The National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) held two stewards trainings this week in Augusta for new shop stewards across state. The training covers the basics in enforcing contracts and grievance processes.
"This is for anyone who may have a couple years under their belt but may not have done any real grievance procedure stuff," said incoming NALC 92 President John Graham. "We offer this training twice a year externally, which means we have somebody else coming in and doing it and internally we also do it twice a year."
Graham said the Portland office can have an unlimited number of stewards and alternate stewards so he likes to have as many alternate stewards trained as possible to fill in when stewards are on vacation or on other assignments. There are about 34 offices covered under NALC 92 throughout the state.
"Policing a contract on a shop floor is of the utmost importance, not just the contract, but other aspects of the job like what is the right and wrong way to do a job. It’s a teaching role for every time you have new people coming in. In our current climate it’s a revolving door of new people coming in," Graham added.