Progress made with backlog of time study grievances

by Tom Bishanell

Union Compensation Analyst

Briggs and Stratton

Good progress was made in dealing with the backlog of time study grievances at Briggs and Stratton during January, February and March of this year. Twenty-nine time study grievances were resolved, while nine new grievances were filed. We received increases on nineteen of the settled grievances.

We still have a backlog of about 100 time study grievances that I am working on at Briggs. We are settling more grievances than we receive. The progress we have made is quite an accomplishment. Continuing this pace will be a challenge, but definitely an attainable goal.

Looking forward, a substantial portion of the unsettled grievances is in the die cast area. I will make a concerted effort to address these problems.

Progress was not as good in job evaluation at Briggs. We received three grievances and we were unable to settle any during the first quarter. We did settle one job evaluation grievance in early April. I have not been able to make as much progress as I would like on the job evaluation grievances. I have talked to several members, investigating their job evaluation grievances and have had several discussions with the Company trying to settle the thirty-five outstanding daywork grievances.

Strattec Security

It is contract time at Strattec and we have been able to make substantial progress resolving time study grievances there as well. In the first quarter, seventeen piecework grievances were settled and only two were received. Increases were won in eight of those grievances. A large number of the outstanding time study grievances deal with jobs that are now obsolete. We have thirty-nine such grievances that I have been working on with the Bargaining Committee that we are close to resolving. That will leave only thirty-five outstanding time study grievances at Strattec

In job evaluation, we were able to settle three grievances at Strattec, winning one upgrade, during the first quarter. Four new job evaluation grievances were filed during that period.

I want to thank the members who still have unresolved time study or job evaluation grievances for their patience. Every effort is being made to address these grievances.