Above photo: UPSTeamstersUnited.org.
Arlington, TX— Teamsters of the shop floor committee at the UPS hub in Arlington conducted an anti-harassment workshop, February 2, to highlight the protections afforded to workers under article 37 of the UPS national contract with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. The workshop was led and primarily attended by rank-and-file members, with participants including stewards and union staff.
Article 37 contains the rights won by UPS Teamsters that protect workers from harassment; but workers are often unaware of their rights protecting them from such harassment or often do not realize the mistreatment they are enduring from management constitutes harassment at all.
What constitutes harassment under article 37? Harassment is “over-supervision, coercion, intimidation, or retaliation taken against workers in performance of their duties or enforcement of their rights.”
It is important to remember that it is more effective to file a grievance on article 37 in conjunction with other articles, for example article 52 (suspension), article 36 (discrimination), 21 (attempting to prevent union protected activities), and article 18 (safety).
A group activity was conducted to help each participant hone their skills in writing grievances to enforce their rights in fighting harassment, with participants sharing strategies for how to make their grievances most effective.
The militant rank-and-file unionists that led the meeting plan to continue to conduct workshops informing workers of their rights and how to enforce them, with a workshop planned to cover the rights afforded workers to protect them from the heat in the coming months.