Everyday politics in the workplace

Sam walked by the #10 power boiler, a 1500 psig, multi-fuel, burning mostly hog fuel, but also gas and coal when needed, observing the activity.

The whole mill was down, on an annual full power outage. This boiler, the mill’s biggest steam generator, and its newest, was having a complete replacement of the traveling grate keys, some 16,000. It was tedious, practically mindless work.

By removing the detachable front panels at the operating floor level, access to the front end, the discharge end of the traveling grate, was easy. This allowed the workers to reach in, while sitting on the floor and dangling their legs and feet over the edge, to slide the grate keys to the slot on the cross member and remove each individual cast iron key.

As each row, of each section, was removed, new keys, placed beside the workers on the floor, could be accessed and placed on the cross bar and slid to its proper location, left and right, of the access slot in the cross member. These new keys were replenished by other laborers as each stock pile of new keys diminished.

Sam smiled as he watched the progress. ‘Grunt work’, he thought.

Sam had told the local president of the biggest union representing maintenance months ago, that he planned to use the ‘summer’ hires, which the mill hired each year to temporarily fill vacancies caused by operations, maintenance and clerical people taking their vacations. 'Temps', for temporary employees, they are called.

These ‘kids’, typically sons and daughters of employees, who were still in high school or intending to pursue a college education, were a handy source of flexible, temporary, low skilled helpers and this was an excellent project for them to handle, good safety practices being the most critical aspect of an otherwise low skills requirement.

Sam, leaning over and pointing into the boiler furnace area, said to the young man sitting in front of this section of grate, “How many have you done so far today?”

The laborer looked up and seeing a quizzical look on his face, Sam elaborated, “How many of these keys”, picking one up to show him, “have you removed and replaced today?”

“I don’t know, I wasn’t keeping track,” came the response.

‘Uh oh” Sam thought to himself. ‘We should keep track of the number, if for no other reason than knowing for sure how many there are and how many can be replaced in an eight-hour day. I’ll talk to the foreman,’ he reminded himself, ‘be good to know for the next time.’

“So, what are you doing with the old ones”, he asked the person sitting to the left and doing the same work?

“Just dropping them down the hole here”, which was the ash pit, now cleaned out of ash and filling with old grate keys. As the keys slid down the sloping chute they became accessible as they fell out the opening at the bottom of each of four separate chutes, where they were being scooped away by more laborers and then wheel-barreled to the back of a dump truck outside, nearby.

“Good job.” Sam announced, loud enough that each person at both levels could hear him.

As Sam turned to walk on to the next stop on his tour of activities during this shutdown, a stranger approached him.

“You the boss here?” the stranger questioned.

“One of many, who are you?” Sam said smiling and extending his hand.

“I’m the union steward of the boilermakers working on this boiler”, pointing up towards the upper part of the boiler.

Sam knew that the boilermakers were hired to perform some tube replacements in the superheater section and some worn baffle replacements in the mechanical dust collector.

“Nice to meet you,” Sam said, hand still extended.

“It won’t be, for you, once I pull my guys off this job.”

“Why would you do that?” Sam questioned, showing concern.

“Cause you’re using unskilled, unauthorized people on a job only my union members can handle,” pointing to the kids removing grate keys.

Sam looking over, and then back, and smiled, “So what you are telling me is that the work these ‘kids’ are doing can only be done by highly skilled boilermakers?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying and unless you remove them and replace them with boilermakers from the union hall, right now, we are walking off this project and filing a complaint.” The union steward angrily responded.

“Would you mind coming with me to my office?” Sam did not want to continue the discussion in front of these kids as it was distracting them for their work.

On the way to his office, Sam passed by Will, the international VP and local union president, in the machine shop where he held a machinist’s position in the mill’s maintenance workforce.

Will and Sam had years of mutual interest and during those years many discussions about personnel relations in a union environment.

“Will, can you stop what you doing and come up to my office? We have a ‘jurisdictional’ issue to discuss.”

“Sure, be right up. Got to I wash my hands,” holding up his hands to show the dirt.

Will noticed the scowling stranger with Sam.

After introducing Will to the boilermaker union steward, Sam reviewed the situation, explaining that the boilermaker union was threatening to walk off the project and file a grievance because ‘kids’ (a word that Sam used and emphasized) were performing a task on #10 boiler that the boilermaker union claims can only be performed by highly-skilled, union-represented boilermakers.

“Will, since this is a union jurisdiction dispute, I’m going to leave the discussion in your hands between you two union representatives. You can use my office.

"Take your time. I’ve got to continue my tour of the mill, but I will be back in an hour, so hopefully this situation will be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction”. Sam rose to leave.

“By the way, Will, wasn’t that Jack (Will’s son, and one of the temps) I saw on the boiler this morning?” Will nodded acknowledgment.

Sam was quite sure that the situation would be defused by the time he returned.

The mill unions had jurisdiction over work being performed on site. The summer hires had to join a union, when they filled in for an operations or maintenance or clerical worker, each represented by a different local, but all union employees.

And Sam had stressed, repeatedly, that the work did not require any ’special’ skill, in fact, it was being performed, quite well by a bunch of ‘kids’.

Later Sam returning to his office, walking through the machine shop and noticed Will back at his work station.

“So, Will, how did the discussion with the boilermaker’s union turn out? Do I need to worry how we can get the boiler back up and running?”

“No worries, Sam. A simple misunderstanding that was easily solved with a phone call between myself and their international VP.” Will smiled as he returned to the coupling he was keyseating.

“Thanks.” Sam continued to his office.

Sam knew it wasn’t quite as easy as Will let on, there had to have been some angry words, frustration accompanied by emotional outbursts, but he also knew that Will had the better negotiating position with the other union and that he had helped Will to make the argument for the ‘kids’.

‘Just another day in the life of everyday politics in the workplace’, Sam thought. ‘and another crisis avoided.’