Pingsteal
That Gin & Juicers hunk.
Unless you happen to be a member of Patuxent River Local Lodge 4 of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, married or related to someone who is, or perhaps you work on base, then you probably do not know that there has been a battle going on up in Solomons as Local Lodge 4 and representatives from DynCorp International are engaged in contract negotiations in order to ratify a new collective bargaining agreement for some 950 aerospace workers at several sites across NAS Patuxent River.
Negotiations started actually back in June, and have continued through July, and are scheduled to go up to the end of this month. The current collective bargaining agreement between the two parties expires August 31, 2010. Negotiations have been a tough process at times, but for the most part, the IAM has already made several key improvements for their CBA. However, as good as the improvements are, there are also several key issues that DynCorp International has barely budged on, or have flat out refused to address. Chief among these is the Company has stated they are not interested in providing more paid time off than what is already provided. This means DynCorp is not interested in providing more days of vacation, nor are they interested in giving any DynCorp employees sick leave.
DynCorp believes that any and all time missed from work should be covered with vacation. So if I get sick, and can't go to work, I have to use a day of my vacation in order to go see the doctor, and also, if I am sick bad enough, and the doctor does not want me to work for a day or two, I have to use vacation for those days also, or I do not get paid.
Prior to the Union being voted in by the DynCorp employees, DynCorp offered a benefit of 80 hours of vacation time. This is the industry standard for vacation time accrual after a year. The Union, in the first CBA, negotiated to get an extra day of vacation, bringing that total to 88 hours. That was considered by the Company to be used for 'sick time'. When asked what their chief issues were with DynCorp, employees have stated that having no sick leave was one of their top priorities.
But using vacation time isn't just limited to just being sick. DynCorp expects that time to be used to cover any time away from the work site. Have a car wreck and can't make it to work that day? Better have some vacation time saved up. Get a summons to appear in court? Make sure you have enough vacation to cover it. Remember all the snow we had this past winter? The base was shut down for two or three days. Unless you had vacation time, you didn't get paid. Or you ended up working double and 24 hour shifts and still wasn't able to make up all the time that was missed.
Now, negotiations yesterday, and now today, have been marked by something that is truly disturbing. Yesterday, a member of the DynCorp Negotiating Team had a meeting on the base at 1pm. While this member of the team was away from negotiations, the other DynCorp negotiating members refused to accept any proposals from the Union. This morning, the DynCorp committee was 20 minutes late getting to the negotiating site. They then left negotiations 30 minutes later. A representative from the Company has been quoted as saying that DynCorp "is not interested" in entertaining proposals that have to do with increasing vacation time, granting sick leave to it's employees, and increasing premium wages for employees that hold certain qualifications. DynCorp also feels that it's lower than average pay increase offer is major progress.
As a DynCorp employee, and as a member of the I.A.M., I have to say that the news that DynCorp is not willing to negotiate on these matters disturbs me to no end. Especially having spoken with my brothers and sisters in the Union and these very issues that the Company does not want to address, are some of the single biggest issues that we have wanted addressed. It would appear that DynCorp is trying to stall and coerce the Union into accepting a CBA that is less than what we deserve by pushing negotiations close to the expiration of the current contract.
My friends, I have had just about enough of this crap. I have worked for DynCorp International for four years. I have seen first hand the kind of underhanded things they do to people. It is the only place I have ever worked where tenure means nothing. It is the only place I have ever worked where progress is measured not in how many planes fly, or how much testing we get done, but however, how many disciplinary memos can we push through each month. Supervisors (at least where I work) have regular meetings and one of the things that seems to come up is there is never enough discipline being handed out. I'm sorry maybe I come from La La Land, but if you were running a company, would you not want to have to discipline employees? But on the contrary, DynCorp feels like they have to meet a quota of disciplinary actions in order to measure success.
DynCorp management have also been outright liars and deceivers. I don't know how many times I have brought a problem or an issue to my supervisors, with suggestions and ideas on how to fix it, only to be ignored, or my favorite, being told "that's being addressed", but then not seeing anything done to fix the problem. Or a problem flares up, and there is much yelling, screaming, flailing about that they are going to get a handle on a situation, and that might work for a month or so, but not long after, things go back to how they were before.
Many people that frequent these forums I am sure are members of the local lodge. Or you might have family, friends, and neighbors that are members of the local lodge. We are in a battle against a company that is going to attempt to push us around, and stall things til the last minute in hopes we accept a lesser contract. I would like all Local Lodge members who read this, on their offtime, to head over to the Hilton Gardens in Solomons as a show of solidarity and strength against DynCorp. We are negotiating based on what our membership told us was their biggest issues. Some of these issues the Company are saying they don't want to bargain on. I say it's time we stand up and show DynCorp that we mean business.
So I say, if you're a I.A.M. member, we head over to the Hilton Gardens and make sure that our voices are heard.
Negotiations started actually back in June, and have continued through July, and are scheduled to go up to the end of this month. The current collective bargaining agreement between the two parties expires August 31, 2010. Negotiations have been a tough process at times, but for the most part, the IAM has already made several key improvements for their CBA. However, as good as the improvements are, there are also several key issues that DynCorp International has barely budged on, or have flat out refused to address. Chief among these is the Company has stated they are not interested in providing more paid time off than what is already provided. This means DynCorp is not interested in providing more days of vacation, nor are they interested in giving any DynCorp employees sick leave.
DynCorp believes that any and all time missed from work should be covered with vacation. So if I get sick, and can't go to work, I have to use a day of my vacation in order to go see the doctor, and also, if I am sick bad enough, and the doctor does not want me to work for a day or two, I have to use vacation for those days also, or I do not get paid.
Prior to the Union being voted in by the DynCorp employees, DynCorp offered a benefit of 80 hours of vacation time. This is the industry standard for vacation time accrual after a year. The Union, in the first CBA, negotiated to get an extra day of vacation, bringing that total to 88 hours. That was considered by the Company to be used for 'sick time'. When asked what their chief issues were with DynCorp, employees have stated that having no sick leave was one of their top priorities.
But using vacation time isn't just limited to just being sick. DynCorp expects that time to be used to cover any time away from the work site. Have a car wreck and can't make it to work that day? Better have some vacation time saved up. Get a summons to appear in court? Make sure you have enough vacation to cover it. Remember all the snow we had this past winter? The base was shut down for two or three days. Unless you had vacation time, you didn't get paid. Or you ended up working double and 24 hour shifts and still wasn't able to make up all the time that was missed.
Now, negotiations yesterday, and now today, have been marked by something that is truly disturbing. Yesterday, a member of the DynCorp Negotiating Team had a meeting on the base at 1pm. While this member of the team was away from negotiations, the other DynCorp negotiating members refused to accept any proposals from the Union. This morning, the DynCorp committee was 20 minutes late getting to the negotiating site. They then left negotiations 30 minutes later. A representative from the Company has been quoted as saying that DynCorp "is not interested" in entertaining proposals that have to do with increasing vacation time, granting sick leave to it's employees, and increasing premium wages for employees that hold certain qualifications. DynCorp also feels that it's lower than average pay increase offer is major progress.
As a DynCorp employee, and as a member of the I.A.M., I have to say that the news that DynCorp is not willing to negotiate on these matters disturbs me to no end. Especially having spoken with my brothers and sisters in the Union and these very issues that the Company does not want to address, are some of the single biggest issues that we have wanted addressed. It would appear that DynCorp is trying to stall and coerce the Union into accepting a CBA that is less than what we deserve by pushing negotiations close to the expiration of the current contract.
My friends, I have had just about enough of this crap. I have worked for DynCorp International for four years. I have seen first hand the kind of underhanded things they do to people. It is the only place I have ever worked where tenure means nothing. It is the only place I have ever worked where progress is measured not in how many planes fly, or how much testing we get done, but however, how many disciplinary memos can we push through each month. Supervisors (at least where I work) have regular meetings and one of the things that seems to come up is there is never enough discipline being handed out. I'm sorry maybe I come from La La Land, but if you were running a company, would you not want to have to discipline employees? But on the contrary, DynCorp feels like they have to meet a quota of disciplinary actions in order to measure success.
DynCorp management have also been outright liars and deceivers. I don't know how many times I have brought a problem or an issue to my supervisors, with suggestions and ideas on how to fix it, only to be ignored, or my favorite, being told "that's being addressed", but then not seeing anything done to fix the problem. Or a problem flares up, and there is much yelling, screaming, flailing about that they are going to get a handle on a situation, and that might work for a month or so, but not long after, things go back to how they were before.
Many people that frequent these forums I am sure are members of the local lodge. Or you might have family, friends, and neighbors that are members of the local lodge. We are in a battle against a company that is going to attempt to push us around, and stall things til the last minute in hopes we accept a lesser contract. I would like all Local Lodge members who read this, on their offtime, to head over to the Hilton Gardens in Solomons as a show of solidarity and strength against DynCorp. We are negotiating based on what our membership told us was their biggest issues. Some of these issues the Company are saying they don't want to bargain on. I say it's time we stand up and show DynCorp that we mean business.
So I say, if you're a I.A.M. member, we head over to the Hilton Gardens and make sure that our voices are heard.
mama
Gov't contract specialist are bound by law to make awards based on best bang for the gov't buck.... not based on how happy a companies employee's are with their benefits package.
