The Steward's Sourcebook
Articles to help stewards do a better job
These articles have been taken from the Boilermaker Reporter, which carries The Stewards Page as a regular feature.
- What to Do When a Member Demands Arbitration — Without clear guidelines, many lodges end up arbitrating more grievances than they should. (V50N2)
- Build your case on good evidence — Your job as a steward is to find that evidence wherever your grievance investigation takes you. (V49N4)
- Five Common Grievance Issues — Five common grievance situations and suggestions for how to approach them. (V49N3)
- Defending grievances involving violence or threats — Protecting your members means ensuring they are not disciplined unfairly, but it might also mean finding a way to protect them from someone with anger issues. (V49N1)
- Lying — When you’re going into a grievance meeting where differing opinions of the facts of the case may be aired, it’s a good idea to avoid name-calling. (V48N4)
- Conducting an Investigation — Employing a few basic strategies can improve your investigations and thereby improve your chances of winning. (V48N3)
- Settling Problems Before They Become Grievances — Some tips on how you can successfully solve problems in your unit without actually filing a grievance (V48N2)
- The Reasonable Person Standard — Arbitrators consider how a prudent person might be expected to behave (V48N1)
- Information requests are a valuable tool — They can be used for more than just gathering facts (V47N4)
- Credibility is the key to success — Stewards with credibility are more likely to negotiate good outcomes for their grievants. (V47N2)
- Educate Your Members Regarding Their Contract — The more they understand, the easier your job will be (V40N2)
- Grievance Handling — A grievance log helps categorize facts (V41N5)
- Don't Jump To Conclusions -- Let The Facts Guide You — Let the Facts Guide You (V40N5)
- ULPs Ensure Company Complies With NLRA — The NLRB does not solve grievances, but makes sure everyone — companies & unions — complies with law (V42N3)
- What To Do When a Member Asks For Advice — Have your tools handy & be careful what you say (V41N6)
- Good Records Help the Steward and the Local — Keeping grievance information well organized not only wins cases, it can help win good contracts (V41N4)
- Sexual Harassment Grievances Are Never Easy — They can be really difficult when one member is accusing another one of inappropriate behavior (V41N3)
- Rights In Conflict: How can you represent two members involved in a dispute with each other? — You must protect the rights of both members based on the facts and the contract, not popular opinion (V41N2)
- Organize Your Facts With a Steward Fact Sheet — This useful tool organizes the information you'll need to process a grievance (V40N4)
- Grievance Handling -- But We've Always Done It That Way! — Using past practice to win grievances (V40N3)
- Employers Must Have "Just Cause" For Discipline — Stewards can use these seven questions to establish whether the employer has just cause (V39N6)
- Five Steps To Winning Grievances — There's no magic bullet, but carefully following these basic steps can give you a great dvantage (V39N5)
- How to argue your position — Evidence is key to winning the grievance Collect all the evidence you can, quantify it, make it trustworthy, and present it well for maximum impact (V39N4)
- Arguing a Grievance Is Like Arguing a Court Case — If you want to win your grievance, you need to know what argument to use and how to support your claim (V39N3)
- Grievance Handling -- How to interpret contract language — Figuring out what the contract actually says is not always easy (V39N1)
