Forge Plant Update

    Brothers and Sisters of Local 1050,

     I had to do it didn’t I? I had to have a positive update in the last article how things were looking positive. Well, the next time I try and communicate positive news and skipping down the yellow brick road holding hands and singing with Cybil just make sure you kick me in the posterior of my outer world! (That would be ass for some that don’t get that one.)

    What the hell is going on around here lately? You’ve heard the saying…"Let sleeping dogs lie"…well, this new management team is about to hear the growl and they better have on ear protection in fear of shattering their ear drums.

    Where do I start? How about FMLA? Seriously, I believe there is a law in place to protect those employees that have serious medical conditions or their loved ones with such a condition to prevent an employer from terminating or disciplining an American for God forbid time off for a medical condition. There is currently an employee that was conditionally approved for FMLA and a month later was denied while on a scheduled vacation. The employee’s doctor refused to talk to Morning Star about the medical condition. (The Doctor wanted to wait for the employee [patient] to return from out of the country to sign a medical release to send the information to Morning Star). There has been a Department of Labor Charge filed along with a grievance to get this UAW member back to work. We have other members that have been denied even applications unless they have an absence occurred to qualify. There are numerous employees being denied FMLA for what we and the DOL agree are blatant violations of the law. The points are mounting up for our members in need of medical relief.

    There are members that are being denied ½ vacation days because the supervisors can’t put the requests in the computer system. Instead of trying to remedy the problem, the employees have to take points for days that are contractually allowed.

    What I think is a slap in the face to this whole membership is the divide and conquer attitude regarding the attendance control policy. If I’m not mistaken, this membership was involved in an eight week work stoppage and one of the issues was the change of the attendance control policy. Both sides agreed to this policy. We also were approached by management last year for a 2 year contract extension to carry over the existing attendance policy. Now, after all this negotiating, the company is trying to split this membership by segregating our members against each other. There was a list shown at a town hall meeting titled “Perfect Attendance” Congratulations! This was a list of those employees who didn’t have any late/leave early occurrences, didn’t have FMLA or weren’t on disability in 2009.

    But that wasn’t good enough to be on the “Good Boy list”.

    There was a letter sent to employees on the “Bad Boy List” which included “Top 25 Most Absent Employee” during 2009. There was an employee who was sent a letter to the house where the spouse opened up the letter and had no idea that the working spouse was on a bad boy list. Guess Alcoa wants to get into domestic issues in our lives now as well? Let’s just say that there was a lot of explaining to do.

    Since when is this like a school and we get detention or a smiley face? If you look at how they are now administering FMLA and denying vacation days, there are going to be a lot more on the “Bad Boy List”.

    I have a question for the company…why was there no pats on the back or an Atta boy list for those dedicated employees that took the time away from their families to work not only on Thanksgiving Weekend but Christmas weekend as well? When the company was looking for volunteers to help out with customer back log, there were plenty of employees that stepped up to the plate.

    Here’s another kick in the pants. About two months ago, our president approached the H.R. Manager and the Plant Manager requesting that we have our General Elections for May in the Cafeteria’s. He was assured that that would be no problem. Last week (end of February), he was contacted by the H.R. Manager that relayed the following message to our President, “On behalf of Gena, she changed her mind about elections in the plant!” Instead of saving our Local thousands of dollars by not having to rent equipment for an election, we will have to spend upwards of $10,000 for a general election. Hell, we took a two year wage freeze to help these bonus paid, salary unfrozen Managers get through their financial difficulties. Go figure.

    Do you feel the Love?

    GRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Don Mohn

Forge Plant Chair

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