No established work rules

[redeye]

What is the name of your state? Pennsylvania
I work for a regional transportation company that is union represented. The terminal I work out of has seperate City or Road "boards" which are chosen by seniority on a yearly basis. Although the contract we have is very explanatory towards the city employees, the road, however, states that "work rules will be established between the local union and the company and if no agreement can be reached it will be subject to the grievance process".
I've discussed the matter of work rules with my terminal manager and he commented that the company wouldn't know how to establish any work rules that would work the way the company wanted them to. I've also asked the same question to our union representative/ business agent and got pretty much the same response. I am also sure that many grievances have been filed over this issue to no avail. The reason for this, I believe, will be explained shortly.
I know that establishing work rules can be very arbitrary among company and employee but the problem is, without work rules, the most senior road drivers abuse their seniority. What I mean by this is ,for instance, working six (6) days a week, by choice, while less senior employees are signing up for unemployment! That's just one of many examples and yes, I could go on and on.
At this point there are two (2) forces working against us. The first is that our Union representative/ business agent is also a senior employee on the companys' list for which if he is voted from his official position with the union, will return to the ranks as a company employee. Keep in mind that he is in the top five (5) out of more than 100! The second is the man in charge of company relations with the union. He is a former union official now company employee in a corporate position. Many of us "less- senior" employees see these as a contradictory role. Also, keep in mind, the second man mentioned most likely still has friends in higher places in the union although he is no longer a union official.
I know I've rambled a bit here but my question is, are there any avenues legally that we could force the company and union to establish work rules outside the grievance process? We aren't looking to start a war between all entities but to get some fair and basic work rules to even out the playing field.

[justalayman]

well, since it is specifically stated that the work rules will be determined by an agreement and if no agreement can be reached, then through grievance they will be decided.

that means you have to follow this process to determine the rules. Since there does not appear to be any chance of agreement, then filing a grievance is the next required step.

what happened to all of the grievances previoulsy filed? The decisions of those grievances would be utilized to define the work rules they were concerning.

Each work rule will need to be grieved seperately. There is no one grievance that will define all work rules.