Consolidation

As verified by Tim Rust and I we have voted 10-1-1 to start the consolidation process.

Monday Morning at 0700 hours I will start to confirm if you accept your nominations for office. If you do not want to be nominated cross off your name. Otherwise I will contact you.

We will vote for new officers for 2018  Wednesday Dec 6th to Wednesday Dec 13th. Votes will be anonymous over Survey Monkey.

Thanks - Jared

Vote on Merger

Saturday November 18th I am sending out a vote for starting the merger of 4 locals.

I am not sure if it is clear but the 4 locals are...

Sioux Falls Schools
City of Sioux Falls
County Highway Dept
Metro Communications

This is not a vote to merge, it is a vote to start the process which will take 6-9 months.

We lost 2 people - now down to 10 people in our local. Any ideas to get more solidarity would be helpful. (I always joke that if we get to 8 I move to decertify - then we will have 22 or 0 members - Jared)

November is when we do nominations and elections for positions in the Union. I will post on the board. I will then send out election survey Nov 25th.

Things to keep in mind for 2020 contract - though it may seem long ways off, but it is not...

Adding a step in grievance - As written now after appealing to Paul we have to go to Department of Labor. In a larger organization this probably wouldn't be a problem as Paul wouldn't have a direct say of the decision when it was made in the fist place, however, at our size Paul makes decisions that we have to appeal. The Department of Labor then starts a long process time wise and includes lawyers - which is fine, we have lawyers - it is the time. Putting in a step of appealing to the Metro Board - though Paul has communication with them - will hopefully have more thoughts in the mix and makes a formal public record.

Work on phrasing to give more power on our schedule. With this go around Admin wanted to make changes to our on call time - having days when you are on-call to hold over, having off day on call, and various things. I will admit that our current contract hindered switching some people to 12s, but Admin simply wanted us to ignore the protections without any benefit or return. I think we should work on phrasing that allows for changes and the Union officially votes on new schedule.

Benefits - Ona works her ass off for benefits this time of year. LeNora and I met with her about the benefit changes, however when we spoke to her things were very much in the air. We already have a 75%/25% insurance coverage - which is good, as most businesses I see cover less than 50% or 100% - surprisingly very few inbetween. However things we spoke are "If we could save money would it be better to have a Sanford Only or Avera Only plan?"  "Would going to the $1000 deductible (with high max) be better than what we did?"  - I would like to add phrasing for having the Union more involved in the decision. Maybe it would suck going to an Avera(or Sanford) Only would suck, but if we save $1000  a year would it go.

In solidarity - Jared

Consolidation talks

Hello All –

Had a good set of meetings with Kooper (our organizer, who plans on buying a house so he is here for a while.)

The main topic of discussion was a proposed consolidation of the locals. It would be 4 units – Us, City of Sioux Falls, County Highway, and Teachers Union. This would let us consolidate information, allowing us to unify what goals the other units would have. It would consolidate our account and create more checks and balances (right now Lenora and I could run with all our money, we won’t, but probably should not have that ability.)

 The goal of our organizer is to be able to have picnics, parade participation, and basically be more active. Joining the locals would allow that to go easier.

The proposed board would consist of paid President and Treasure Secretary, which would then be paid positions ($5000 a year).

Then every unit would have a VP and a Chief Steward. So a board would have 10 and need majority to vote for quorum (6 people present).

The concerns brought up –

We would still have individual contracts.

The process would go like this… We vote if we are interested in consolidation. After that 1 or 2 delegates go to committee for merger.

I will send out a vote on November 18^th if we want to form committee. The vote to actually merge would be 6-9 months after that. PLEASE GET YOUR QUESTIONS TO LENORA OR ME.

There has been a dues freeze in South Dakota for the foreseeable future, so our dues will not go up.

IN METRO NEWS - A member has proposed we look at getting the uniform to business casual instead of having to have a Metro Logo. Basically to match what Admin currently wears. What are your thoughts on this?

Also make sure you check out the Afscme Advantage - you can save some money on various things. I just looked at the Mortgage discount and mortgage protection insurance.

https://www.afscme.org/members/advantage

2018-2020 Proposals

Hello Everyone,

After a lot of time it is finally review and vote on contract proposals for the 2018-2020 contract. Unless there is objections I will sent out an email a week from today with a survey monkey with anonymous voting in one week Tuesday that needs to be completed no later than 1430 on Friday.

I will have another Union member look at Survey Monkey to establish 2 things... 1) It is anonymous  and  2) The outcome.

The changes... I will attach the actual PDFs below. Changes will be in Red. Commentary will be in Blue.

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In Article 4 - 

COLA  

2018    2%

2019    1%

2020    1%

and Section 5

Section 5. Shift Differential. Employees who work all the 2nd half of the second 2nd shift (B shift) and all of the third shift (C shift) shall be paid a shift differential of $.50 per hour, in addition to their regular base hourly rate of pay, for all hours actually worked during that time. Shift differential will not apply to any hours paid as sick leave, vacation, or hours paid for time not actually worked. Shift differential does not apply to travel time.   

So B shift gets differential for all shift.

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In Article 5 -

Section 2. Workweek. The present workweek of forty (40) hours in each seven (7) day period is the standard used for purposes of overtime computation. The workweek shall begin at 0000 on Monday and end at 2359 Sunday.  However, all hours worked in any continuous period of time beginning prior to 2359 on Sunday and extending past 0000 on Monday will be considered hours worked on Sunday.  Also, all hours worked by any third shift (C shift) staff during any part of the third shift (C shift) period including any continuous period of time extending past 0000 on Monday will be considered hours worked on Sunday.

This has been the standard for a while... If you start your work seek on Sunday and work into Monday it is hours worked on Sunday for end of week things.

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ARTICLE 7 

WORKING IN A HIGHER CLASSIFICATION 

When an employee is temporarily assigned to perform duties by the Employer which are not contemplated within the scope or function of the employee’s own classification, and are the duties of an established classification with a higher maximum rate of pay than the employee’s regular assigned pay grade, and the temporary assignment is for a period of one workweek or more, the employee shall receive the following a 5 percent adjustment in addition to their regular base hourly rate of pay while holding this temporary assignment:. 

  Advanced Communications Operator 5% adjustment 

  Shift Supervisor    8% adjustment  

If you get promoted to ACO you get a minimum 5% increase in pay (same as now) and in 2018 if you become a supervisor you get a minimum 8% increase in pay (right now is 5%).

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Article 9

Overtime

Section 3. Probationary Employee. A newly hired probationary shift employee may be eligible for overtime upon successful completion of initial training.  

This is just a clarification of language - If you get promoted you are already eligible for overtime.

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Article 10

Time Trade

h) An on-call employee may not work trade for another employee at the same time they are on-call.     

h)i) Any time trade not completed will require the application of Article 26, Leave of Absence for the employee off trade.

This is just putting formally in writing what has already been in practice. Trade has to be an exchange of services between employees, in order to be legal. If someone who is working trade calls in sick, the scheduled employee's leave time is used and that employee has the use of sick time on record. This keeps Metro from having any part in direct dealing of the exchange of services between employees. Metro only has the agreement that time is covered by employee originally scheduled.

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Article 12

Seniority

b) Job Classification Seniority:  Seniority within the job classification shall be deemed to be that portion of the employee’s total length of continuous service accrued continuously in a classification above or equal to a specific job classification.

Correcting some wording.

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Article 14

Promotion

Section 3. Probation. 

  

a)  A promotion shall not be deemed complete until a period of probation not to exceed sixtwelve (612) months has elapsed. Should a probationary employee be absent from the job for more than thirty (30) days, the probationary period will be extended for a period of time equal to the absence in order to enable the employee to complete his/her full probationary period.    

Section 4. Step Placement. When an employee is promoted, the employee shall be placed into the pay step of the new position which is at least, and closest to, the following 5 percentages higher than the pay step received prior to the promotion:  

  Advanced Communications Operators 5%  

 Shift Supervisor    8% .  

If the maximum pay step of the new position is less than the 5 percentage increase identified in this section higher than the pay step received prior to the promotion, the employee will be placed at the maximum step with the lower percentage increase. The employee will not be eligible for a step increase upon completion of probation, but will be eligible for step progression in the normal prescribed intervals and procedures as defined in Article 4, Wages.  

Switching the probation period from 6 months to 12 months on promotions and applying the 5%/8% change.

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Article 19

Section 4. Suspension, demotion, and discharge may be the subject of a grievance as set forth in Article 2019, Grievance Procedure. 

Fixed a typo.

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Article 24

Vacation

Section 3. Accrual Schedule.  

  

a)  An employee shall receive a full or prorated vacation benefit with full pay based on the following schedule, and each new level in the schedule shall become effective in the pay period in which the employee’s employment date occurs and available for use on the first day of the following pay period:                                        

         Years Completed      Hours per Pay Period   

          0 – 3                         3.15   

          4 – 7                         4.00

          8 – 11                       4.65

         12 – 15                      5.30  

         16 +                           6.15  

        0 but less than 3         3.15  

        3 but less than 4         3.75 

        4 but less than 5         4.16 

        5 but less than 10       4.65  

       10 but less than 11      5.00  

       11 but less than 12      5.30  

       12 but less than 13      5.55  

       13 but less than 14      5.89  

       14 but less than 15      6.25  

       15 but less than 16      6.50  

       16 but less than 17      6.81  

       17 but less than 18      7.16  

       18 but less than 19      7.39  

       19 years and over        7.75   

More vacation is good.

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Article 25

Sick Leave 

Section 7 Last paragraph

If the employee is absent due to an FMLA qualified circumstance, the paid or unpaid sick leave absence will be designated as FMLA leave and treated in accordance with Article 265 Leave of Absence of this agreement. 

Correction of a typo.

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Article 26

Leave of Absence

First paragraph

Requests for unpaid leave will only be considered in the event that the employee has used all available paid leave time; e.g. i.e., vacation

Apparently lawyers care about e.g. and i.e. use. Corrected typo.

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Article 28

Funeral Leave

Section 1. Leave.

 Employees are permitted to use up to four (4) days of their available sick leave for attendance at any funeral service plus reasonable travel time. Use of sick leave within this four-day per-funeral limitation includes additional time for funeral planning and conducting estate business following that funeral when the employee’s non-professional time is needed for these purposes,An employee who has to make arrangements for or attend a funeral, or has to attend to estate business following the funeral, during his/her regularly schedule work hours shall be permitted to use up to four (4) days of sick leave for that funeral.  

Basically we rewrote the first paragraph. Going to a funeral here in town, just because you want to go does not automatically mean an excused absence. It clarifies that it is for planning and conducting estate business and going to a funeral. I don't know what caused this but Management wanted to limit who we could take funeral leave for (immediate family or spouses family) and we objected. We found this to be a compromise. There was an incident apparently of someone wanting a lot of time off for an acquaintance or to go to a service in another area of a stranger "for support". I have no idea, nor do I really worry about it. Basically if one has to plan a funeral or travel for a funeral then up to 4 days is excused without special permission. If one is going to an elementary teacher's funeral here in town that does not include planning if one wants more time off it should be vacation.

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So there you have it... Overall not to many changes, but I feel is a step in a good direction. -

All documents are emailed to you, as well as accessible here...  2018-2020 Proposal

Feel free to ask any questions and let me know what you think.

 Jared

Small rant and scheduling...

We have a small union. That is a fact. This is due to a variety of factors – lack of education, unmotivational leader, lack of unification, optimism on how nice the management council would be if we didn’t have a union (short term memory of other departments getting screwed), the fact people get to leech benefits for no cost. I can tell you that I have prevented an employee of getting fired. I can tell you that punishments are more level and documented when a union rep is there. I can tell you that management didn’t want to pay us for on-call, and there first official offer was $1 for the entire period of 4 hours - not $1 an hour, but $1 for the whole 4 hours. I can tell you that our sick policy would be chaos if we didn’t have a union, that it would only be applied based on favoritism. I can tell you we got more vacation for 2018 only because we have a union... But everyone at Metro gets that. Whether it is fair that Union members and charity receivers is a different debate, and doesn’t change the reality. I often say if Union membership goes 8 or below I am stepping down, or I am moving to dissolve it. Then we will see how nice Mayor Huether (or the next mayor who has to write a budget) is to employees under his care, without protections. If any of you have any ideas to get this wheel spinning more let me know. I don’t want people to feel that the union is pointless, because it isn’t.

So there is my small rant… but why? So after emphasizing the abstractness of the union that you have to trust me on, I have something concrete. The Union has direct member influence on the schedule.

Hopefully your shift representatives have spoken to you about the new schedule proposals. I have emphasized that a majority want to stay the same but move it back 1 hour. (If there something that has an obvious majority I have found it is go back to 0600-1400  1400-2200   2200-0600)

The schedules presented have a lot of contingency on having to have the contract change.

Article 5 Section 2 – Workweek – Our contract has 40 hour workweek for overtime computation, which is law. It also establishes are work week Monday through Sunday. This is something that an admin person wants to look at to lower amount of built in overtime in the schedule.

Definitions – On-Call… We have it defined as the period prior to the start of a regularly scheduled shift. All the proposed schedules want to change the time an employee is on call.

Article 4 Section 9 – On-Call Pay – Compensation for on-call right now is $2.50 an hour on call. There are talks of wanting to change that to .5-1 hour of ETO for a 4 hour period. Right now when we are called in for on-call we have guaranteed overtime. Management did not want that… and they still don’t. If we have a new schedule that has more people on-call one of the conditions given was they want to get rid of the guaranteed overtime. In order not stop all conversation I said the neutral “We will see what the members want” “That can possibly be arranged.”

So what it comes down to is… In order to directly change the contract the union decides. I feel the best way to handle it is a vote… but do we want a run-off vote where each options get points, do we want to flip a coin. Know that when a schedule is changed it is hard to change back.

Let me know people, I am not alone here.

I know it seems like forever ago but we finally got all responses back for the survey on scheduling...

Results…

Do you believe Metro’s schedule needs to change?

What we currently have: 8

What we have is not acceptable: 3

Skipped: 2

Comments

What we have currently is not great but we have a history of making things worse whenever we make changes. -NOliver

It sucks only having a small portion of weekends off – LSenst

I am fine with the current schedule, but would be open too new ideas – TWegner

I think what we have is good, and switching to a 10 or 12 hour rotation would be too hard. Adding a power shift, 11-1900 would be good though. – CSanchez

I believe what we have is a good balance of set days off and weekend days. I, of course, want the jail schedule, but that is not legally possible according to management. – JHoffman

2. We have to have a 40 hour work week. We are not exempt and our insurance bids are based on a 40 hour work week. If changes were to be made in Metro schedule how would you prioritize these changes?

10 hr shifts – 6

8 hour shifts with more rotations – 3

8 hours set – 2

I don’t want changes  - 2

No Comments

3. How do you feel about different start times?

 

I like set shifts – 7

Will not affect that much – 4

Independence – 2

 

If there is a change to start times, we should go back to changing at 0600, 1400, 2300.. it's becoming an officer safety issue with radio traffic – S Kennerly

 

Go back to 0600-1400, 1400-2200, 2200-0600 - TRust

I would like to go back to 0600-1400 but I don’t want to have to change again.  I know it sounds like I am contradicting myself.  If I had a choice I would work 0600-1400 but if that means making a major change then forget it.  I am tired of changing the schedule and talking about it.  – BDimercurio

4. Having experience diversity on shifts is something some people feel strong about. Too many divisions and it actually conflicts with seniority. In the past we have had division of x<1,  x<2,  ACO,  Supervisors. (The less than 2 years was an understanding as our contract has probation employees and non-probation employees.) Do you think that is adequate?

We should add more divisions – 3

We should stay – 5

Eliminate divisions – 3

 

 

ACOs should be on the same level as standard operators with regards to seniority. – NOliver

there needs to be more experienced operators spread divided out among the shifts.. there is no reason to stack A shift with 50 years experience and C shift with 2 days experience – SKennerly

The more divisions there are the more seniority is compromised. Someday it will affect everyone. – JHoffman

5. We know the comittee will present stuff, but is there other things can you think of when comes to scheduling?

 

LEAVE IT ALONE - BDimercurio

I am joining the committee so hopefully we can do something that will satisfy the most people. – JHoffman

Go back to the 0600, 1400, 2200 start times. 8 hour shifts. – TRust

Our scheduling should take metro employees into account to a greater degree than outside agencies. - NOliver

So there you have it... I think what we have is the winner with try for 10s in 2nd place. The general feel I get is "We don't hate what we have, going back an hour would be nice, but I fear we will screw it up more if we change it." -- Feel free to comment. I am sure the committee will send out more trying to get more information...