UAW LOCAL 1050 UPDATE
5/21/14
Brothers and Sisters,
We have communicated to you in the recent past about the company
proposing job combinations in the press room department. As you all witnessed at
the May Business Update town hall meeting put on by the company, there are many
questions surrounding the company’s proposal without many answers. In those
meetings we learned of how Alcoa is leading the Industry with Truck Wheels and
our innovative process gaining new contracts in Aerospace. We learned that our
competitors are improving their business by investing in their plants by
building a new plant or purchasing new equipment or building new presses. Alcoa
on the other hand is fixing our current equipment that has been limping along
for a while now, selling and scraping old equipment and being the innovative
leaders that Alcoa is, allegedly following all of our competitors by combining
27 current classifications in the press room to an all improved 2
classifications.
For almost a century now, there
is a process of forging Aluminum. The process hasn’t changed much as to why
there are specialty skills that have been and continue to be developed in our
everyday work responsibilities. The Crane Operator operates numerous cranes
throughout the facility up to and including a 200 ton crane. Some dies that are
transported via crane weigh more than most buses. The hundreds of different
parts that we manufacture that are used in the assembly of Airplanes are
inspected right off of the press by a Hot Inspector to determine if we are in
spec based on the blueprint and pronotes of what may be a critical part to a
plane. Our Industrial Truck Drivers are performing a task that leads all of
Alcoa, Inc. in the most frequent fatalities worldwide when it comes to safety,
yet Cleveland Works leaders have a plan to have roughly one hundred employees
from all ages, skill sets, education, work experience, knowledge and physical
abilities perform all 27 job duties at any given time without in most cases much
continuity to perform a task safe, efficient or productive. Whenever asked how
the company plans on training 100 employees that they are obligated to do, there
is no answer other than “we will look into that and come up with a training
matrix!”
We had one member compare what Alcoa is trying to do to a Major League
baseball team running a team like Alcoa. Imagine you have 9 players in a game
and the pitcher is tired and you need to make a pitching change so you decide to
switch the pitcher with the catcher and move the shortstop to right field; put
the righfielder at short, move the centerfielder at 1st base and the 1st
baseman in centerfield. Now, don’t get hurt and go win a ball game!
The company is well aware that
contractually they can combine jobs and the Union has the right to challenge the
wage proposed. We just can’t believe the reasons that the company is giving us
for the combinations are for flexibility to keep the presses moving and because
our competition is doing it. When’s the last time you saw a press idle because
someone was on vacation or was ill?
The Union does not think this proposed job combination will achieve any
of their alleged goals. In fact, we have expressed to the company that we
believe that there will be increased risk of injuries and safety incidents,
quality issues, violation of seniority, and the overtime agreement,
discrimination due to abilities, and restrictions and prior disqualifications.
We have requested information on how the proposed job grades were
assessed, job descriptions and training programs. As many infractions, safety
violations or contract violations will undoubtedly arise, the Union will most
definitely deal with each and every infraction accordingly through our grievance
procedure as well as any other source that we deem fitting to the situation.
We just had a member walk in on us and commented on this whole job
combination that really sums up this proposal from Alcoa, Inc. a self proclaimed
world class leader…”The jack of all trades and the master of none!”….
Touché
In Solidarity,
UAW Local 1050
Bargaining Committee