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OFFICE OF THE UMPIRE No. C-269 November 14, 1944
Protest Against Transfer Of Work To Employees Outside Of Bargaining Unit
GRIEVANCE: Chevrolet—Kansas City—Case C-4 "Violation of negotiated rate of stock room clerks as set forth in local wage agreement dated January 11, 1943. This violation has occurred by reason of the fact that the Corporation is having salaried employees do the handling and posting of shortage records and reports at a much lesser rate than the rate negotiated for this type of work. It is requested that the handling and posting of shortage records and reports be immediately taken from salaried employees and given to warehouse hourly rated employees at the proper wage scale of $1.06 per hour, which is the negotiated rate. Back pay is asked for such employees from this date. Any additional stock room clerks necessary for handling and posting of shortage records and reports to be chosen as prescribed by Paragraph 63 of the Agreement, and not by the employment of salaried employees at a lesser wage scale that has been negotiated for this classification. Classification of stockroom clerks reads in part as follows: ‘Cover general warehouse clerical work such as posting and handling of shortage records and reports.’"
Umpire’s Decision: The grievance is dismissed. (Entire Decision should be read)
In the Matter of: United Automobile Workers of America—C.I.O.—Local 93 and General Motors Corporation—Chevrolet—Kansas City—Case C-4
In this grievance, the Union claims that Management has violated both the National Agreement and the local wage agreement by transferring the work of handling and posting shortage records from Stock Room clerks, who are included within the bargaining unit, to salaried clerks in the Order Department who are outside of it. It asks a ruling from the Umpire establishing the right of the Stock Room clerks as a classification to this work on the ground that it was theirs when the bargaining unit was defined and when the local wage agreement was executed. It asks further that they should receive back pay for the time during which they have been denied work to which they were rightfully entitled. Management declares that the transfer of the shortage operations from the Stock Room clerks in the Warehouse to salaried clerks in the Order Department was made necessary by the increase in the amount of back orders which followed the curtailment of parts manufacture under wartime restrictions. A system of checking available stock against shortage records, which was adequate when back orders were less than 5% of the total sales volume, became impractical and inefficient when back orders increased to 60% of sales volume. It points out, furthermore, that the work as transferred is entirely clerical in nature, involves no manual handling of materials, and is therefore excluded from the bargaining unit by the established interpretation of Paragraph 3 of the Agreement. The Union does not deny that the volume of back orders had increased and that some changes in the system of keeping shortage records was necessary for efficiency. It contends, however, that Management should have solved the problem by hiring additional Stock Room clerks. To transfer the work to the clerks in the Order Department, whose weekly salary is equivalent to an hourly rate lower than that of the Stock Room clerks, it states, was a violation of the local wage agreement. Transferring it to salaried employees even at a higher rate, moreover, would violate the Union’s right to bargain for this work—a right which Management recognized when it included the Warehouse employees within the bargaining unit and negotiated with the local Union a rate for the Stock Room clerks. Latent in the Union’s position there appears to be a contention that the employees in a classification covered by a local wage agreement are entitled for the duration of that agreement to all work which was theirs when the agreement was executed. This idea seems to be the basis of the Union’s claim for back pay for the Stock Room clerks, none of whom have been laid off or had their wage rates reduced. Yet nowhere in the National Agreement or in any local wage agreement of which the Umpire has knowledge is there any such guarantee. Many operations classified and rated in local wage agreements have been discontinued entirely while those agreements were still in force. Other operations have frequently been so altered as to justify their reclassification and re-rating either by fitting the altered work into other existing classifications or by negotiating a new rate pursuant to Paragraph 112 of the Agreement. Management’s rights under Paragraph 8 to discontinue or alter such operations can hardly be questioned. A local wage agreement does not guarantee work to an employee. It only determines what he shall be paid when he is assigned to that work. Nothing is clearer but that in removing from the Stock Room clerks certain of the work which had formerly been theirs, Management was within its rights and violated no agreement which it has with the Union. Did it then violate the Agreement by transferring this work to salaried clerks in its Order Department who are not included within the bargaining unit? The answer to this question depends upon whether or not the job of keeping and posting shortage records as transferred is clerical in nature. It has been well established by prior Umpire decisions that, in interpreting Paragraph 3 of the Agreement, the line between clerical and non-clerical work must be drawn between those operations which include any degree of manual material handling and those which involve no manual operations whatsoever. From the evidence presented it appears that when the work of keeping the shortage records was performed by the Stock Room clerks it involved a certain amount of manual material handling such as the unpacking of boxes, the counting of material in the bins, and the lifting and carrying of parts from place to place. It is admitted, however, that in transferring the work to the Order Department Management has eliminated all of these manual operations. The Umpire finds, therefore, that the work as now performed is strictly clerical in nature and that nothing in the Agreement prevents its assignment to salaried employees outside of the bargaining unit. It might well be pointed out, furthermore, that even if this were not the case the Union would have no grounds for asking that the work be returned to the Stock Room clerks. Its only proper remedy would have been a request for the inclusion of the Order Department clerks within the bargaining unit. The Union points out, nevertheless, that the salaries of the clerks in the Order Department, computed upon an hourly basis, are lower than is the negotiated wage rate of the Stock Room clerks. The paying of this lower rate for the work of keeping shortage records, it argues, is a violation of the local wage agreement. It should be clear, however, that this claim could only properly be advanced in behalf of the clerks in the Order Department, and these the Union has no right to represent. The wages of the Stock Room clerks, whom the Union does represent, have not been lowered. The Umpire sees no grounds for the Union’s contention that this decision will establish a precedent permitting the Corporation to destroy the Union by transferring any type of work which it chooses from employees in the bargaining unit to salaried and unrepresented employees outside of the bargaining unit. This decision covers only the question of the Corporation’s right to make such a transfer where the work is clerical in nature. Upon the contractual consequences of other attempted types of transfer, it expressly does not pass. Though the Umpire will dismiss this grievance upon its merits, he believes that he should comment upon a final contention of Management that since the grievance was signed by a Union Committeeman rather than by one of the Stock Room clerks, it should properly have no status before him. This contention could only be sustained by a holding that Shop and District Committeemen are not aggrieved by a violation of a local wage agreement within the meaning of Paragraphs 28 and 30 of the Agreement. In the Umpire’s view such a holding would be highly unrealistic. A local wage agreement is the product of negotiations in which the local Union organization has frequently played a major part. Wage matters lie close to the heart of every collective bargaining relationship, and local Unions often stand or fall according to their success in negotiating and enforcing such agreements. Grievances of this type, moreover, cannot possibly be settled at the Foreman level. They must obviously be dealt with by top local Management and the Shop Committee. The Umpire holds, therefore, that under Paragraphs 28 and 30 of the Agreement, grievances which allege violations of a local wage agreement may properly be signed and filed by District or Shop Committeemen and that such grievances have status before him. In the past, "policy" grievances signed and filed by Union Committeemen have frequently been vaguely worded. Sometimes they have been so indefinite that Management has been unable to determine the specific nature of the Union’s claims and the identity and number of the employees affected until the case has reached the Umpire. Nothing in the present holding should be taken to indicate any acquiescence by the Umpire in such a practice. A grievance which alleges a violation of a local wage agreement should clearly and accurately describe the classifications involved, the nature of the violation alleged, and the remedy requested. It should give Management such information as will permit it from its records to identify accurately the employees who would be affected if the request in the grievance were granted. If adequate information is not contained in the grievance as originally filed, Management has every right to insist that the necessary additional information be submitted to it before the close of the second step of the Grievance Procedure. The grievance machinery is no place for fishing expeditions, and in the future the Umpire will give short shrift to vague grievances introduced in the hope that if the net thrown out is sufficiently broad some legitimately aggrieved fish will be caught.
Decision The grievance is dismissed. Signed, Ralph T. Seward UMPIRE November 14, 1944. |