• The TA'd agreement has been submitted to Budget for preparation of a fiscal note, which is scheduled to be completed and dated by April 26.
• Tentatively scheduled for Utility Board consideration on May 12, and Council Consideration on May 18th and May 25th.
Last Wednesday, while I was on vacation, Rene Jankiewicz resigned. I have resumed responsibility for her assignment and will begin to resolve any and all issues that have been unresolved during her short return and subsequent resignation. I have received several phone calls/ emails regarding current issues and will be working to get everything in order again today.
Although I am representing the City of Tacoma again during this transition period your new representative will be Roberta Burnett. I know many of you have worked with Roberta, a long time representative with Local 17 with years of prior experience, and will welcome her representation as her reputation for excellence is well earned.
Please be assured that although I will be transitioning the assignment to Roberta we will make sure, where in our control, that issues are not lost during the transition and that every current and evolving item is provided the necessary attention. Until the transition fully occurs we request that you contact me regarding all City of Tacoma issues, not Roberta, as Roberta will be transitioning her current assignment prior to assuming City of Tacoma responsibilities. As soon as I have a better understanding of the expected timeline of this transition I will notify membership of the details.
More information will follow but I wanted you to know what I know at this time. If you have any questions, comments or concerns please do not hesitate to contact me via phone (360-647-8419) or email.
Thank you for your leadership during this transition as the work you do creates the foundation that allows for a smooth, functional and healthy transition.
Much work will need to be done after the agreement is in place, so look forward to more updates and please notify your steward right away, if you have questions or concerns with implementation or other aspects of the agreement. Things will move quickly and although we will do our best to communicate frequently it will be important for us to know right away if you have questions.
Three issues have been resolved/clarified. First, you will see in both documents changes to CSWCL Lead.
Second, a correction was made to the main document to reflect the status of Step 6 for Construction Inspectors.
Last, the calculation for ET1 moving to ET2 in the attachment was incorrect. Please review the revisions.
Class Comp. Letter of Agreement and
(See also attachment examples)
(*Note: We have removed the example from the examples sheet of an employee being promoted from an ET1 to an ET2 because it was not accurate. It did not account for an additional 5% promotional increase that is currently contractual. Thank you.)
Ballots will be mailed to members' homes. Please make sure that Local 17 has your current home address. If you need to update it, please click here to change your address.
We continue to be very close on agreement, but are caught up on some implementation issues. For the most part, it appears we have reached agreement on all wages, (there are a couple wages we have not reached agreement on, but we have created a separate process to resolve these issues so as not to hold up the agreement in its entirety), but how they are implemented is still in dispute.
The team is working to set up a negotiating team meeting for this week to review and discuss the latest implementation proposal document from the City. The negotiating team will take no unnecessary delays and continues to advocate for your interests so that the final deal is ratifiable by membership and considers the interests of the group and the individual. We are optimistic that we will reach agreement on the final implementation issues in a reasonable amount of time.
If agreement is possible, then we will provide a final document to membership to review, allow opportunities to discuss in a meeting, allow opportunity to reflect and finally vote. If we are not able to reach agreement on the implementation issues, we may call on the membership for support to push the final issues to agreement.
In solidarity,
Your Negotiating Team
Power
Mark Schmidt
PW Construction Division
Tim Peters
PW Environmental Services
Vida Piera
Solid Waste (Supervisors Unit)
Maurice Wright
TPU Water
Rita Oster
Budget
The City Manager is requesting that labor meet with him on November 4th to discuss the budget. As soon as the meeting is over I will send out an update.
Civil Service Board
Jerry Hatch is wanting labor's support to run for the Civil Service Board position. If you have any thoughts, questions, concerns, or endorsements please let your Steward or Carrie know. More to come on this
Dental
It appears that Tacoma Joint Labor will agree to move to a self-insured dental plan to save money. This will not affect your benefits in any way but will be cheaper to administer than the old plan.
New Steward
Steven Jackson from Sewer Transmission is our newest Supervisor's Unit Steward. Welcome Steven! He will replace Marlin White.