Union Job Evolves - More $

Suz

Recently one of our union-positions was updated and included a pay increase.
Obviously, other union employees have now lined up to try their hand at getting a pay increase.

The latest involves a few of our secretaries that state their job has substantially revised and want more money. What has actually happened is that the prior Superviosr did not utilize them as secretaries ~ as they had ample time to play solitare, etc. during their workday. However, the new Supervisor has made them productive secretarial employees. Of course the grievance is moving towards arbitration.

Has anyone out there had a similar situation, any suggestions?

Balloonman

Review their job description very carefully, if they are doing nothing new but being utilized appropriately now, I would just show that at the arbitration. Legitimately jobs change, and are required higher wages, but if this is not the case, stick to your guns, document their work and compare to job description.
My $0.02 worth.
DJ The Balloonman

Don D

Agree 100% with Balloonman!

Hunter1

You have a union contract; it should either have a re-val process, or a new rate should be determined at contract time (if warranted). As you know, one time does not create a practice, so changing one employee's rate mid-term should not be a problem. Also, your labor agreement may only require minimum rates, so you can pay above those rates to correct an inequity during the term. Zipper clause? Management's Rights?

LindaS

I agree with Hunter1. In one company that I worked for, the union contract had a "job evaluation committee" section in it. This committee was composed of both management and union employees as well as one facilitator (I acted as facilitator for a while). Each quarter the union was allowed to submit up to three jobs for evaluation as well as management being allowed up to three. The committee looked at the original job description as well as what the employees indicated were their new duties. The committee then actually went and spoke to the individuals who were doing the jobs and observed the jobs being done. After that they voted using a point system. They looked at things like training tme, physicial and mental requirements, working conditions, etc. and assigned points to each one. I totaled the points (I did not have a vote) and based on the total points they were placed in a specific grade which determined their rate of pay.

Imagine the employees surprise after some of the jobs actually dropped in pay (and I saw this happen more than once)!!

I don't know what your particular contract says regarding job evaluation but I felt that this was a positive thing because it allowed the employees to have their say and the decision was not made by management but rather the employees themselves. I can tell you that after some of the jobs dropped, there were significanly less jobs that were submitted for evaluation.

Good luck!