First and foremost, every driver has legitimate concerns about 22.4's. We do not see this as anything that is beneficial to us, the hourly workers! number one I can appreciate that the union dues paid by full timers are greater than by the part timers but the same result would occur if the company would just fully staff instead of creating a second class, a lower class, of drivers, if you will. I know the Teamsters can not "tell the company how to run it's business."
But it can dictate how it treats it's members. By creating 22.4's (which I view as an off-shoot of 22.3's which the company did not honor in the last contract, refused to honor and that is why the 22.4's now count as 22.3's in terms of the numbers required) We do not believe for a second that the company intends to limit their creation to only 25%.
I point out the fact that 25% is based on ALL the drivers in the building (on the seniority listl) but the number of "protected" full time drivers are only those that worked Monday through Friday. Mondays we run a skeleton crew and the company eats all the missed and service failures. The number of permanent full time positions will be less than the number of bid route drivers! I am trying to not make assumptions so if you need me to better explain say so because tat was not as clear as I wish I could make it.
Why are the 22.4's so exposed to being over worked? This will create the very same situation next contract with a group screaming about the excessive overtime!
By specifically stating "if work is available" the company has cart blanch to work as many or as few top wage drivers it feels like on any given day. Advance loads, hold back packages and they will need more weekend drivers (22.4's) and fewer full time drivers. The company will load up on number of the lower class of drivers by saying full time drivers can not work weekends. To get hours lower seniority drivers will be forced to work weekends and this defeats the entire purpose. And that is IF the company allows this. I need to see the language to see how the company may try to get around the, no layoffs if a 22.4 is working inside the building."