A couple of updates

Sorry I haven’t been updating my blog. The problem is that now that I know my route well, and my customers like me, and I’m not forced to work unwanted overtime in areas where I get in people’s way or meet interesting people, nothing funny happens to me anymore. Basically, I’m fairly contented with my job, and my customers are fairly contented with me. That’s a good thing, but it makes for boring blog material. Plus, I’ve been on vacation this week, so I’ve been trying not to think about work.

But I do have some updates for you. The first is about my wrist injury. It only took four days before the company caved in. My steward (updates on the steward election next) helped me by talking to the woman in charge of dealing with worker’s comp claims. He told her that I would like a second opinion, and that he had advised me to get a lawyer. Four days later, I got a call from the doctor’s office informing me of a new appointment I had with the hand specialist. When I saw the worker’s comp woman, she explained it to me.

“Basically,” she said, “Dr. _____ said that if you ask ten doctors, five would say it’s industrially related, and five would say it’s not, so since it’s easy to treat, he said let’s go ahead and treat her.”

Wait, that’s it? But I had planned to dig in my heels, line up allies, and have a good ol’ fashioned righteous fight with the company.

Fine, I won’t call a lawyer, but I still insist on seeing my own doctor. I just don’t like the idea of my employer and doctor (who my employer uses on an ongoing basis for worker’s comp claims) colluding about my care. It makes me think that the doctor tries to give favorable outcomes to the company so they continue to choose that practice.

She tried to convince me not see my own doctor:

Gentle manipulation: “Why don’t you just try this specialist first and see if you like him.”

Scare tactics: “The problem I’ve run into with outside doctors is that they don’t submit reports in a timely manner and it delays payments and such for you if you end up off work.”

Intimidation: “Well, tell me why you don’t want to see Dr._____.”

Now, I don’t have to tell her that. It shouldn’t matter. She shouldn’t be asking. But I told her that I wanted someone neutral.

“He is neutral,” she tried to convince me. “He has his own practice and only comes to [this office] once a week.”

Any doctor hired by the company is a company doctor to me. I won’t ever be falling into that trap again.

Now, for the steward elections. My guy lost by one vote. The driver who won, was the other guy I considered supporting. He and I had many conversations over the weeks leading up to the election. I must have made an impression on him because as soon as the results were in, he called me and invited me to be his alternate steward. I had no idea he had planned to do that.

But alas, the final decision is up to our Business Agent (BA) because alternate stewards are actually appointed by him, not the steward. He just usually appoints who the stewards want to work with. My steward told me right away that the BA was not happy with him choosing me, but that he was still going to push for me because he felt we need strong leadership and we need women in power. We have one African American official on our Local leadership board, the rest are aging white men. He thinks that’s a problem, and feels we need more diversity in leadership. I like the way he thinks.

But I can be contentious (surprise!). I bring up topics the leadership would prefer not to deal with. And quite frankly, I challenge the union bureaucracy, and the BA relies on that Bureaucracy. So elevating my leadership status is threatening to the BA. And he finally won. My steward called me a couple days ago and said he was tired of arguing over my appointment. He felt that if he continued to demand me as alternate steward he would not have the support he needed from the BA when it came to fighting grievances, etc.

“But I’m still going to train you. I still want to work with you. Eventually the contract will be up and there will be another election and opportunity for you. And I still think we need women leaders,” he assured me.

He has chosen another woman driver to be his alternate. Someone who I think will do an excellent job because she already speaks up for drivers.

I would have liked to be the alternate, but the important thing is that I’ve already established myself as a leader among some of the drivers. I’ve earned their respect, and I’ve strengthened our working relationship. As this economic crisis deepens, management will crack down on us harder and harder. It will take a cohesive and strong rank and file response to protect us. We can build that in our workplace despite our BA.