Not sure how to summarize all the necessary information, but I'll do my best.
The Company I work for is a very large, public corporation. They have a program where any employee may put in a suggestion for cost reduction, quality improvements, safety improvements, etc.
If the company saves money as a direct result of your suggestion, you may be monetarily compensated, up to a limited amount.
Here's where it gets hairy, though. An engineer who is in charge of overseeing the modifications might say that is not feasible, or profitable for the company to change their process… This is the default decision for all suggestions made through this suggestion program. You can then appeal the decision, but if they shoot the idea down again, the blue collar employee has hardly any resources available to them to argue their side.
If blue collar Joe somehow found the extra time, energy, motivation, and support, it is technically possible to overturn a decision like that. But they need to find a way to access data that is beyond their “level of clearance” (if you will), and since they are arguing a change that hasn't even happened yet, they need to find some way to quantify the potential savings to the company, and prove their findings.
Suppose that all the stars aligned, and this blue collar joe actually succeeded in finding reliable, accurate data (on his own time, with minimal help, and for the sole purpose of APPEALING the decision made by staff members who “outrank” them, and “know better” than them) whatever that third determination may be after such an appeal, is FINAL.
I guess, in short, if you get shot down once, you can appeal it, then they take an ACTUAL first look at it. But on paper, it's a second look, and on paper, you only get three chances before the decision is final, and binding. So the same exact people that shot it down the first two times, go through it again.
They're a team of engineers with every data collection tool at their disposal, and if they want to prove me wrong, the worst case scenario is they need to outsmart a judge, and they'll have the company pay for litigation.
But the thing is, my suggestion worked, and I already saved the company hundreds of thousands of dollars, and they are denying it. So now I'm on that third, and final appeal, and they're telling me that the actual savings to the company is FAR less than what it actually was, and therefore my savings will be hardly a fraction of what they saved. But because it's my third appeal, whatever decision they make, even if it's just to go fuck myself, is completely final because of the terms of the program.
What do I do?