The 560

Tuesday, 25 May 2010, around noon Governor Kulongoski held a press conference to announce that Oregon’s budget shortfall had increased to $560 million. That would amount to 9% of the state general fund budget.
That explains why he has asked all state agencies to cut 9% from their budgets. I will say a little more about that later. The Governor has also asked all unionized state workers to continue the step freeze until the end of the current contract. In addition he has asked all employees and agencies to explore reduced workweeks or additional furlough days.
The reason for this blog post is to look at these requests. Obviously, the Governor has a responsibility for directing state government. His personal philosophy will guide him; so will state law which requires a balanced budget. The effect of such a statute is to not allow our state government to run a debt, unlike our federal government.

The 9%. The governor has directed all agencies to come up with a 9% cut list. That is an order for agency directors. There is no doubt the governor has that authority.
The first thing for ODOT folks to understand is that this is a 9% shortfall in the General Fund budget. Therefore, agencies must cut 9% of their budget that comes from the General Fund. ODOT’s total budget for 2009 -2011, as approved by the state legislature in SB5548-A was $4,136,780,779. So let’s say 4.1 billion dollars. Of that $4.1 billion, there was no (0) money from the General Fund (In SB 5548-A of January 2009).

9% of 0 is 0.

There is some general fund money in our agency for programs funded in some other way; programs that the agency administers outside of the responsibility for Transportation. It is possible that some of the money used for small business contracts for fences, new facility roofs, job training, etc. may be general fund dollars. That would be outside of the Transportation Bill SB 5548-A.
Matt Garrett, ODOT Agency Director, in a memo released Tuesday May 25, has said that he does not anticipate the need for layoffs nor budget reductions in ODOT.

The Step Freeze. The governor has requested us to return to the bargaining table and negotiate increased furlough days and a continuation of the step freeze.
The governor has ordered all non-unionized employees (managers, executive service & unrepresented employees) to continue the step freeze for the rest of this budget cycle. This cycle ends June 2011.
Because we are a Labor Union with a negotiated Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) the governor has not ordered us to continue the step freeze past August 2010. The CBA is a contract between Us (WE ARE THE UNION) and our employer, the State of Oregon. If the governor decreed that we lose our step, he would have broken our contract.

More Furlough Days. Governor Kulongoski in his letter to state employees has asked labor organizations to discuss options, such as increased furlough days and reduced workweeks. His stated reason for asking is to reduce the need for lay-offs.
This discussion is the same as above regarding the step freeze. Our furlough days are set in our Collective Bargaining Agreement, a legal, binding contract.

For those of you who want to read this for yourself: In our ODOT Coalition CBA, 2009 – 2011 (orange), look on page 67, Appendix A. There you will see a Letter of Agreement for Article 27 – Salary Increase. On page 68, paragraph 5 it shows that the freeze will last through August 31, 2010. Paragraph 6 tells when our next step increase will happen. Read it carefully; there is a lot of misinformation out there.
There are 3 Letters of Agreement for Furlough days, starting on page 79 and going through page 82. Again, Furlough Days are a matter of contract.

It is up to members what we do. As members of ODOT Local 730 & SEIU 503 we elected bargaining delegates for the 2009 round of bargaining. Kermit Meling, Senior Motor Carrier Enforcement Officer, out of Portland is the head of the ODOT Coalition bargaining team. He also leads the Central Table bargaining team. The central table bargaining team will be meeting next week (first week in June) to discuss the governor’s request.

I do not know anyone who wants more unpaid days off. I do not know anyone who wants to be laid off. I do not know anyone who wants to watch his pay stagnate. My Email address is below. Drop me a line & tell me what you think is the right thing to do. You can also respond on this blog.

We should not let this ruin our day. Nor should these requests cause us to lose concentration on our jobs. There is danger in all of our jobs, from admin specialists on the 4th floor to maintenance specialists standing in traffic. Pay attention to where you put your hands. Pay attention to where you put your feet.

We have a good Union to work for us. I’m sure of it because We Are The Union.

mac

Cameron M. McGinnis odotmac@hotmail.com
TMS2 Meacham Section
ODOT Local 730, President

.503's Response is in the "What Are Your Thoughts?" accessed below.

Looking For You

Job Terminations Due To Illness & Disability

I am looking for a member of ODOT Local 730 to become a subject matter expert on Illness and Disability discharges. It would be expected that this person would get to know our Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), ODOT & DAS relevant policies & a passing familiarity with the applicable BOLI regulations.

At this point, these type of discharges do not happen every week, maybe not even every month, but they are occurring & we are hearing about more of them than before. This person is to be a resource for stewards and organizers who work for our members. This volunteer is not to represent any of these affected members. Nor are they to do any representation work. I will work to shield this person from asks for other service to our Union. If you wanted to eventually move into other areas – that would be great once you were comfortable with the time required for this role.
Your Local wants to have confidence that we are giving our members the best advice and have reliable source material for workers who are facing discharge for reasons largely beyond their control. For instance: A TMC in western Oregon sustained a disabling knee injury while on the job. Many surgeries and much down time later it was not certain that this individual would be able to return to the prior job. The agency helped to find job retraining which this employee gladly took. . . Here is the catch: By accepting the retraining, BOLI says you cut all ties to your former job & there is no promise of a job opportunity at the end of the retraining. After talking to a number of folks at the agency it is not clear that all concerned, including some Human Resources folks, were aware of these conditions. And two months later no one from the agency has been able to show me that our member was informed of these conditions.
What do we tell a member with cancer? Or the good 15 year employee with advanced diabetes? The TMS 2 who looks perfectly healthy but his doctor will not renew his CDL because of a heart murmur?
It may be that there are no good alternatives for some of these cases. There will probably never be a perfect settlement for Our Member. I want to know for sure; and I want Our Member to know that we are studying the matter and can provide them a second source for information. A Member Run Union means informed members at every level. We build our membership one member at a time. Our Local gains those members when we gain their trust. We gain that trust as we show that we are reliable.

If you think you might be interested & this seems like a tall order. . . you will not be working alone. The ODOT Local 730 officers and activists have some experience and even more important: We know where to look and who to start asking. Our mothership, SEIU 503 has an excellent legal staff and organizing staff with experience from around the nation; organizers who can measure their experience in decades.
So why does ODOT Local 730 want an expert? SEIU 503 represents 40,000 members in 85 agencies and non-profits. Our Local is less than 2000 of them. And the 503 staff is about 10% of that. It makes sense to have a resource person in Our Local. It makes sense to not have 2000 (or 40,000) members calling the legal department.

Stewards and Organizers have stories of helping folks through these hard transitions. Again, almost never is the end result what we would have wanted. In many, many of these cases our fellow crew members were thankful for someone to help them though the process: not being forced to go through the process alone.

Give it some thought. Let me know if you have questions.

mac

DAS Alert from June 17th

This week there were several positive developments in DAS bargaining, though the central obstacle to a contract settlement—the State’s continued insistence that state workers shoulder more than our fair share of the sacrifice necessary to address the budget crisis—remains unresolved.

Following two more days of mediation in the aftermath of the State’s withdrawal of its premature impasse declaration, we have achieved two significant goals:

• State negotiators have withdrawn their demand for pay cuts in lieu of furlough days for some workers, including most in 24/7 institutions, and motor carrier enforcement officers in ODOT. This was the proposal that provoked our filing an Unfair Labor Practice charge with the State Employment Relations Board, contending that the State had breached the Ground Rules by issuing a new demand after the deadline. We can now say confidently that there will be no actual reduction in any member’s pay rate during the next two years, which is a significant victory.

• We signed off on a letter of agreement extending recall rights for employees who are on layoff now or who will be laid off during the life of the next two-year contract from two to three years. We hope and pray that anyone laid off will be back sooner than later, but given the current economic climate this represents a new and important protection for members already in considerable distress.

Three of our four Coalitions — Human Services, ODOT and Specials — have also successfully concluded bargaining (ODOT at 3 a.m. Tuesday morning). The fourth, Institutions, will be back at it tonight.

In coalition bargaining, members have gained a number of advances in areas like scheduling, reimbursement and union rights and fought back a number of management-sponsored take-away proposals. Details outlining changes in these agreements will be on the Coalition Bargaining Updates pages:

DHS: http://www.seiu503.org/state/DHS/default.aspx
ODOT: http://www.seiu503.org/state/odot/default.aspx
Specials: http://www.seiu503.org/state/Specials/default.aspx
Institutions: http://www.seiu503.org/state/Institutions/default.aspx

As most of you probably know, our success in reversing the impasse declaration and progress at the table comes after some promising news from the Legislature, which continues to hammer out details of the 2009-11 budget following crucial passage of about $770 in new revenue from wealthy Oregonians and profitable large corporations.

This has been a cornerstone of our lobbying efforts. It means that the final budget will likely provide the fiscal parameters to support a compromise settlement, but the fight will not be over when the legislature adjourns!

We expect the State will declare impasse again at the earliest possible moment—probably in late June, thus returning to bargaining by brinkmanship — restarting the clock on the Governor’s nuclear option of implementation. We will continue to fight for a negotiated settlement that protects our steps and minimizes the number of furlough days.

Members and supporters who turned out to our march and rally June 7 made a big difference. Now we need to refine and ramp up our message. Our contract ends June 30 and we will be organizing worksite actions all across the state that day.

We return to mediation Monday. Watch for details of our June 30th actions.

Final ODOT Coalition Report

We started bargaining for the ODOT Coalition on February 23rd 2009. We have bargained every other Monday night since. Last night we tentatively agreed on the outstanding issues left at the coalition table. This will allow us to focus our energy on the statewide campaign around central table bargaining. This tentative agreement for the ODOT Coalition is an important step forward, but there is still much work to do to fight off furloughs and other take aways.

Before we move on to the next fight, it is important to acknowledge the work of our fabulous bargaining delegates whose persistence, thoughtfulness and time made these improvements possible:

Bill Kinyoun (ODFW – Bargaining Chair), Kermit Meling (ODOT – Bargaining Chair),
Betty Huskey (ODOT), Mike Scott (ODOT), Kevin Cole (ODF), Dave Wells (ODF), Katy Powers (DMV), Sonya Reichwein (DMV), Dave Judkins (ODFW), Eric Ollerenshaw (ODFW), Doreen Vargas (DMV), Joe Lamont (ODOT), Katey Peterson (DMV), Angie Mittelstaedt (OPRD), John Ponce (OPRD), Mike Johnson (ODOT), Lee Erickson (ODOT), Joe Sheahan (ODFW), Bart Cotta (ODOT), Cameron McGinnis (ODOT), Doug Case (ODFW), Ann Madsen (OPRD), Rebecca Simmons (OPRD), Lorrie Schaefer (ODOT), Bryan Koehn (ODF)

Also, special thanks to other members who showed up week after week and made huge contributions at the table: Kirk Spindler (ODOT), Pete Wilde (ODOT), Roy Ware (DMV), Lou Bumgarner (DMV), Shirley Wait (ODOT), Jim Harney (OPRD), Jerry Noble (ODOT), Jay Burkert (ODOT), Jim Cooper (ODOT), Amy Regimbal (ODOT), Rose Halseth (DMV) and many, many others.

Below is a summary of the progress made at ODOT Coalition Bargaining:

• ODOT - Add Machinist and Autotechs to meal allowance
• ODOT - Increased meal allowance by 5 dollars ($17 total) for shifts that last 16 hours or more
• Coalition - Changed penalty pay language to 7 calendar days instead of 5 workdays
• ODOT/DMV – Fixes holiday language for holidays that fall on days off/weekends
• Forestry/ODOT – Allows seasonal employees to carry over vacation from season to season
• ODOT/DMV – Expanded penalty pay in a letter of agreement to include work schedule changes
• ODFW – Adds reasonable notice for overnight travel language
• ODFW – Includes change to make lunches near middle of work shift
• ODFW – Creates mechanism for employees to ensure at least 10 hours between shifts
• Coalition – Expands training requests to include career development language
• Coalition – Adds language to education requests to ensure either approval or reason for denial
• Coalition – Posts list of rotational opportunities fourteen (14) days prior to closing date when they use open announcements.
• Parks – Expands pro-rated boot reimbursement language to seasonal and part time employees
• ODOT – Adds Machinist and Autotechs to list of eligible employees for safety glass reimbursement, and allows Machinist and Autotechs to use tool reimbursement for purchasing raingear. This language was moved in from a letter of agreement as well
• Forestry – Increases mechanic reimbursement from two-hundred and seventy-five dollars ($275) annually to seven-hundred dollars ($700) per biennium
• DMV – Letter of agreement to make sure Saturday DMV offices are closed on the actual holiday AND the observed holiday in next biennium. Allows employee to use leave or adjust schedule for additional closure day. This will effect July 4th, 2009 and Christmas 2010 and New Years 2011.
• ODFW – New language in letter of agreement for Ocean Salmon and Columbia River Program (OSCRP) that says employees on flexible schedules will have their schedules posted for the next week by 5 p.m. Thursday. It also creates a tracking mechanism over a year period to see how often the posted schedule is changed for the following week and a report back at September 2010 labor management for recommendations


If you have any specific questions please let me know.

-Troy Barnard
ODOT Coalition Organizer

More Action Photos