Union Coop Meeting 11-10-15

Attending – Union - Jared Hoffman, LeNora Giles

                     Metro Management – Daren Ketcham, Ona Reker    

Topic – Social Media Policy

·         Much discussion on the new social media  policy and giving password / access to accounts when requested by management

o   There have been some instances where employees posted inappropriate posts identifying themselves as dispatchers and providing confidential information

o   Intent of policy –

§  Understood no fishing expeditions

§  Employee has to be under investigation

§  Management will be looking for specific information explained in writing to employee prior to looking on site

§  Even when under investigation passwords may not be asked for  - You will be asked to log in and show the incident

-Shift Change

·         2016 shift change will be Monday January 4^th

·         2017 shift change will be Monday January 2^nd

-Management shows interest in switching to PTO time

·         Discuss with members pros/cons about PTO time

o   Conversion process

o   Changing max vacation allowance carried over – possibly 480 to match FMLA

o   New accrual amounts

           

-2016 benefits

·         Increase in insurance -  discussed at benefit fair, metro still shopping to make sure best deal -  Dakota Care will continue the Great Life memberships for 2016.  

·         Discussed paying for Christmas Eve - Daren will not know until the December Council meeting on 12/16/15   but it will be requested.   We were paid 8 hours last year.  

-Wage Opener – reminder to send notification of Wage opener in January.   

Cooperation Meeting              12-29-14

Darin Ketcham, Ona Reker, Jessica Mundahl, Jared Hoffman, LeNora Giles

 

Have a typo in the contract under Article 25.   Says ref article 25 should be article 26.   
 
On call hours new work week question - Sun / Mon -  the on call hours for A shift will be on new work week as they are on call for Monday of their shift starting the new work week.   
 
Required staffing -   look over the information sent out reference required staffing.   Management is looking to let people know of mandatory spots sooner so if they choose they can find their own replacement.     Tentatively – starting with time 21 days out there will be a 3 day sign up time for hours and then it will be assigned.  
 
Part time employment -  need to work a total of 16 hours a pay period and up to 20 hours a week.    
 
There will be no TO pay as of January 1^st.   If ACO is not available to train will look to a supervisor.   Anyone offering to volunteer to train that is not an ACO is doing so without extra compensation.   

COLA -    In January need to send a letter requesting COLA negotiation.   Start talking in March as the audit is done in late February.  

 General News Items

AFSCME will now be under MN AFSCME.

Union dues are going up.

Luke Senst joined the Union - with Erica leaving and Luke joining we are still the same for membership.

5 new employees will be starting Jan 12^th. February will advertise for applicants.

Supervisor promotion took effect December 29^th.

Staff with Dakota Care insurance can contact Great Life reference free membership starting Jan 01-2015

Discussed Exit interviews due to number of staff leaving recently.

    Typical answers for leaving:
    1^st 6 months of job  --   shift work, stress
    After 6months – majority of answers include burn out and co-workers

Sick Time – has been a frustration not only by management but by staff. PD requires a written note for any sick use over 40 hours. FMLA covers 480 hours for 12 months. Not all sick time being used by staff on FMLA is for FMLA purposes therefore may not be over the 480 mark for FMLA. Management does continue to monitor the amount of sick time used and when.   If they are made aware of someone abusing sick time action will be taken.  

Vacation approval

     Management has approved 480 hours of vacation that would create a vacancy.   That is roughly 17000.00 dollars of the OT budget.  

     Management wants to make some of that back.   They are willing to work with employees to get vacation approved but would like employees to work so that it doesn’t over extend the budget by using trade time, adjusting hours when possible, and using creative scheduling.

      Assigning vacancy procedure as changed. Official timeline should be coming out.

      Hope if people know of required time sooner if they need to find a replacement they have some time.

     Discussed different options in tele-staff to show vacancies easier.   To get time covered easier.

      If you have HA time you need off can change it to vacation (provided you have V time) and then HA at the end of the week.  

 

We will look to get together again next month.   There are lots of changes coming.   Please be sure to bring any comments, concerns, or questions to Union leadership.  

12-22-2014 Minutes

Union Meeting

Monday December 22, 2014

 

Attendance 12:30:

Jared Hoffman, Stephanie Kennerly

Attendance 18:00:  Jared Hoffman, Michael Mettler

 
New Members:         Luke Senst

Members Leaving:   Kara Mikkelsen, Brandy Teft

Meetings will move to 4^th Wednesdays at 1200/1800 until April 2015’s shift change.

 

There will be a CoOp meeting on December 29, 2014; Some discussion topics will be:

Paramedics Plus

EMD for Private Pages

Variances for time delays

With the new Non EMD call standards Metro will be working with SFPD to narrow down important call types for notifying a supervisor.  They are trying to get down to seven priority call types that need immediate notifications.  With this, a new filter may be put into place for a High/Low Priority

Cost of Living increase negotiations will begin in March 2015.
 
A discipline hearing was held for a union member regarding sick leave. Want to remind people that when you call in sick just advise you are calling in sick and keep other information to minimal.

Minnesota and South Dakota’s union has merged; therefore Nathan Rahm is the new head of our division. Due to this merge our Union dues are slated to go up, and at meeting discussed to the rate of $ 22.50 per pay period. This should be the last raise for the foreseeable future. Other things discussed
 
Retention:    

 A suggestion for new recruits to help with retention of policy that may differ from shift to shift is to have new employees rotate shifts every 3-4 months for the first year of being on the floor working on their own.

 
Discussions of hiring only for B shift and with this giving shift differential pay to B shift employees only (1500-2300).  This may help retention and interest for supervisors for B shift as well as other B shift employees.

Flower Funds:

 

A proposal was made to start a flower fund with a gift from the union to start, and then have operators volunteer to have a small amount taken out of checks for authorized events. This fund would likely be controlled by Metro Management.

 

Meeting and Cooperation Meeting Minutes

Union Meeting notes     Meeting 10-21-14      1800 hours

 

 

Members Present

President – Mike Mettler
Vice President – LeNora Giles

 

Guests

AFSCME International Rep

Justin Faber – MCA employee

 

 

 

ISSUES

·         Joseph Pudas (member) had vacation on telestaff which was approved and then changed to PMA (pending management approval) and now is denied.    Changed due to use of hours elsewhere but would still have enough time accrued by the time vacation was to be used.   

o   Email will be sent to MCA management to have a meeting to discuss

o   Cooperation meeting held with AFSCME President and Vice-President. Management had decided to grant the time back to Joseph Pudas.

 

 

·         Employees miss the round table discussions that used to be held w/ management at In-Services -  a chance for employees to be heard

 

·         Membership numbers are down 

 

o   We lost Dave Roe and Chris Gruhlke

o   Non union members have been invited to come to a meeting to be encouraged to join the union

o   Discussion on strength of union comes from its members.   

o   National rep -   stated several times

§  How many people do we have

§  What are we willing to do

o   Discussed ways to encourage membership to make for a strong local

o   This meeting was to be for nominations which will continue for the next week. 

o   We will be inviting employees to a special meeting – date to be determined – to be held at Pizza ranch in private room to discuss membership, nominations, and participation in union.    Motion was made and passed to appropriate 200.00  towards the cost of dinner.   

·         Nominations  are now open for the following

o   President

o   Vice President

o   Secretary

o   Treasurer

o   Steward A shift

o   Steward B shift

o   Steward C shift

o   2 board members

§  Bob DiMercurio is on board not up for reelection

 Nominations have been left open until such time as the meeting at Pizza Ranch can be scheduled.

 

·         Mettler presented the bill for printing of the Union Contract to be paid $46.75. 

 

 

·         If anyone has contact names for employees with Rural Metro -   National representative looking for contacts to speak with employees about organizing

 

·         M.A.T  - Membership Action Team

 

o   A communication tree to get information organized

§  Shows the union is organized and has unity

o   To be used on events which are

§  Widely felt

§  Winnable

o   Nathan (the new local rep)  can train subjects on how MAT works

Cooperation 9/2/14

On 09-02-14 Lenora Giles and Michael Mettler met with Daren Ketchum, Jennifer Disburg, and Ona Reker.

• It was agreed that the ACO would be hired in time for them to bid shift. They are looking to hire 3 operators on A shift 3 for B shift and 2 for C shift. Job description as well as expectation will be posted along with the new positions. Job should post on the same day as next year’s bid. Effective date for hire in changing over from CTO to ACO is still TBD. As all promoted to ACO will have the same promotion date seniority will fall back to agency seniority. 

• 2015 Schedule should be posted as of 10-01-14. This will have ACO positions included. The expected movement of the schedule will be Oct 20-27th supervisors will bid, Oct 28-Nov 3rd ACO, and Nov 4-17th operators. Vacation bid will be from December 1-15th . 

• The on call schedule will be tied to the shift bid. The on call day should fall in the middle of the employees work week. On call time can be traded, however this is still being worked out. It may be like regular trade time or may be a complete trade in which the on call person will receive the benefit. Still working on Telestaff to possibly preload the on call schedule onto it everything was still a work in progress. Expect by shift bid that most of the information should be settled.

• Rotating RDO’s are here to stay for the time being. Trades and movement that occurred last year will again be allowed this year.

• Great concern was raised over the treatment of one of our members in being called into work from a non work site during hours on duty. LeNora Giles spoke on this position advising that the concern is that by removing the employee from the event they had signed up for, and making them come into work they created the expectation and a fear that would prevent future employees from signing up for events. Management said that this was an exigent circumstance, and it required the supervisor to act to keep his number from falling below minimum staffing. This was an isolated incident and does not happen on a regular basis. In the future the on call schedule will hopefully lead to situations where this is no longer a problem, but a guarantee could not be made that a similar circumstance could lead to an operator being told to return to the center and work. The center is priority and must remain staffed.

• Elections are coming up. 15 days notice is being given the we will start accepting nominations fall all officer positions, as well as several others. Nominations will begin 10-21-14 and end the following Friday 10-24-14.

SHIRTS

Hey everyone,

At the last meeting Mike and I talked about ways to spend some of the cash in the bank for union members. We both liked the idea of shirts, and decided to look around and see what the internet had to offer. We found a site that specifically customizes apparel for labor unions and they have a few good designs. The full list is here but I picked out a few below.

  

 

   

 

Send your thoughts to Mike or myself - if you can find a design you like here or elsewhere, bring it with you to the next meeting.

 

Thanks,

 

-C