On 12/23 A&R exchanged collective bargaining proposals with the State. The Union was shocked to learn that the State Team was 40 Managers plus 1 Assistant Director of OLR (who has already negotiated two A&R contracts) and the high-priced lawyer that the State contracted as its representative for talks with P-5 (apparently OLR does not believe that it can provide these services adequately...anymore).
To be fair, it was just before Christmas, so only 28 managers showed up.
Apparently, when you put 40 managers in a room they are able to become egregiously cynical as their proposals would set state employment back to benefit levels and language protections that existed before the 1980’s…the question is why?
While clearly the State can’t justify most of their demands, the fact that they would even propose this level of garbage/silliness is nonsensical. I suppose this is what you get when a private law firm steps in to show how tough the State can be, rather than trying to show how an operation can function with professional employees being treated like professional employees. Their proposals look like they lifted the playbook from a third-world child-labor factory and essentially declared that they have no faith in State managers to operate their units with autonomy. They have clearly indicated that they have no interest in supporting a balance of home and work life.
Essentially it is now like high school…we all start and end at the same time; you are on time or tardy no exceptions for weather or road conditions and no making up for time if you are late. If you get disciplined there is no recourse, if you get a low performance rating there is no recourse. If you travel out-of-state for work, be prepared to pay your own way entirely, there is no reimbursement for hotels, airfare, meals, tolls, parking; nothing at all. You can get mileage reimbursement but that rate will no longer be the GSA rate, it would be an internally, unilaterally determined rate.
You don’t get to make your schedule, it is pre-established but not by you. Your manager can adjust your schedule as they wish with no notice. There will be no comp time. Those below salary grade 25 receive OT pay only and those above salary grade 24 get no compensation at all for any hours over 40. Strangely, they removed the requirement to pay OT within a month of working it. If your manager decides you need to work on a holiday, they can assign you to work the holiday, don’t worry, you would get paid straight time for the day and will be granted a floater holiday that your manager will be kind enough to schedule for you (get your family together on February 4th and re-create the Christmas you missed as you gather around your dried up Christmas tree). Fortunately, their plan calls for fewer holidays, so the chances become slimmer that this will happen. Want to use your PL day? Good, done, wait until next year to get another one.
Anything and everything relating to job specs and salary grades would be unilaterally determined by the State. There will be no recourse. There will be no ability to limit your duties to your job spec and no process to demonstrate you are working at a higher level. Pay grades/salaries would be determined by DAS alone and there is no indication that step movement/increases within your salary grade will ever exist again.
Discipline has no “just cause” standard which means you can still grieve a discipline, but there is no need for management to show that you violated any policy or business rule (in other words, you can’t prevail). You won’t be allowed to write a rebuttal to any derogatory material in your personnel file, actually, you won’t have the ability to even see what is in your personnel file (unless you go through FOI, which will approve releasing your file, which makes this proposal just as well thought out as the others).
Need we continue with listing out the massacre? How much are you willing to pay for parking? If you get a layoff notice, check the salary of the person you would bump, it will become familiar. Sick time, sure, but you can be disciplined if you use it…any of it. Don’t want to speak during an agency investigation? That would subject you to discipline.
Their proposals were a complete elimination of any collective rights you have, all of them would be ELIMINATED, everything. The State wants us to bargain away the collective bargaining system. The legislature made the collective bargaining laws, this private law firm wants to undo the law (with Governor Malloy’s blessing).
…o, one last thing…did I mention they offered no wage increases? This is what your governor thinks is fair to you. Yep, a spoiled life we lead.
This is a slap in the face (and a wake-up call) and it will not be ending here, this will be addressed.
Our next meeting with the State is January 12 with a follow-up on January 27th.