SEPTEMBER 2007

WPEA Fights for Overtime When Attending Meetings

A recent memo regarding the August Store Manager Meeting was circulated by Deb McVicker.  The memo stated that for the September 20 meeting no overtime would be allowed and that managers had to plan to flex their work week to accommodate a 9.5 hour meeting and any drive time to and from that would be incurred upon attendance.  WPEA sent a follow up e-mail to Mickie Patterson, reminding the LCB that many store managers would not be able to flex their work schedules, no matter how much time in advance of the District Meeting they were given to plan. 

The reasons for this have been put on the labor management table consistently for the last several years and they are:

• Store Managers are short staffed through vacancies and through questionable budget allocation.

• Store Managers can’t get good registers to hire their clerk and assistant manager vacant positions.

• Internal and external e-recruiting is too complex and full of problems, further hampering good registers.

• Market Area sharing of employees is not working because every store has vacancies and staff shortages and therefore there are no clerks to share with other stores in the market area.

These are some of the reasons that store managers may not be able to flex work schedules and therefore the Union is reminding LCB management that:

• No store manager will suffer any retaliation, bad evaluations, corrective or disciplinary actions for being unable to flex schedules and needing to take overtime when they work over 40 hours in the work week!

• If you can’t flex your schedule you will put in for overtime pay with the expectation that it will be paid at time and one half!

If management fails to support you in getting the overtime you incur due to district meetings that run 9.5 hours short the travel time, or for any other reason, such as having to cover for sick staff, vacancies or emergent store issues...WPEA will file a grievance on your behalf!  So please contact your Staff Rep if there are any concerns, issues or actions lodged against you regarding the need to work overtime or your right to be compensated for overtime when working over 40 hours is beyond your control.