UWUA Local 304 Utility Workers Union of America AFL-CIO

Many of you may or may not know that our union has recently arbitrated a long-standing grievance involving an employee with twenty-five years of combined service with Allegheny Energy and First Energy. This employee worked shift work in plant operations for fifteen years, advancing all the way to the “A” Operator’s position, and then bid to maintenance for an additional 10 years.

This employee also witnessed the birth of UWUA Local 304 and served our union faithfully as a Steward and as the Secretary Treasurer. The trouble started when this employee was being “resource shared” at Fort Martin in September 2018.

The employee fell from a platform, injuring his shoulder. The employee reported it, as required. This touched off a series of events that were as unimaginable as they were unwarranted. That’s when the employee engaged our union by filing a grievance.

Previous to the accident, our union fought the company over the forced use of the now infamous “Form 709″. The union had argued that this medical related form that gave the company unfettered access to an employees’ ENTIRE medical history. The union fought and won in a previous arbitration that Local 304 members were EXEMPT from the offending form and made it clear that the company had no right to an employees’ entire medical history or even a specific diagnosis about a member’s condition when they use, they’re contractually guaranteed sick time (remember-others lost this defined benefit, replaced by PTO).

For some time after 2017, the company was still slipping 304 members the 709 form, and the employee/grievant received the disputed form and returned it as requested. Once the company had wrongfully granted access to the employees’ entire medical history, they denied the employee the overtime that he usually would’ve worked and later would not even allow the grievant to return to work.

Over the next two years, the union, on behalf of the grievant, and the company wrangled while the grievant was bounced from company doctor to company doctor. Two of the company’s doctors even cleared the grievant to return to work. Regardless of what each doctor’s notes said, none of them were good enough to allow the aggrieved employee to return to work. All the while, the grievant used up his full- and half-time sick pay, his PAD days, and all of his vacation days.  He was being starved out.

The grievant was allowed, briefly, to return to work. Another grievance was filed in an effort to get the employee paid for the work; plus, overtime he was wrongfully denied. Essentially, our union wanted the grievant ‘made whole”. The employee retired in disgust in 2020, but our union fought on.

In the end, our retiree/grievant Brother was MADE WHOLE as the union requested in its’ grievance. The award granted by the arbitrator reads as follows:

The grievance is granted. The Company failed to prove it had just cause for the de facto
suspension of the Grievant when it took him off work on October 30, 2018.
1. The Company is ordered to compensate the Grievant for economic losses he
suffered as a result of being removed from work.
2. The Grievant is to be compensated effective February 22, 2019 until the date he
returned to work, December 4, 2019.
3. Compensation includes lost pay at straight time for all regular hours of work that he
would ordinarily have been assigned, as well as the paid time off the Grievant used
to supplement his income, such as vacation and personal absence days.
4. Lost pay shall include any wage increases the Grievant would have received had he
not been removed from work and any lost overtime from February 22 to December
4, 2019.
5. The parties are to meet and attempt to determine the amount of compensation and
other make whole relief owed to the Grievant from February 22 to December 4,
2019. The Arbitrator retains jurisdiction for 90 days to resolve any issues as to this
remedy only.

So, what does old grievances from a now retired employee have to do with present day 304 members?

The answer is that the Utility Workers Union of America, through its’ Local 304, is always looking to protect your rights. In this case, it’s the right to keep your personal and private medical information in your control and not allow anyone, not even our employer, to abuse those rights for their own ends.

The grievance process is one of the most important tools we, as members, have in defining and enforcing our collective bargaining agreement, as this arbitration and award proves.

Our contract gives management certain rights to run the business as they see fit, most of which are codified under the section called “Management Rights”. However, even these broad and far-reaching rights do not give management the right to abuse our members rights, either collectively or by singling one of our own out.

As a union, UWUA Local 304 may not always win, but we will always fight for you!