The Steady Crane Operator calendar has 14 months, and starts in week 10 of the payroll calendar. Why?
How can the hall men compare their earnings to the steady men, when they are not using the same calendar? They cannot.
That is why the steady man calendar exists. All PMA statistical reports, including the quarterly manpower and earnings reports, are based on the payroll calendar.
There is no reason to have a separate calendar other than to create confusion, and allow for deception, making it impossible to compare hall man hours with steady man hours.
Oh, no. There is one reason, and that reason is a gimmick designed to allow steady men to get paid 28 out of 28 days, every month. (20 shifts of work + 8 bump days = 28 days paid) The steady caucus delegates removed the words calendar month from the equalization language and replaced them with 13 4 week periods. Thus creating a new 28 day monthly calendar. Greed personified.
The steady men have, according to page 207 of the PCLCD, 13 4 week periods on their yearly calendar, so they can work 20 out of 28 days every month, in order to maximize their earnings. This is a calendar based on pure greed, and has 14 4 week periods, not 13 like the contract calls for. That is 56 weeks in their year. How does that work?
When steady men check in at the hall, what hours do they use? The hours from their 4 week calendar, or the PMA payroll calendar used by the hall men? Doesn’t matter, no one can check their hours anyway. There secret.
This program of deception has been working so well for the steady crane drivers, that Bobby O Jr. decided to switch all the other steady men to the steady crane driver calendar. Can he just change the contract like that?
Bobby O Jr. wants to make it impossible for the hall men to see if the 22 shift limitation for the Dock Work steady men is being adhered to.
Way to go Bobby, now all the steady men will love you.
Can’t say the hall men will feel the same way.
This is how the steady men Union officers screw the hall men.
Why do the members keep electing these con men who screw over the hall?
Catfish aka Mike Dimon has been posting nasty comments from the start of this blog. He is the reason I changed the comment process to require approval of comments before they are posted.
For of those of you that do not know: A catfish is someone who pretends to be someone they’re not using Facebook or other social media to create false identities, particularly to pursue deceptive online romances.
Check out some of his recent attempts:
“Jim, I hope you and the Dopey one get what you ask for here. I feel our dispatch hall is a sacred place where the rule of low man out was fought for, and won by some brave brothers by the spilling of their blood. If you think the fine schedule for the internal grievance committee (look up LMRDA) of local 13 is rough or unfair, I can’t wait till the employer gets their pound of flesh with sec 17.81. I’ll be there cheering them on. Go ahead, get PMA involved and their penalty schedule. Fines, time off and deregistration. Maybe chiselers will stop chiseling once this starts happening, good luck.” 8-20-15 at 1:17 am
and,
“Please answer Jim. Why would Erica Dopey subject our members to section 17 of the PCLCD when the penalty could be deregistration? See 17.81” 8-20-15 at 11:11 pm.
Looks like Mike got upset about an email I sent to him and used his cell phone to respond, forgetting that his name and email address would show up.
“Wow. That’s pretty harsh (not the deregistration thing, the go fuck yourself thing). But anyway, even you must know sec 17 belongs to the employer. And that the LMRDA allows for internal grievance. And that labor unions traditional prefer internal discipline. So if Eric wants to change this, why all the stratagem? Why not go about it in a way to achieve change? It’s confusing for just a rank n filer not caught up in all the political games.
Sent from my iPhone”
Catfish and his buddies have been using the Local 13 Grievance Committee to bully and intimidate members, for their own purposes for years.
The Union Grievance Committee is for resolving internal Union grievances dealing with Union rules. That is what the LMRDA says.
The Labor Relations Committee is for resolving any and all complaints related to the Pacific Coast Longshore Contract Document, and subordinate Agreements.
Section 17 says any and all grievances related to the PCLCD, including dispatch violations, shall be resolved by the Joint Port Labor Relations Committee.
Local 13’s “Leadership” has been using the Grievance Committee to lie to the membership, telling them they have to use the Union’s Grievance Committee, because the LMRDA says the Union can enforce their rules without interference from the Employer.
Problem is, that only applies to the Union’s club rules, NOT the labor agreement with the Employers.
Section 17 says it is the duty and the responsibility of the JPLRC to resolve any and all complaints related to the PCLCD, including dispatch rule violations like chiseling.
If you, or anyone you know has a complaint related to the job and/or the contract, and the Union refuses to accept it, give it to the PMA, they are the other half of the JPLRC.
Local 13 Officials have been using the Grievance Committee to go after those members they do not like, and to keep people like the Greek from running against them.
Local 13 Officials along with corrupt PMA types, used to allow members to file assault charges against each other, until Eric filed a Section 13.3 grievance against them for trying to process Victor Hodak’s phony assault charge against him.
It wasn’t until Eric produced ILWU member Bob Frazier’s the 9th Circuit Court Of Appeals Decision, which says that only the Employer can file assault charges, and the CLRC agreed, that Hudak’s phony assault charge went away.
Now Hudak, another of Frank Ponce de Leon’s puppets, who knows nothing about the Contract, is going to run for Secretary/Treasurer. Not good for the rank-and-file, unless you are a Ponce de Leon.
Time for the Grievance Committee to stop bullying members, and start process chiseling complaints with the JPLRC in accordance with Section 17 of the PCLCD.
Local 13 also needs to take all the fines they have “on the books”, “off the books” and notify each member in writing that they have done so.
Local 13 also needs to refund any and all “fines” they collected from members unilaterally, and in violation of the PCLCD, and hope they don’t ask for interest.
Question everything, ask for proof, and don’t take no for an answer.
Eric Aldape ran for Grievance Committee because he was fed up with watching his fellow members being bullied and intimidated by their own Union.
According to Eric; Longshoremen are not in the business of abusing other members and fining them months worth of earnings, thousands of dollars, over dispatch violations.
Eric is fed up with watching the Grievance Committee selectively pursue certain members and hit some with huge fines, which they then “held over their heads” for 5 years.
This is being done for several reasons but one of the big ones is to keep them from running for elected office, because if they have outstanding fines they are not members in good standing and not eligible to run for any elected position.
If the person does not bow down they way they were expected to, they are told they have to pay a portion of the fine immediately.
Rumor has it, Eric explained to the Committee that the Union Grievance Committee was created to deal with violations of Union rules and they had no right to deal with JPLRC dispatch rule violations, or any other contract violations.
Rumor has it that after Eric left, one of the Union’s lawyers stopped by and explained to the Committee that Eric was right, whereupon some of the members got so angry steam was seen coming out of their ears.
Be that as it may, today Eric filed his own Section 13.3 complaint against the Local 13 Grievance Committee.
If Eric is successful, and he has a very good case, he will require Local 13 to write to each member that was fined for chiseling and tell them their fines are “off the books” and each member that paid money be given a total refund.
With help from one of the Hall Crane Drivers who happens to believe in equalization, the first 2 (Lee White #130783 & Carlos Meza #130682) of the 63 qualified crane drivers removed from the Supplemental Crane Board on August 8th have filed Section 13.3 Discrimination Complaints related to the Employers implementation of the “Local 13 Crane Training Agreement.”
The Hall men are fed up with being pushed around by steady men Union Officials and their buddies, the steady men Employers at PMA.
The Complaint is 32 pages long, including all the attachments, and can be viewed by clicking the hyperlink at the end of this post.
The basic argument is as follows:
According to Local 13 Bulletin #35-15, effective 8-8-15 “the Employers” violated Section 13.3 of the PCLCD, when they unilaterally and prematurely removed 63 “qualified” crane drivers, including Carlos Meza #130862 & Lee White #130783, from the Supplemental Crane Board, allegedly using the “Local 13 Crane Training Supplement” as their justification.
The “Local 13 Crane Training Program” is a Tentative Agreement signed the same day as the PCLCD Memorandum of Understanding, February 20, 2015, but it was NOT included in the MOU.
The “Local 13 Crane Training Program” is a subterfuge created to give more hall work to the steady men, who as of August 8th can take jobs ahead of the 63 qualified but not trained men who were removed from the Supplemental Crane Board, while attempting to buy off the hall crane boards with a guarantee of 10 hours of crane pay Monday thru Friday, if they work other than crane jobs.
The Local 13 Crane Training Agreement changes the wages, hours, and working conditions of both the hall crane drivers and the steady crane drivers, but is not in the PCLCD or the Local Port Supplement, just like the $55 per day paid to the dayside steady men.
The Employers have been gimmicking the pay given to steady men for years by paying the dayside steady men $55 per day, under the table.
The “Local 13 Crane Training Program” is their latest gimmick, and a subterfuge that violates the Section 18.1 Good Faith Guarantee, and places restrictions on longshoremen that are in conflict with the provisions of the February 20, 2015 Memorandum of Understanding, as ratified by both PMA and the Union.
The alleged “Local 13 Crane Training Agreement” is not signed by any Local 13 Officers, or any PMA members of the LA/LB JPLRC, was not printed in the Dispatcher as part of the MOU, was not put into the Los Angeles/Long Beach Crane Operator Addenda of the PCLCD, and has not been mentioned in any CLRC Minutes.
That being said; item 2 of the Local 13 Crane Training Agreement states:
“Individuals currently on the qualified list (who have 200 hours or more at the date of ratification or upon July 1, 2015) shall remain eligible to take crane jobs for a period of one (1) year from the date of ratification as long as the Crane Training program continues to train at a pace of one hundred (100) students per year and may be extended only by mutual agreement.”
Local Bulletin #35-15 states:
“Effective Saturday August 8, 2015 the only individuals that will be eligible to check-in on the Supplementary Crane Board are those individuals that are currently in the Crane Training Program and have successfully completed the Transtainer portion of training.”
Effective August 8, 2015 the Employers unilaterally removed 63 qualified crane drivers from the Supplemental Crane Board in violation of item 2 of the Local 13 Crane Training Agreement.
Section 13.3 of the PCLCD states:
“Grievances and complaints alleging that a contractual provision or rule is discriminatory as written or as applied, … are to be filed and processed with the Joint Port Labor Relations Committee (JPLRC) under the grievance procedures in Section 17.4 of the PCLCA.”
Section 24.2 of the PCLCD states;
“All other restrictions on the employer or longshoremen that are in conflict with the provisions of this Agreement are null and void. There will be no unilateral “hip pocket” working or dispatching rules.”
Coast Arbitrator Sam Kagel in his Decision C-10-86 stated:
“Rule 6 on its face is, per se, discriminatory in view of the unambiguous language of Section 8.41”, “Section 13 is applicable to all provisions of the PCLCD”, and “Rule 6 in this case, is on its face in violation of Section 13.”
Coast Arbitrator John Kagel in his Decision C-02-04 makes it clear that in order to claim conflict with the Agreement there must be a prima facie showing that the language in dispute conflicts with the PCLCD.
In this case the agreement to pay Local 13 Hall crane drivers Skill III crane pay when they work Skill II or Skill I jobs, is a violation of Section 4.31 which states:
“Wages to be called Skill Rates shall be paid for types of work specified in Section 4.32”,
and the Addenda titled Guarantees, Skilled Rates For All Longshoremen And Clerks which states:
“Employees shall be paid at the appropriate shift and skill rates of pay in accordance with Sections 2 and 4, PCL&CA, and the provisions herein. Individual side agreements, including paid hours in excess of the PCL&CA, as defined by Area Arbitration SC-29-79, between individual employees or local Union Officials and individual member companies shall be considered a Contract violation.”
Paying the Hall crane drivers the 2 hours extra that crane drivers get, plus the difference between Skill I or Skill II and Skill III crane pay in dollars, with no hours associated, and paying the day side steady men $55 per day under the table are clear violations of Section 4.32 and the Addenda, and constitutes fraud against the benefits that asses all hours paid.
No assessments being paid for the extra crane hours, or the $55 per day paid to the day side steady men, has Coast wide significance as it relates to the low man out dispatch system as well as qualifying and paying for vacations, holidays, and medical benefits funding.
The “Local 13 Crane Training Agreement” is NOT part of the PCL&CA. The Tentative Agreement is not signed by any Local 13 Officers, or any PMA members of the LA/LB JPLRC, was not printed in the Dispatcher as part of the MOU, was not put into the Los Angeles/Long Beach Crane Operator Addenda of the PCLCD, and has not been mentioned in any CLRC Minutes.
As we see it, the Employers have 2 choices:
Live up to the agreement to leave the qualified crane drivers on the Supplemental Crane Board for the next year, like they agreed to; agree to pay all crane drivers the $55 per day currently paid to the steady men; agree to pay all Skill III drivers 10 hours at Skill III when they work other than Skill III jobs; and agree to do the same for all the other ILWU Locals covered by the PCLCD, or;
Stop paying the $55 per day to the steady men, and the guaranteed crane pay to the hall crane board when they work other than a crane job, Monday through Friday, and send everything back to the CLRC to be properly negotiated and included in the PCLCD.
For the Employers to continue doing what they are doing constitutes an ongoing violation of Sections 4.31, 13.3, 18.1, 24.2 and the Guarantees, Skilled Rates For All Longshoremen And Clerks Addenda of the PCLCD.
What is going on with Bobby O’s super duper Crane Training Agreement aka the “Make Whole” Agreement?
The alleged Local 13 Crane Training Tentative Agreement was done on February 20, 2015, but NOT made part of the Memorandum of Understanding. Why?
The alleged Local 13 Crane Training Tentative Agreement is not signed by any of the Local 13 Officers, and was approved by Local 13’s membership at a regular meeting without ever being seen by the rank-and-file.
According to Local 13’s Bulletin #35-15, “the Employers” are implementing the elimination of the “Qualified” men from the Supplemental Crane Board as of August 8, 2015. One year ahead of what was agreed to.
Looks like “the Employers” have changed the dates and the terms of the “Agreement”, and poor Bobby O and the rest of the Local 13 Officers can’t do anything about it because PMA is making them do it.
According to the “Agreement”, the “qualified” members who are on the Supplemental Crane Board, who have 200 crane hours as of July 1, 2015, will be allowed to stay on the Board for 1 year before being removed.
Who changed the cut-off date from July 1, 2015, to May 23, 2015 and decided to remove everyone not in training from the Board and put them on the “Qualified List”?
The list is to be capped as of May 23, 2015 (date ILWU ratified), but those who are on the board can stay on for 1 year.
What the fuck are Bobby O and his idiot crew doing?
Since when is Local 13 helpless to do anything except what PMA makes them do?
What, they can’t do anything because PMA refuses to have LRC meetings, and there is nothing poor helpless Local 13 can do?
Are the Local 13 Officers incompetent or that scared of PMA, or do they just want to please the steady men?
Whose idea was the little kicker at the end of the 1st paragraph of item 2: “These issues shall not be arbitrable”?
Nice, when the Union and PMA break the “hip pocket” deal, there is no way to get to the “new” neutral Arbitrator.
These guys thought of everything. Almost.
Is the $55per day extra paid to the day side steady men, which is not in the contract, arbitrable?
Latest gossip from the Bobby O Jr. public relations consultant is that Bobby has asked the lawyers to be at the next Grievance Committee meeting, “to calm Eric down”.
Man, that is a meeting I would pay to attend.
Watching the lawyers that brought a bullshit restraining order motion against Eric, who then withdraw it after their client (Chris Viramontes) got the Arbitration decision he wanted, will be very interesting.
Watching a couple of lawyers try to tell a Union man how to run a Union, will be fascinating.
Bobby and his pet lawyers trying to tell a Union man, how to be a “good” Union man?
Local 13’s latest attempt, on Harry Bridges’ Birthday, to use the Grievance Committee to bully members, under the guise of chiseling complaints, did not go the way they expected.
When Steven Black went to Local 13 today to file his Section 13.3 complaint against Local 13 Grievance Committee, Mark Mascola refused to take it. Mark told the secretary not to give Steve’s Union Complaint a number, and told Steve that he would have to reword it and make it a Section 13.2 Complaint.
Mark did however take the Complaint and made 2 copies.
Not really a problem for Steve’s representative, Eric Aldape, who just gave a copy to the other half of the JPLRC, PMA.
Looks like Mark Mascola (PMA’s pick for the next Southern California ILWU Arbitrator) is trying to be the next Judge Roy Bean. Kinda like the next Dread Pirate Roberts did in the movie Princes’ Bride.
Steve did not tell Mark that he had already filed a Section 13.2 complaint with Arbitrator Jan Holmes, but he probably knows now as Local 13 was faxed a copy as required by the procedure.
Wonder if some of the Employers are starting to rethink their choice?
Washington Area: Jeff Thomas (PMA), Randy Whitman (ILWU), Philip Kienast (neutral)
So. Cal: Mark Mascola (ILWU), Ron Merical (x-PMA), Mei Bickner (neutral)
Oregon: Jan Holmes (x-PMA), Brad Clark (ILWU), Burton White (neutral)
No.Cal: Bill Niland (PMA), Tom Clark (ILWU), William Riker (neutral)
Today at Local 13 the attorneys are putting on the last of a 4 day seminar on grievance handling and arbitration procedures.
Funny thing, there was no Bulletin telling the rank-and-file about the FREE, paid for by the International, Labor Relations Seminar. Only Bobby O Jr.’s Clique members and their buddies, the Local 94 Officers, the Local 63 Officers, Local 13 Officers, and selected Local 13 E-Board members were invited to the special training, and of course Leal Sundet, Ray Ortez, and Ray Familathe are attending. (Even though cheer leader Ray Familathe has never done, and will never do, an arbitration, he can barely send an e-mail)
All these elected officials who are on the Union payroll are getting Free training, and I’ll bet someone will make a motion to pay the E-Board members who attended, at the next E-Board meeting.
When the class was given at a local college for a $140, it was in the Bulletin, but not the free class at Local 13.
Who do you think set this up?
Interesting, a class on arbitration procedures given to a bunch of people who have no access to any JPLRC Minutes or Arbitrations, unless they pertain to themselves.
Wonder how the attorneys explain the use of other Arbitrations and JPLRC minutes are not needed in the ILWU way of arbitrating.
Call Bobby O Jr. and ask him how you can get into the FREE class, and when the next one is.
Knowledge is power……..
Now give the class to any member of the bargaining unit, including casuals.
