ITBU – Meeting Summary
Meeting Date/Time: 7/25/11 12:00 pm -11:30 pm
Location: Chinook Building, Room 123 (1st Floor North side)
Attendees: Glen
Beckman (DCHS), Steve Bennett (EAS), Steve Bingham (DCHS), Marlon Brown (DCHS),
Pasquale Carbone (EAS), Tong Chen (EAS), Kathy Daly (EAS), Robb Faller (EAS), Dan
Floyd (EAS), Jon Grissom (ES), Whitney Hupf (PTE Local 17), Patrick Jankanish
(DNRP), Randy Jeffrey (DES), Jeff Lai (EAS), Roy Lazelle (EAS), Brian Lencho
(DES), Linda Martin (EAS), Tuan Nguyen (FBOD), Quyen Olsen (DES), Eden
Rogland-Peak (EAS), Floyd Suiter (DNRP), Reid Swick (Platform Svcs), Peg
Taglianetti (EAS), Charla Williams (EAS)
Agenda
· Contract Negotiations
· JLMIT Report
· Healthcare - upcoming negotiations, VEBA, administrative changes
· Policy Committee
· Negotiations Committee Elections (and roles and responsibilities)
· Layoffs
· Training
· Funding Labor/Mgt. Steering Committee
· Committees
· Future Meetings
Contract Negotiations
Whitney described the general
climate at the County for contract negotiations. She said that Labor has been told the County
is not planning to do more layoffs for 2012 as they have been for the last few
years. However, they are continuing to
explore other cost-cutting measures such as wage reductions. This is a concern for collective
bargaining. The unions will need to
research for justifications to preserve employees’ salaries. It will need to be decided whether the ITBU employees
want to pursue rolling over the existing bargaining unit contract or reopen
bargaining for a new contract. The
existing contract has good language, particularly for AHS (After Hours Support)
and training. Things to consider for a
new contract include: improved layoff and bumping language, more generous
bereavement leave language, sunsets on disciplinary letters, reduction of
probation, reduction of outsourcing, stronger support for telecommuting, AWS
(Alternative Work Schedules), training, and Executive Leave. Whitney said there could also be other impacts
bargaining for the IT Reorg that could go along a separate track for some of
these issues that relate to changes from the IT Reorg.
Service Center
Peg outlined the structure of the new Service Center. There was a process of selection for those to work in the Service Center that involved first volunteers, and then seniority and/or workload. There continue to be outstanding issues in that some people did not volunteer, but were chosen based on management’s assessment of business needs. Even those that did volunteer, share concerns about their work scope, quality, and career paths. Whitney is seeking mitigations for these people where possible. An issue that emerged was some of the LAN Admins having their body of work changed by being moved to the Service Center and by other technology changes as well. Whitney is going to set up a meeting with the LAN Admins and other related staff to get a better understanding of their situation and interests.
JLMIT Report
Peg conveyed talks that have occurred in the JLMIT. There has been much conversation about the
Service Center project. Members have
advocated for the employees to have more input in the process. In response, the management set up staff
sessions where employees could give their input. There was also significant employee
participation in the planning process.
Since the Service Center was a Council-mandated initiative as part of
the IT Reorg, its creation was not a matter of debate. However, the process was made as inclusive as
possible, given the constraints that existed.
The subject of the LAN Admins and technology changes has also been a big
focus in several JLMIT sessions. There
are larger technology trends such as the move to cloud computing (for example
Office 365), server virtualization, remoting and related initiatives that are
potentially reducing the need for as much physical hands-on work on
workstations. Also, the IT Reorg initiatives
of Workstation Standardization and Server Consolidation had findings from
consultant studies indicating that the County should reduce the number of
servers and number of LAN and related staff supporting them. These changes and agendas have brought about
shifts and upheavals in the number, kind, and qualities of the tasks that LAN
Admin and similar employees have been doing.
There are ongoing concerns about LAN Admin persons having their bodies
of work reduced, changed for the worse, or eliminated. These issues will continue to be discussed in
the JLMIT with a view to soften the impacts on employees wherever possible.
Healthcare
Whitney explained the background of the current Healthy Incentives program and how it was arrived at. It was a collaborative effort with the previous County Exec Ron Sims. At the time it was created at the County, it was seen as a desirable alternative to simply raising healthcare costs for the employees. Although the program in general is viewed as worthwhile vision and goals, the implementation of it has left many employees frustrated. Eden pointed out that even she, as a web developer, found the WebMD difficult to use. This sentiment was shared by many others. Charla expressed that the previous healthcare advisory group had put out an employee healthcare survey to get employee input; and that this was a helpful activity and would be good to do again. Whitney said that the Healthcare Advisory Committee will start up again this fall. They will look into ways to either make the program significantly better, or possibly replace it with something new.
Policy Committee
Whitney called for volunteers to serve on the Policy Committee. She said she will work with Peg to get the Policy Committee composed with representatives from each group as much as possible and get to the next steps for decision making.
Negotiations Committee
Whitney stated that we should get
moving and get a Negotiations Committee structure in place to be able to
address the different options on the table.
Layoffs
Peg talked about the layoffs happening in the EAS group due to the
ABT/BRC project implementation having 14 positions moved from EAS to the
BRC. The union through discussions
advocated for less actual staff layoffs.
The outcome was 11 actual staff laid off. The bumping is in progress. The union is filing a Step 3 grievance for
one employee who was denied bumping.
Part of the claim is that not enough training was provided to prepare
this person to bump and little to no cross-training was provided. There was also an issue of VEBA loss along
with other benefits when an employee gets laid off rather than retiring. (The IT bargaining unit voted to have 35%
sick leave cash out to VEBA on retirement.)
Whitney said there is unfortunately no opportunity to change how the
VEBA is administered at the present; but this could be looked at in future
bargaining about VEBA.
Peg described how the union had pressed for more training for the ABT affected
staff for the last couple of years.
There finally was .NET and related training provided to those getting
laid off this year. The training was
good as far as it went. However, it was
generally conceded that it was “too little, too late” to prepare the affected
staff either for bumping or to compete with new .NET positions in a timely
fashion to save their jobs.
Training
As for training in general, many people brought up examples of where
they had asked for training and the training was either denied or made
difficult to obtain. Dan pointed out
that training alone is also not good enough for people to be competitive; and
that there need to be opportunities to apply the training. Whitney said there needs to be more focus on
people being able to “change with changes”.
The IT bargaining unit contract already has good language regarding
training. Whitney said the training
provisions of the contract need to be enforced better and that she will push
for that.
There was also an issue brought up that management has repurposed
certain IT positions to different ones and then laid the persons off from the
original positions. This practice seems
to be on the increase. It is highly
disruptive to people in jobs they had previously thought were stable and that
they had been attached to and counted on for their career. It would be important to find ways of
minimizing this practice and/or giving the affected individuals better chances
to adjust to these changes.
Funding Labor/Mgt.
Steering Committee
In the bigger picture of layoffs at the County, decisions by the Exec
and Council are final. Whitney says the
unions are trying to get ahead of that process by engaging in exchange with
high-level decision makers about budget funding matters before they have
undesirable outcomes such as layoffs.
There need to be more creative ideas for how to solve budget problems
without resorting to layoffs. To this
end, Whitney is spearheading a forum to meet with the Exec and other top
decision makers to try to find these solutions in the most beneficial ways for
the employees.
New Committees
Whitney expressed that it would be good to renew the ITLMC (IT
Labor/Management Committee) and the JUMITT (Joint Union/Management Information
Technology Training) committees. These
had previously been started and then abandoned as there seemed to be a lack of
interest at that time. Whitney passed
around a sheet to have people indicate their willingness to participate in any
of the committees.
Future Meetings
After the general union structure gets determined, meetings will be
scheduled according to the groups and timing priorities.
The meeting adjourned shortly after 1:00 pm.
Follow-up Items
Get Policy Committee up and running – Whitney and Peg
Next Meeting
TBD
Tentative Agenda
for Next Meeting
TBD