Reality Check Ep 035

The discussion is about a legal decision made by the Department of Labor in favor of a feeder driver named Mr. Bishop who was fired by UPS for failing to post his meal period during a delay. The decision was based on federal regulations that state all on-duty time should be paid, including time waiting at a meet point. UPS had to pay Mr. Bishop back pay and compensatory damages. The conversation also mentions a piece of paper that UPS wants drivers to sign, which instructs them to clock out for lunch during breaks in their route. The speaker refuses to sign it because it goes against federal regulations and believes more locals should push back on this issue. Teamster Power 767 Reality Check with Jeff Schoenfeld and Garfield Hooper. What's the good word today, Garfield? The good word today is legal decisions. Legal decisions in our favor, actually. So, we're going to go over a legal decision that the Department of Labor made in 2013, November of 2013, that was for a feeder driver versus UPS. Now, this feeder driver, he had gone to meet someone, to meet another driver to take his load to another meet point, to another area. He was at a meet point, and he was having to wait for this other driver to take his load. And his dispatcher, supervisor, whatever, told him to clock out for lunch while he waited at that meet point. And this kind of relates a little bit to some of the things that we've talked about in the past, about how we handle lunches and how the company wants us to handle lunches, and I'll get into that a little bit later. But Mr. Bishop was fired for dishonesty, it would seem. According to the transcript of the decision, he was discharged for failing to post his meal period during the delay. Dishonesty, failure to properly record time, that sort of thing. Dishonesty turns out even in 2013 was something that the company loved to go to when they wanted to fire somebody. Mr. Bishop, he went through the grievance process. It went to panel, and it was upheld. This termination was upheld in panel. And then he had to get a labor lawyer and take this to the Department of Labor. It's a little disappointing that this made it through the grievance process because I feel like this would have been pretty obvious that if you're responsible for your vehicle, then he's responsible for his load. He should be getting paid for it. In fact, there are some federal regulations that support this. And I'll point out that if you'll go to, and I'm getting this information from the Code of Federal Regulations.gov, the ECFR.gov, and I'll post this stuff in our social media so people can go and read it on themselves. You're to be paid for on-duty time. And on-duty time means all time from the time the driver begins to work or is required to be in readiness to work until the time the driver is relieved from work and all responsibilities for performing work. On-duty shall include number one. Now, this is a big one, and I'm not going to read all of them, but I'm going to read down to the important one that's going to relate to the things we've talked about. All the time at a plant, terminal facility, or other property of a motor carrier or shipper, or any public property waiting to be dispatched unless the driver has been relieved from duty by the motor carrier. Now, this is kind of what supports the decision that the Department of Labor made to give this man his job back, Mr. Bishop his job back. Because he was waiting for another driver. He was still responsible for the vehicle. And it ended up costing the UPS almost a quarter of a million dollars in back pay, compensatory damages. I believe they paid some of his health – because he didn't have health benefits while this was going on, so they paid some of his medical bills from the time he was off work. And he was off work for like 15, 16 months. So they paid stuff for him and his wife. But you know what it is. The stress of it all, I mean, no matter what – I mean, you can't take that back. That stress that you put on someone and their family and everything they go through, I'm sure you've got compensatory damages. But it's just – you can't take that back, and that's something the company always does. Let's just fire them first, fire them first, fire them first. But, you know, I mean, it sucks that he had to go through that. But out of that, we got a decision. We got a decision on this, and this seems to me pretty precedent-setting because it cites these things from Title 49. Number two on this is all-time inspecting, servicing, or conditioning any commercial vehicle at any time. And number three, which is the important one for us package car drivers, is all time as defined in the term driving time. And scrolling up on the same page, you can come up to the definition for driving time. It means all time spent at the driving controls of a commercial motor vehicle in operation. So according to federal regulations, Title 49 on transportation, if you're driving a commercial vehicle – which all of our vehicles are commercial because they all have DOT numbers – if you're driving a commercial vehicle, you're getting paid. You're on duty. You're responsible for that vehicle. So when the company looks at you with that piece of paper – and most anybody hearing this has probably already seen that piece of paper – and says that when you break trace, you have to clock out to drive to lunch. And then you have to remain clocked out until you get back on trace. That is illegal. That is against federal regulations. So you mean the piece of paper that's being made up, right? That has maybe three words from the contract and the rest is just made up, right? Yeah, the top – I think – yeah. If you look at it – you know what, I've got a copy of it in my bag. I'll scan it and post it up with this stuff so we can see where – so we can see where, you know, the bullshit is. It even has a dividing line. Like the top, like, three lines are the contract language, and everything below it is bullshit. You know where I first saw that? When I was the VA out there at your building. Oh, was it at our building the first time you saw it? Yeah. Yeah, and I was like, what is this? Is this toilet paper? Yeah. I thought it was just toilet paper they were handing out. I mean, seriously. I couldn't believe that they were trying to, you know, pull that off, you know, so. And, you know, it saddens me that we can't get any more pushback from this from the locals. And I've even heard, like, other people refer to it as, you know, needing to clock out to drive to lunch. You know, I've seen other people post about it on podcasts and other social media posts, and I'm like, I can't stand up for that. Like, as far – as long as I'm behind the wheel of that vehicle, like, I need to be getting paid. And, like, for instance, on my route, I just started a brand new route, and at the closest point to an area to get something to eat is about four and a half miles. And every day I break off at, you know, when I get to those close points, and I drive to the area where I go to. And the area I go to is right there at a major intersection of the highway, so it's got a bunch of stuff. It's got Chick-fil-A and Whataburger and Popeyes and Subway and Jersey Mike's, Furry's, and all that kind of – Furry Tacos and all that kind of stuff. So, Fuzzy's Tacos, not Furry's Tacos. That is – okay. And, you know, so I'll go to different places because I'm going to eat at the same place every time. But, you know, this is the – this is the route. I'm inside the boundaries that they set for me, so I'm going to go where I need to go to get lunch. I'm not going to drive from the middle of my area over there. I'm going to work my way over there towards it. When I get close, I'm going to break and go eat lunch. And then I'm going to come back over to where I stopped, and I'm going to keep on going. And I'm going to do that every day. And if, you know, if they want to come at me and terminate me for dishonesty, then, you know, they're going to come at somebody who's prepared to fight it. Yeah. No, I hear you. I mean, it shouldn't even come to that. So back to the situation in your center. So what exactly is happening right now? What are they making you guys do? What's going on? Oh, they have made it clear that everybody has to go through the – they have to be recertified on the lunch procedures, quote, unquote. So they're calling people in with the steward? With the steward, yes, and saying, hey, you know, we're going to go over this and, you know, read it out to them. At first, I was told that, you know, I told them, I was like, I'm not even going to listen to this. Like, this is – like, you all know how I feel about it. If you all want to read the stuff from the contract, that's fine. I'll sign off on that all day. You know, people need to take and record their lunches every day. You know, we have that stuff that's contractual language. I agree with it. I think it needs to be done. And I'll be happy to tell a member that they need to do it, not only for their health and safety, but also just to follow the contract. And guess what? I'm sure if you bring it to the local, they'll probably agree with you, right? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. But, you know, when I go to – when the second part of that paper, you know, is the stuff where it says, oh, well, when you break trace, and that's the part I don't agree with, so I'm not going to sign that piece of paper. And this is what disappointed me, is because our local informed us that I still needed to hear that and still needed to report on it and still needed to sign it. And I'm not going to do it. They want you to drive off the clock. Yeah. Yeah, they want me – they want me to not only sign it that I – that, you know, as a steward, that I witness this. It's like, I'm not going to do it because I'm not going to add legitimacy to this piece of paper with my signature. You know, this is not something like – I told them. I said, if you want to cut this paper, you know, it's not even that much. It's like the top, like, three lines. The top, like, three or four inches of the page is the contract stuff. You want to cut all this stuff on the bottom up and let me sign that? I'll do that all day long. But I'm not – the rest of this, I'm not doing. Like, I'm not dealing with this. This is – you are telling people to do something illegal, and I'm not going to stand for it. And I can't – I don't understand why more locals don't push back on this. Well, why either? I mean, I don't know. I mean, it just makes no sense. I mean, it's outside the – you know, outside the contract. I mean, it's outside the scope of the contract. I don't know why you should even have to be sitting in there. That should never happen. It should be agreed that that conversation should never happen because they're trying to introduce something else in there. I don't get that. I just don't get that. I don't get that. And I've also, like – we've also gone and started – every time they have this conversation with somebody, they'll pull me in there, and I'll be like, I'm not going to sign it, whatever. You can – we're used to sign on it all you want to and stick it in their file. That's you. But I'll sit there and listen to it because I was told by my leadership, if you can call them that, that I need to be in there to listen to it. That's fine. But I'm not going to sign it. I said, but every time somebody is told this, I'm like, I hand them a grievance immediately. I said, you need to file an Article 6 on this. And if they're recertifying anybody else on this bullshit, anywhere else in the southern region or wherever, I said, you guys need to file an Article 6 on it as well, anytime you're given this piece of paper. Like I said, I'll post an example of it up on our social media posts when this podcast goes live and say, hey, this is what you're seeing. If you see this piece of paper, you need to file a grievance. Everybody needs to file a grievance on it. Just like with the – what was it, the DMORs they tried at the beginning of the year? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So let me ask you a question. So did you have that decision from the Department of Labor? Yeah, I've got it. Yeah, I've got it. But I'm saying, though, maybe you mentioned to the manager, hey, look, this is the decision that came down. This is against the law. So this, this, and this, put it on the record. I mean, if you have to sit through that meeting, you put it on the record. That's not a bad idea. Like I could – like I've got all this stuff on my phone. I could bring it up and, you know, read from the, you know, and see what they have to say about it. Yeah, yeah. So are you okay with breaking the law? Bring it up. Hey, are you okay with breaking the law? Yeah. You know, I mean, it's – see what they say, man. Imagine if they're like, yeah, we have no problem breaking the law. That wouldn't look good. That wouldn't look good. Well, you know, they're not particularly interested in looking good. They're interested in what they can get away with. Yeah, yeah. And I'm interested in shutting them down when they do that. Exactly. Exactly. This is why I wanted to be a part of a union. This is why being a part of a union is exciting for me. It's part of the job. It's the part of the job that I enjoy the most. It's also the most stressful part of the job. But being a steward and representing somebody and getting somebody their job back for some bullshit like this, I mean, it's – being part of that process is, like, this job worthwhile. Like, I don't just come in every day, you know, deliver packages and clock out. You know, I'm making a difference. I'm trying to anyways. Well, that's the way either myself and you are. I mean, we know that. And, you know, for me, it's the same thing, just helping people, whether it's in our local or around the country. It's – for me, it's David versus Goliath, right? The company thinks they can do whatever they want over here. They say no. Yeah. That's not going to happen. It's just not going to happen. And we keep fighting. It is a good feeling. You can honestly make a difference, you know, in people's lives where you're just helping them out and you're saying to the company, no, you can't do this. The members see that. They're like, wow, look, this is – look, they stood up for us, right? Look at that. And this is – exactly, this is what a union is about. So, I mean, that's why we always keep up that fight. That's why it's, you know, that's why we do what we do. So, but, yeah, well, listen, just – I guess you'll keep us up to date on future podcasts, how that's going and what they're doing with that. Hopefully, we can just shut them down because this is a load of crap. There should have been more things in place to say to the company, no, you can't do this, and here are the repercussions of thinking you can do whatever the hell you want. Yeah. But, hey, maybe the next contract. Yeah. So, all right, for Garfield and myself, everyone have a good day. 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, 767realitycheck at gmail.com. That's 767realitycheck at gmail.com. And remember, strong people stand up for themselves, but the strongest people stand up for others.