Workers at Shell plant told they would not get paid unless they attended Trump's speech: report

[applegrove]

Workers at Shell plant told they would not get paid unless they attended Trump’s speech: report

By Brad Reed at Rawstory

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/08/workers-at-shell-plant-told-they-would-not-get-paid-unless-they-attended-trumps-speech-report/

"SNIP.....

In a memo to union employees obtained by the Post-Gazette, Shell informed workers that their “attendance is not mandatory,” but said that if they did not attend the rally, they would have to take a day off without getting paid.

......SNIP"

[Runningdawg]

1. Read this thread it contains an "instruction sheet" for workers

Link to tweet

?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1161359134593339392&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.democraticunderground.com%2F100212376531&fbclid=IwAR1U_llX6hlUq6IJlZTWRxFzjaMY8kwVqIrstNrPCKYhBSf42UpBE9WUFYc

[Ohiogal]

2. There's not enough money in the world

That would be sufficient compensation for being made to sit and listen to his verbal diarrhea.

[calimary]

16. Yeah, no kidding!

I can barely stand to stay in the room when a soundbite of him is played on TV.

ICK!!!

[Rebl2]

22. Same here

[Rebl2]

23. Same here

[blogslut]

3. Here is the Original Post-Gazette article

https://www.post-gazette.com/business/powersource/2019/08/16/Trump-speech-union-crowd-Shell-ethane-plant-natural-gas-beaver-county-pennsylvania-attendance-pay-overtime/stories/201908160113

The choice for thousands of union workers at Royal Dutch Shell’s petrochemical plant in Beaver County was to either spend Tuesday standing in a giant hall waiting for President Donald Trump to speak, or to take the day off with no pay.

“Your attendance is not mandatory,” read the rules that Shell sent to union leaders a day ahead of the visit to the $6 billion construction site. But only those that showed up at 7 a.m., scanned their cards, and prepared to stand for hours — through lunch but without lunch — would be paid.

“NO SCAN, NO PAY,” the rules said.

Those that decided to sit out the event would have an excused absence, the company said, and would not qualify for overtime pay on Friday. The company has a 56-hour workweek with 16 hours of overtime. That means those workers who attended Mr. Trump’s speech and showed up for work on Friday meeting the overtime threshold are being paid at a rate of time and a half, while those that didn’t go to hear the president are being paid the regular rate, despite the fact that both groups did not do work on the site on Tuesday...

[KentuckyWoman]

18. I would have shown up and went to my workstation

I scanned. I was available to fo my job. If they didn't put me to work that is not my problem.

The union messed up on this one.

[intheflow]

35. The union was informed less than 24 hours before the event,

if I'm reading it right. There probably wasn't enough time to react prior to the event. I'm sure there will be a lawsuit coming out of this.

[smirkymonkey]

4. This can't possibly be legal?

Can a lawsuit be filed?

[MarcA]

14. Unfortunately with trash like gorsuch on the USSC it probably is. n/t

[Takket]

19. the answer is... it probably is legal, thanks to citizens united.... but has not been challenged in

court.

"At the same time, say some legal experts, the Federal Election Commission's regulations haven't kept up with the changes that Citizens United brought. The FEC prohibits employers from coercing workers when it comes to monetary donations or fundraising. But the rules are not as clear about what happens if the corporation, acting independent from the campaign, compels workers to, say, stuff envelopes. "One of the problems is the FEC, after Citizens United, has been unable to resolve these issues," says Larry Noble, a former FEC general counsel who now holds that title at the nonprofit Campaign Legal Center.

Some have argued that election law, as it currently stands, permits employers to actually require workers to participate in certain independent political activities, such as attending a rally. Others say it's more of a gray area that hasn't yet been sorted out. "It leaves me thinking this is an area where there's litigation in the future that's going to help write these rules a little more clearly than we have them today," says Robert Lenhard, a lawyer who works in the elections and political practice at Covington."

https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-boss-politics-at-work-20161021-story.html

[smirkymonkey]

29. Un-fucking-believable!

So will this work when a company forces people to go to a rally for a Democrat? Somehow, I doubt it.

[Takket]

30. we'll probably never know since Democrats don't need to force people to show up

to pack a house.

Once again Citizens united reveals itself to be one of the worst SCOTUS rulings in history.

[real Cannabis calm]

5. K&R

[A HERETIC I AM]

6. I think this is perhaps being made into more of a big deal than it actually is.

Last edited Fri Aug 16, 2019, 06:37 PM - Edit history (2)

1st, it was held on a regular weekday, so if you worked at the site (and keep in mind, this site is under construction, so the people there are tradesmen and construction workers for the most part, not employees of Shell that operate the facility) and you were going to show up for work anyway, on that day you didn't have to work. You just had to stand around for most of the day and not get lunch.


2nd, If you didn't want to be there and stayed home, it was an "excused absence" and just like most people that take a day off, you wouldn't get paid for staying at home.

The thing about the overtime is simple; They very likely pay overtime "after 40" as opposed to "after 8", meaning if you missed an 8 hour day early in the week, hours you worked after the normal end of a shift on subsequent days wouldn't be counted as time and a half until you got to the 40 hour point. The only thing that I'm a little confused about is the article says they basically work a 56 hour week, so how that is scheduled? I don't know. Do they work 5 tens and 6 on Saturday? I can't see where that is spelled out.

So if you went to work that day you got paid for the day, which is as it should be, you just had to stand around all fucking day, skip lunch and endure the ramblings of a drug addled narcissist with a security detail.

I would have stayed the fuck home.

[Mc Mike]

11. 4 tens + 2 eights.

[A HERETIC I AM]

12. I don't doubt you, but I'm curious where you got that information.

[Mc Mike]

31. I'm in IBEW #5.

That site is in local 712's jurisdiction, on the other side of the Beaver/Allegheny county line, but a bunch of our members signed 712's book for that job. It's closer for them than travelling into Pittsburgh, way less traffic, the job is going to take a couple of years to complete, etc.

Standard shift, according to the union agreement with management, is 5 8's, dayshift. 4 10's can be done, instead, if the workers on the site agree.

We don't work 6 hour shifts, ever.

Our pay period ends and begins at Friday end of 1st shift (daylight), so from a distance, an outsider might think we're working Mon thru Sat, 4 10's and 2 8's, but the work week and paycheck are for Sat - 8, then Mon thru Thur - 10s (standard shift), then Fri - 8.

Sat is not an obligatory time and a half day, ever, though Sun is obligatory double time. So what Sat functions as is a ram-rod to prevent absences. If you already worked Sat, then miss a day during the next week, you lose time and a half on 8 hours. You lose 12 hours of pay, (though you do get straight 8 for that Sat).

When jobs gear up, are really up against the deadline, or there's an outage, it's not unheard of to work 5 10's, 6 10's or 6 12's, or even 7 10's or 7 12's. We work 8's, 10's, and 12's, there's no such thing as a 6 hour shift.

[A HERETIC I AM]

32. Interesting

Thanks!

[Mc Mike]

33. That's not in my union's jurisdiction, but a bunch of people in my union are working there.

People I worked with. And other trades, like Ironworker's local 3, Steamfitters 449, Operators 66, etc., have jurisdictional areas that include Beaver, but might not include parts of our jurisdiction to the north or east. I've worked with a ton of those trades people, too.

[Chemisse]

17. So they would just miss out on 8 hours of overtime, which is not a right or expectation.

So yeah, not such a big deal.

Still, it shows how much has to be done to get those rally seats filled.

[Metatron]

28. Overtime can be expected and a right depending on their schedules, the CBA, and past practice.

[Gothmog]

7. Who is surprised by this?

[lagomorph777]

9. Time to boycott Shell

[Haggis for Breakfast]

13. I stopped using Shell gas during their support of Aparteid.

I have never seen a reason to resume a relationship with Shell.

This isn't even legal. You cannot be held hostage for a political rally.

And telling someone that they could just take an unpaid day is not something everyone can afford to do.

So who made the decision to foist this on employees ? And what is going to be done to keep other companies from doing the same thing ?

God, the BS just never ends.

[yaesu]

10. more election laws broken along with Dept. of Labor, guess fascists are above the law. nt

[KY_EnviroGuy]

15. This represents a campaign contribution by Shell.....

and should be investigated by the FEC or Congress. If they don't, the abuse will continue.....

[Submariner]

20. Royal Dutch Shell is headquartered in Copenhagen

so Trumpolini can probably fix this Shell thing when he buys Greenland during his next trip.

[mwooldri]

21. If this was a normal president it wouldn't be a big deal.

It was described as a paid training event with a guest speaker. A normal president would have delivered a speech on topic. However we do not have a normal president. This defect steered off course and turned it in to a campaign rally.

[juxtaposed]

24. sounds like a political contribution to me, so declare it.

[avebury]

25. I have to think that there would be ways that the

workers could have been able to play the game better than the Rethugs. Closely study the instructions and look for loopholes to creat the law of unintended consequences for the Rethugs.

[SayItLoud]

26. Time to contact Shell and let them know how we feel. NT

[Initech]

27. Can I wear my headphones and pretend like I'm interested?

If not then... 🖕🖕🖕🖕

[EleanorR]

34. Straight out of the Putin playbook

Link to tweet