Sunday, July 24, 2011

2011 Bargaining & Ratification

The 23 July 2011 Bargaining Conference is done. The bargaining delegates from all coalitions voted to send the Tentative Agreement (TA) Contract to the members with a recommendation to approve (ratify). This includes the Central Table (pay and benefits) and all of the Coalition Table negotiated agreements.
Some of the main points include:
Cost of Living Allowances, Article 27, 1.5% increase December of 2011; 1.45% increase January of 2013;
½ Step increase on your Salary Eligibility Date (SED) on or after July 2012 and the other ½ Step increase 6 months later, but no later than 30 June 2013. Employees who have received step increases as of 1 June 2011 will not receive another. They also will not be rolled back as in the last contract;
Furlough days, Letter of Agreement for Mandatory Unpaid Time Off (MUTO), much the same as last contract – 10, 12 or 14 days during the two years of the contract. There are some changes to how they are taken. There are two LOAs for furlough days: 191 for how many days – at which pay levels and 193 for implementation. In implementation those folks who work alternate shifts will no longer need to use vacation time to accomodate the 8 hour blocks. The 8 hour blocks went away. The letter lays out that you take your furlough days in your normal shifts. You will need to take the remainder of your furlough time in a partial day. So if you work 8 hour, 9 hour or 10 hour shifts that is how you will use your furlough days. There is also added flexibility in that “employees may volunteer to take unpaid holidays, unpaid vacation days, or a salary reduction. . .”;

In Coalition Bargaining (Article #.3) there are also some improvements. Article 36.3AC (Travel) now has the living language provisions so the non-commercial per diem automatically updates. All per diems used to require increasing or adjusting at the bargaining tables.
Article 58 and Article 58.3 (Holidays) both have some changes. The ‘each and every’ language has been deleted in 58. There is new comp time language in 58.3. Also, there was holiday language in our old 90.3; that has been deleted from 90.3, all holiday language is in 58.3. In theory.
Article 90.3A will have several changes. An LOA was written in 2009 regarding Penalty Pay for schedule changes without notice; most of that LOA has been moved into 90.3. Moved into base language was the LOA regarding missed breaks for the Transportation Operations Centers and the Interstate Bridge crews. There is new language for Motor Carrier Enforcement Officers when helping with road closures.
There is a new LOA regarding holidays and flexing work schedules to prevent loosing 2 hours of vacation on holidays.

The email I sent you will have bullet sheets as attachments so you can review the summaries of both the Central Table and Coalition table changes. There is more, much more there.


The bargaining conference was a little rowdy. Every bargaining conference has some vocal members who want to strike. Every new contract insults someone along the way. Fair and comprehensive negotiations rarely result in all persons, on both sides, being happy with the results. The Central Table bargaining team members are not pleased with some of the results. Frequently, when the State bargaining team does not want to agree to our point they claim to not understand. Some of the points our team made regarding pay and insurance were absolutely rooted in mathematical logic. Mathematics is either correct or incorrect. Our team showed mathematically correct ways to save money or make the same dollars do more. Many of the State bargaining team members have jobs that are number working jobs. For their leadership to have said they do not understand the numbers is to say they do not understand multiplication and division.
I believe the governor was always behind every decision. I know he has definite goals regarding health care and health insurance. In some way Our Union’s sense of fairness does not fit his goals. At Central Table Bargaining neither the Governor nor his Bargaining Team were straight forward about this. They would only talk about a finite dollar value that was not enough or they did not understand what we were saying.
Perhaps the bargaining table is not the place discuss matters in a straight forward manner.

There will be a ballot coming to you, coming to all members. The decision will be to ratify the contract. If you vote to ratify the contract, then you accept it. If you vote to not ratify the contract then you vote to possibly go out on strike. To fail to ratify does not guarantee a strike. It only guarantees that the bargaining delegates must come together and explore the options.
Look around you. Do you know your crew? Do you know others on crews around you? Can everyone afford to strike? How long can you & they afford to strike?

I want you to vote as you think is correct. I will vote to ratify. The next big fight in the Legislature and the press is our retirement. I want SEIU 503, OPEU to gear up and start on Monday to protect PERS, the 6% pickup (that we bargained for instead of a pay raise, in years past) and our member’s future.

Thank you for your time. Thank you for sharing this information with your crews. I am sure 503 will have more information on the 503 website next week. Everyone was tired and went home after the meeting on Saturday and the actual bargaining until eleven or twelve Friday night. As always it will take several months to proof read and publish the contracts. Hopefully they will be available on-line at the 503 website before then. I continue to insist that hardcopies be available for worksites where employees do not use a computer to make a living.

We, you and I are the face of Our Union. This hard work is Member Organizing. Thank you for your work. mac