ODOT Coalition Report 5

Our Union bargaining team, represented by over 25 members, met with Management Monday night. Management put three package proposals across the table. While there was some movement on a few important issues, such as accepting as part of their package the Union’s proposal to increase the Forestry tool reimbursement, it was mostly a combination of previous proposals and attempts to keep current contract language. Our Union stayed in caucus for several hours and developed counter package proposals that showed movement on some issues but maintained the goals to move our coalition forward.

On issue after issue we had members there to speak and defend our proposals. Our ODFW delegates such as Joe Sheahan, Eric Ollerenshaw, Doug Case, Bill Kinyoun and Dave Judkins pushed management to understand why it is important, and a priority for our ODFW members to get fair scheduling language. We want to make progress on:
• getting schedules posted in advance
• limiting mandated shifts to no more than 12 hours (outside emergencies)
• to have at least 12 hours between shifts (outside emergencies)
• getting 60 hours between work weeks
The Union Counter proposal on scheduling accepted Management’s language that gets lunch language and reasonable notice for out-of-town travel. The Union, as part of the package with scheduling (Article 90.3E), withdrew our proposal to compensate workers in ODFW required to use their own vehicles (Article 37.3E). Joe Sheahan, even though this does not personally affect him, fought hard to get movement on this issue and vowed to try to address it from a different angle because of its adverse affect on ODFW’s lowest paid members.

On the second package Management accepted the Union’s initial proposal that gets our Forestry mechanics equity with ODOT mechanics on tool reimbursement(Article 122.3C). The rest of the package included no movement on the Forestry Pac Test (LOA), a cleanup fix in Parks language (Article 70.3B), a new counter that expanded language to ODOT that allows seasonals to carry over vacation (Article 66.3), and their previous proposal on travel language (Article 36.3AC).

The Union Counter package accepted Management’s movement on tool reimbursement (Article 122.3C), clean up proposal for Parks geographic areas (Article 70.3B), seasonal vacation carry over to ODOT , and kept our language to reduce the number of days for vacation requests to seven (Article 66.3), wrote new language to get the costs associated with the Pac Test release with the employer (LOA), and kept our language on travel that would help those on fires receive non-commercial lodging rate (Article 36.3AC).

The third package Management put forward by management declined the Union language on stewards (Article 10.3ABE), declined the Union language on posting OT lists (Article 32.3), declined changes to expanding penalty pay to include days of the week (Article 40.3), included some changes to address ODOT holiday situations, but ignored the Union proposal for DMV offices(Article 58.3). Their package also included their initial proposal on scheduling (Article 90.3A) and their previous proposal on Training and Education (Article 121.3).

The Union wrote a counter package that modified our steward proposal to add ODOT stewards, keeps current language on overtime, keeps our prior proposal on penalty pay expansion, accepts Management’s proposal for ODOT holidays but also keeps our DMV language on the same issue. Sonya Reichwein (DMV) spoke to why a one-size-fits-all approach did not fix the issue. The Union proposal also keeps much of our prior proposal for Education and Training and the changes we proposed in scheduling for breaks. Finally, kept a piece of a prior proposal that would force DMV to pull transfer lists prior to opening positions as “agency opportunities” or “open competitive”.

We have shown that when we prioritize and organize around these issues we can win. If these proposals are important to you, there is no better way to help us make them reality than to attend bargaining and let management know how it would improve things. We have consistently had over 25 people at bargaining and sometimes as many as 40. If we want to finish coalition with some victories to feel proud of please attend on May 4th, and help us win. We want to pack the house and start building some momentum as we head into the home stretch of bargaining.

We meet at the ODOT HR Building at 5:30 for a meal and meeting. Bargaining begins at 6:30 and we expect that Management will start to respond to some of our packages and a few stand alone articles that have not gotten responses. The ODOT HR Building address is 2775 19th St SE, Salem OR. If you don’t know how to find it there are directions on the front doors at the Salem Union HQ. If you have any questions, please contact Troy Barnard at barnardt@opeuseiu.org or 503-830-1201.