You think that your steward is not doing what he or she is suppose to be doing? Then feel free to contact any of the executive board (eboard) officials. Who are your union officials? Their information can be found under "arbitrations and more."
If you have a concern or issue please contact one of your local stewards. They in turn will contact an eboard member and together they will come up with a plan of attack. You must be cognizant of the fact that we have over 400 members and we must be organized in order to be able to handle all of your concerns. With this in mind we ask that you go to your local steward and give them a chance to fix any issues. It is impossible for the eboard to handle all the phone calls of every member.
Now, what issues are your union representatives currently dealing with??? To be specific there are a number of concerns and they are outlined below:
Douglas- Complaints of pigeon droppings all over the secondary work area are being addressed. OSHA is going to be contacted in reference to this health risk our officers are being placed in. UPDATE: This issue is being taken care of as action has been taken by GSA. Apparently, port director refusing to meet with Union representatives, looking into filing an Unfair Labor Practice. There is also a supervisor who does not like a certain specialized team of officers and is constantly harassing them. We have begun to document all instances of this and in due time will take whatever action is warranted.
Naco- New policies implemented without addressing the Union. Possible Unfair Labor Practice to be filed here also. Issues with one supervisor going to be addressed, similar to the Nogales and Douglas problem. Port Director was refusing officers their right to wear the cargo shorts. Union got involved and now the officers are wearing the attire the so desired.
Phoenix- Members in good standing are concerned with overtime issues that occurred with the bid and rotation assignments. Calls have been made and we are awaiting management's response. Acting port director Eales has not returned our calls, therefore the DFO is going to be contacted. Eales contacted us and officers involved have been advised what to do. A grievance will be filed for an unfair letter of counseling issued to a member. LER and Union came to an agreement in reference to the letter. Officers concerned with the way officers are held from working overtime when they start coming close to capping out. This is being reviewed.
Tucson- Members concerned with being rotated from the airport to the OFO building. We are seeking guidance as we believe this is a change in working conditions. An officer made it known, through our forum, that NTEU Chapter 116 should spend time and resources on officers who are not members in good standing. Sorry folks, but Chapter 116 does not work this way. You want a voice? Then make the choice!
This is directed to officers at the
Both the Chapter president and Vice president went to the
Now, you mention that many officers have submitted there SF1187s in an effort to join the Chapter on more than one occasion. We can only take responsibility for anything that has happened from mid January, 2009. What happened before then, we were not involved with and therefore can not offer an explanation. Some may have been the Chapter’s fault and some the Services’ but bottom line is we are attempting to rectify any deficiencies that have been noted. One of the biggest complaints under the last administration was the lack of communication and the fact that the elected officials would never return phone calls, emails or respond to letters. Heck, even the stewards complained about this!
With this in mind we created a website where each of the elected officials email addresses are located. We have a page that lists all the names of the stewards and a page with a fax, phone line and mailing address directly tied to this chapter. There is a contact form where you can submit whatever you want. This is only the beginning as we have hit the floor running and have not looked back. One thing you will find with us is that we do not sugar coat anything, we are going to tell you how it is and believe in this because we are all adults. In order for us to be able to travel to meet with management, meet with officers, represent employees, meet with senators and congressman and have a website costs a lot of money.
Many officers/employees have made the sacrifice of paying dues for many years because they believe in the word “
We have over 500 members in good standing in our chapter and we have to answer to them and we do. This accounts to close to 90% of the officers and employees in the state of
So believe me when I say that you are in the minority in your belief that this
Sasabe- Looking into management scheduling themselves for overtime that officers would otherwise have and also trying to send officers to training that they say are mandatory when in acutality they are not.
Lukeville- Concerns with management comments being made of an officer that has been reinstated to full duty after a victorious arbitration hearing. AWS 4-10 schedule being worked on for implementation. UPDATE; The 5/4/9 schedule was kept intact instead and with it came the creating of the team concept. Currently they have three separate groups that work entirely as a team. Freedom of information act request on behalf of an officer who was recently reinstated to full duty and was ordered by an arbitrator for the Service to award him back pay. Service is refusing to give him schedules and overtime assignments during his absence in order to determine how much overtime he is due. Funny since it is the Service that is requesting this information, yet they refuse to give it to him. YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!!! and folks.....WE work for these people!! And they still scratch their heads wondering why DHS/CBP has the worst morale issue in the federal government and why officers are simply walking off and quiting the Service.. Can't say I blame them... Grievance filed when management created a midnight shift when the port is closed during these hours. More details to follow.
San Luis- Member represented in IA interview and issues with parking being addressed along with holiday scheduling. Parking issues resolved. Chairs were removed by management from pre-primary and post secondary pedestrian area. Management agreed with the Union and has placed the chairs back.
Nogales- Wow, where do we start!!! Nogales is, by far, the worst run port in Arizona. Management runs rampant doing whatever they want and we are doing everything we can to stop this. A grievance was filed on 02/09/09 on the bid and rotation issue having to do with firearms. Grievance has been addressed and the Union received what we asked for. A possible unfair labor practice is going to filed based on the fact that officers are being ordered to work on their days off. This issue has been rectified. An Unfair Labor Practice occurred when a Chief counseled a steward for not following the chain of command in the capacity of a Union rep. WOW, folks this is Labor Management 101. Let's take them back to grade school and advise them that a steward acting in the capacity of a union representative is at the same rank level of any member of management, end of class. We are going to give them a chance to rectify this within 24 hours otherwise we are going forth with the Unfair Labor Practice and embarrass them service wide.
Bid and Rotation for FY 2010 will be challenged by us and we will not agree to the MOU they are seeking. They have changed all of the percentages dealing with the amount of officers to be rotated into positions, we will also challenge this.
Then their is a supervisor by the name of V. This is a female supervisor who thinks she can do whatever she wants. It has been reported that she belittles officers and likes to point her finger in officer's faces. This person (who does not deserve the title of supervisor) has had numerous complaints filed against her and we predict more are coming. Wherever she goes she creates problems and we are not going to let her get away with it on our watch! With this in mind, if you have been a victim or witnessed V being unprofessional please let us know. We are on high alert on the V watch! Nobody should have to put up with this childish way of supervision. We are all trained adults and encompass everything to it's highest regard, something that V has no clue on how to do. Therefore, do not feel intimidated by V as the Union has your back. By the same token if there is another member of management that is doing something similar, let us know because WE ARE LISTENING and want to put an end to "runaway managers!"
In all fairness there are some managers out there that look out for the troops and believe in the saying A happy employee is a productive employee. Unfortunately, these poor souls are completely surrounded by, shall we say, people that need to read the book supervision for idiots.. These are people that have never held an authoritative position in their life and all of a sudden CBP decides to put oak leafs on their shoulders. Bang! All those years of repression comes out and they feel that they must unload their wrath on good, hard working officers. These are officers that come in believing they can make a difference. After six months, of taking the wrath, they see the light and wonder if they have made the worse decision of their life. These are the officers that after two years are long gone. All due to the runaway managers. So, we feel if we can curtail the runaway managers we can keep more of these good, hardworking officers around and luckily when they get promoted to management WILL NOT FORGET WHERE THEY CAME FROM!!!!!
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