Hi everyone, normally I don't post here but I'm so pissed off at this point and I'm not sure where else to turn.
So the company I work for recently went Union. A clause in the Union contract is that workers are supposed to get an extra $1 an hour while they are training a new employee. This dollar is given to the employee for the entire week of work, regardless of how many hours were worked, as long as said employee spent time training a new employee during that week. My work place has a lot of turnover so this is important.
My coworker (Bob) has been training me for the past 7ish months, and he has gotten inconsistent trainer pay during this time period. Sometimes he was fully paid for training me, other times not. Sometimes he was partially paid, other times he wasn't.
After going over the contract and preparing information with our Union representative, he recently had a meeting with management to get the money he is owed. The end result is still on going as of now, but I was told that they were going to retaliate against my coworker (and therefore me because I work with him) in response.
My department is supposed to have 6 people working in it, 2 per shift. Before I joined there were only 4 people, and when I joined I became the 5th. I was told when I was hired that they were looking for a 6th. Surprise surprise 7 months later the position is still empty. Because of this gap in our department and schedule, we've been working overtime to cover that gap. This is on top of dealing with sick time and vacation days that creates additional gaps and overtime in our schedule.
Bob is in a bit of a financial situation right now and really wants whatever overtime he can reasonably get his hands on. Our schedules work out currently where he can get ~2/3rds of the overtime a week and I get 1/3rd. We've talked with each other and found this to be acceptable to both of us. He gets a majority of the overtime, and I don't get any criticism from anyone about not taking any overtime (even though I didn't want any to begin with).
That brings us to today, where I learned that management wants to cut Bobs overtime and give it to me, meaning I'd have 2/3rds of the overtime and he would have 1/3rd. Their justification for this was that a different coworker (Joe) from a different shift was “supposed” to be training me, even though that makes no practical or logical sense.
Bob is on the same shift as me, so of coarse he should be training me. There's no one else who can. Bob knows what I need to be trained on more than Joe since he's been training me and has more experience with the material than Joe. I learn better with Bob and I know this because I've been taught things from both of them. What I need to be trained on is situational, so making me do all of this overtime on the off chance Joe can train me, when Bob is literally always available since we're on the same shift makes no sense either! Management also knows Bob has been training me because they paid him for some of his work! It's not like this was kept a secret from anyone.
The only conclusion we can come to is that this is retaliatory for Bob trying to get money the company agreed to pay him. The problem is now this is negatively impacting me.
I'm already tired with all of the overtime I'm doing, the thought of doing even more (for illogical and petty reasons!) makes me seriously tempted to quit this job. The morale at my workplace is awful. (Makes you wonder why we went Union huh?) Management treats everyone like crap and simultaneously wonders why we have so much turnover and why they have to pay so much overtime just to keep the place running.
I know I could explain this to management but I seriously doubt they give two shits. They've been told this song and dance before and nothing has changed. I fully expect to be stonewalled and possibly even fired for daring to question them.
So what do you guys think? Is there anything else I can reasonably do beyond quit or get fired?