Reality Check EP 018

The podcast discusses the concept of disparate treatment in the workplace, which is a form of discrimination and a legal employment issue. The hosts share examples of disparate treatment at UPS, where certain employees are disciplined while others are not for the same actions. They also talk about an incident involving dress code enforcement, where only one side of the building was targeted. They emphasize the importance of recognizing and challenging disparate treatment, filing grievances, and not letting management avoid signing them. The hosts wish listeners happy holidays and encourage seeking advice from local stewards or business agents. Teamster Power 767 Reality Check with Jeff Schoenfeld and Garfield Hooper. All right, Garfield, today we're going to talk about one thing, it's called disparate treatment, D-I-S-P-A-R-A-T-E, disparate treatment. Now a disparate treatment is a form of discrimination that can occur in the workplace and is considered as evidence of a legal employment discrimination. Now I've been using this for years when I found out years ago exactly what it was and it's used a lot in legal cases and whatnot. Now disparate treatment we know happens at UPS. I mean, they'll treat one member different than the other and one will get discipline for doing the same thing that someone else did and they won't get discipline, management plays favorites. They don't want people getting discipline, but they got to do it fair. So when I was a VA, I was doing the Fort Worth building, they were giving discipline out and it just seemed weird what they were doing just based off, just looking at some of the discipline coming in and we looked at attendance and stuff briefly, nothing crazy. So we asked management, hey, listen, labor, give us the last six months of the Pittsburgh, which is the attendance. So we didn't even make it through the A's and let's say there was someone with 70 occurrences. And this is being late, I'm assuming? Late or late absent, whatever it is, whatever the occurrence was. That's not even the issue here. The point is something like that and then there's someone with 20 some odd occurrences, person with 20 was getting the discipline, the person with 70 wasn't. Now, we don't want anyone getting disciplined, but that's, we want them to back off from just giving any discipline at all. But you can't just single someone out if you don't like it, if you don't like them. But that person going on, that's a problem. That person with 70 something was probably somebody's buddy. Yeah. And again, I'm not, you know, this is about treating people fairly. And you know, they, what I'm trying to say here is they really were, you know, it shows they wanted this person who had 20 occurrences and, you know, you can't just pick and choose because you don't like someone. And that's what it comes down. You know it. They don't hold back. You know what management doesn't like someone. Yeah. And, you know, it's, they do it all the time with different things and, oh, one person could do this, but another person can't. One person, I mean, it's just, and that's how they try to divide us. That's why this is important because they do that all the time and they want in fighting with us. But disparate treatment, it's, there's no specific wording for it in the contract, but you put it under 37 and 66 because it's a form of harassment. Yeah. And, you know, it goes under discrimination also. And you know, it's just, it's bad. I mean, it's bad. I'm sure you've come across situations that involve that, right? Yeah. We had one just recently in our center, probably about a month or so ago, maybe a month and a half. One of the days when I was off shortly after I came back from injury, our division manager pulled in all of my stewards and said, hey, listen, you know, everybody on your side, I noticed they've been wearing a lot of hoodies and stuff and that doesn't follow the guidelines. So just do me a favor and let everybody know they need to stop wearing hoodies. And I said, and when my stewards were telling me about this, I told them, I said, well, did they say anything to the Frisco guys? Because there's two buildings in our center. There's a McKinney building and a Frisco building. And they didn't know. So I reached out to the Frisco stewards and nobody had said anything to them about it. You know, I reached out to some of the Sherman drivers and which is another building that this division manager is over. Nobody had said anything to them about it. And, you know, every day for a week we were coming in, you know, some of like we had talked to some of the drivers and said, hey, you know, stop wearing hoodies, start wearing the stuff that the UPS provides you. And I was just looking, you know, the Frisco drivers just walking out, every other driver wearing a brown hoodie with the UPS stuff on it. I'm like, so it's just the side of our building, the McKinney side that filed, you know, over 700 grievances that got talked to about this. So of course, of course, things like that, if you're filing grievances, they're coming after you. I mean, that's, they're singling people out and you can't do that. And it's, it's been like, it seems like it's been accepted all these years and that is unacceptable. So I, for so many reasons, I filed a grievance under 37 and 66 and, you know, put on there, put his name on there. I even went in there and had him sign it and said, you know, you know, and I gave him a copy of it. I said, this is, you know, this is where you're at. And, you know, you're treating my sinner differently because we're not afraid of you than you are these other sinners. And, you know, still to this day, you know, the Frisco drivers still wear hoodies. And also, like, I can't understand how incredibly petty you have to be to tell somebody that they can't wear a hoodie in, you know, in this weather, you know, when it's cold out, like let people be comfortable. Like they're not, these aren't like ratty hoodies. Most of them are fairly new. They're brown. Most all of them have UPS emblems on them that people have had and bought over the years or even more recently. So, like, it's not like they look bad. It's not like it's not like we look like FedEx drivers or Amazon drivers delivering out there. Yeah. So, like, like, as far as I'm concerned, as far as I've seen, we're still probably the even with hoodies, we're still probably the best dressed delivery people out there. But you know. Oh, yeah. And I mean, it's just like the it's just like the stuff with the socks. Like, I've never met a customer that gave a shit what color my socks were. I know. I just you know, when they start doing that, I just I'm just like, you really are you serious? Yeah. And, you know, the thing the thing with the socks is, you know, it's like in the contract. Well, if you're wearing pants, you don't have to worry about the socks. Yeah. I don't want to wear pants when it's 120 degrees. Yeah. I mean, what the hell? I don't know. So, I mean, but the fact that they even come after you is to something like that is a problem. And, you know, it's it's just ridiculous. But remember that disparate treatment and it's important. I think more people need to to really file on that because, you know, it's discrimination and it's baloney. And it's really easy to spot. If you pay attention, it's really easy to spot. You'll see the guys that come in every day that are coming late or, you know, that are running in during PCM to grab their boards or whatever. And nobody says a word to them. But, you know, and then you've got the guys that, you know, maybe don't aren't running and skipping their lunch out there every day. They come in late one time and it's all of a sudden it's a huge deal. Oh, yeah. Of course. Of course. I mean, that's more stuff. And that's that's why it's so important because they I mean, disparate treatment is it goes on all the time in a lot of situations and the company just this is what they do and we just have to push back against it. Exactly. So. But listen, there's one other thing I wanted to talk about. This is for the stewards when you go in and you want to get a grievance like a disparate treatment grievance, you want to get it signed and the management giving you the run around and this. Yeah. You don't want to sign it. Fine. Don't sign it. You don't need to go running around and try to go find someone that you don't run or you don't want to sign it. No. Yes. The date, the time, you know where it happened and whatnot, because I guarantee you from labor, labor will tell the management person, what did you do? Sign it. And, you know, I've seen people, you know, stewards trying to run around just to to get it. No, they don't want to sign it. OK. You don't want to say you're supposed to sign it. Good. We're going to RTS it then. That's it. And that's that's something you need to know. We don't need to run around like, you know, oh, we got to find a management person or everyone's just avoiding me or this and that. That's not what we do. You find a management person. It doesn't matter who it is. And you just have to say, hey, sign it. They don't want to give another chance. Hey, just asking you to sign it. What is that? OK. You know, you don't want to sign it. We're going to RTS it. That's it. And that's important because we can't let them get away with anything. OK. And, you know, trying to make us run around to get a signature. No, that's not going to happen. OK. So just just for the stewards, it's just something to know. Yeah. But that's that's really it for this. We just want to cover those two things. Important things. Once again, like everything else, it's important. I just everyone have a good night. Jeff and I would just like to wish everyone a happy holidays and thank you for joining us. We strive to be better every day for the members. And we look forward to bringing you an even better podcast in the next year. We all deal with national language. But on this podcast, when it comes to supplemental language, we deal mostly with the southern region. And as always, it's best to get advice from your local stewards or business agents. If you would like to reach out to us with any questions, we have an email address. Seven six seven reality check. That's email dot com. 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