons for July and August. /sw COPE #379 |
