Guess who the union steward is in my little office, LDB ?
Ill give you a hint.. Its me.
And you know how many grievances there have been since I have taken over years ago ?
None.
Because unlike your average union thug, I believe things should be worked out if possible. Nobody has faced any discipline beyond an informal, "please don't do that again.". So, I'd say to you that everything works just fine in my little office just the way it is, TYVM.
Early in my career back as a greenie engineer, the shop I worked at had me in an entry level spot. I was the shop floor supervisor for about 50 fitters in the heavy fabrication area. It was a union shop, I can't remember which, some sort of welders/steel fitters or something like that... been over 2 decades ago so my memory isn't the best. I got the crap shift being the new guy: 2PM to 11PM... there was no third shift, and I was also the engineering support since no one else was there at those hours.
I'd leave after shift and get home around 1AM, scrub down and get in bed.
About 2-3 times a week, my phone would ring at 800AM, it was the plant manager telling me I had to come in. Every time, I'd walk into the meeting and it was the union steward and plant manager sitting there... complaints from my night shift about some new grievance filed against me. It was almost always "time study". Every time I would stop and watch someone work, those lazy bastards would claim I was doing a time study which was prohibited in the contract they had. It got to where I started doing it on purpose just to watch the frenzy. All I had to do was stop and stare for about 5 minutes and watch them run around busting ass and laugh. Otherwise, they would sit around and read magazines and shit.
The plant manager was getting to hate me because he had to deal with the shit so much, but would still laugh about how I was in their craw and driving them nuts.
It was always the same 4-5 assholes. The rest of my guys were ass-busters, worked hard for their pay. I had a real good time taunting the lazy sons of bitches. But man, the plant manager sure did get sick of it. When they would start to ratchet up the grievances, I'd start handing out write-ups for safety violations and they would back off for a week or so. The cat and mouse continued until I moved into the engineering design department after a couple of years.
Oh, and just as a funny side note... it was a small town and I knew almost all of the guys pretty well. I had 6 of them on work release from jail, all DUI's or bar fights.
The job was VERY dirty, so I bought this old dodge station wagon to shuttle to work and back. I could get all 6 of them in there, some piled in the back. Every night after clock-out, it was a mad rush... I was the shuttle back to the country lockup. We had 15 minutes after clock-out to get them there... bumper dang near dragging the ground with all those derelicts piled in there. Brings back memories...
