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Minutes 10-02-03 MI~NUTES OF THE COLLECTI~VE BARGAI~NING SESSION BETWEEN THE NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF FIREMEN & OI~LERSf WHITE COLLAR WORKERSf AND THE CITY OF BOYNTON BEACH~ HELD ON THURSDAY~ OCTOBER 2~ 2003 AT 9:30 A.M. IN CONFERENCE ROOM B~ CITY HALLf BOYNTON BEACH~ FLORIDA Present For NCF&O Sharon Munley, President, Local 1227 Debbie Lytle, Chief Steward, Utilities Michael Ricard, Steward, Building Division For the City: Wilfred Hawkins, Assistant City Manager Arthur Lee, Director of Human Resources Mr. Hawkins opened the meeting at 9:40 a.m. and a sign-up sheet was passed around. A copy of the updated matrix/summary of activity was distributed to the participants. Approval of Minutes of September :1.:1.~ 2003 Meeting Both parties agreed that the minutes were satisfactory as presented. Discussion Ms. Munley expressed concern that the articles upon which Tentative Agreement (TA) had been reached had been altered, and she did not think that was a good labor practice. She did not feel that the City should have made changes to items upon which TA had been reached. Mr. Lee stated that the City was aware that agreement would have to be reached first. Ms. Munley stated that she had never gone to a meeting where the Union's TAs came back to them as a new article. She felt that revisiting a TA'd item should be a joint decision. Ms. Munley stated that sections 2 and 3 were gone from the Recognition article. Mr. Hawkins stated that they had become separate articles and there were no substantive or drastic changes to the language. Ms. Munley felt that it was going to cause further, unnecessary delay in reaching agreement on a new contract. Also, she asked the City whether they had just given a 2% raise to the non-represented workers and the answer was, "Yes." She said that when the Union membership heard about this, they would be angry. Mr. Hawkins asked how he could help. Ms. Munley and Ms. Lytle felt that changing the entire framework of the contract was too drastic to do at this time and believed that a committee could work on this during the new contract term, for example. The Union felt that if the City wanted to reidentify each article and rewrite every page that it would have been better to reach agreement Meeting Minutes White Collar Collective Bargaining Session Boynton Beach, Florida October 2, 2003 on this with the Union first, before starting negotiations. Mr. Hawkins stated that this would be interest-based bargaining. Ms. Munley was still concerned about not having page numbers on the documents. The Union wished to negotiate based on their original proposal and the City did not disagree with that approach. Preamble Both parties gave TA to the Preamble. Rights of Employees The City wanted to delete the language in this article because the information contained in it was already in the Statutes. The Union's position was that people would not read a lengthy legal document but might read the contract. The Union's language was written so that the average person could understand it. Ms. Lytle noted that the City wanted to strike the employee's right to "...have a Union representative present when they believe a meeting with a supervisor may lead to discussions which could form the basis of disciplinary action." She stated that deleting this was not acceptable unless it was going to be inserted .elsewhere in the contract. The City and Union caucused over this matter. Mr. Hawkins stated that the language could remain the same (not deleting the section referred to by Ms. Lytle.) Both parties gave TA to Rights of Employees. Strikes The Union wanted to retain the right to strike. Ms. Munley stated that periodically, members talk to her about striking because they get frustrated. They do not realize that the penalties would be quite severe for doing this. She believed the language was necessary so that she would have something to refer the members to when the topic came up. This is put in there so the membership will know the rules. Mr. Hawkins agreed that this could be put back in. Mutual TA was given to Strikes. Non-Discrimination Ms. Munley stated that this article was included because it represents a promise not to do this to each other. Both parties agreed to add a Section 3 stating that the parties agreed that the Article was not subject to grievance or arbitration. TA was reached on Non-Discrimination, with one change as noted above. Meeting Minutes White Collar Collective Bargaining Session Boynton Beach, Florida October 2, 2003 Union Representation/Union Time Pool These items were addressed simultaneously since they relate to each other. The City would like to limit the number of stewards to four. The Union wants to expand from the two stewards they have at present to an undetermined number. The City's proposal cuts the time allowed for paid leave from 200 hours per group per year for collective bargaining and arbitration preparation to 40 hours per year per group. The Union does not feel that 40 hours is enough. M. Ricard noted that they were already approaching the 40 hours. Mr. Hawkins stated that the City would consider additional hours, but wanted the Union to establish a Time Pool. Ms. Munley asked if the City would consider allowing the Union to use sick time and comp time in the Union Time Pool since their proposal only listed vacation time at present. Mr. Hawkins said he believed sick and comp time could be used for this purpose. Ms. Munley inquired whether the City would supplement the rest of the time that was needed (amount to be mutually agreed upon) if the Union made an honest effort to get as much time donated as possible. Mr. Lee noted that the comp time was mentioned in the Union Time Pool Article. The Union thought that the best time to get the donations of time was at contract renewal/ratification. Ms. Lytle was concerned about what would happen if additional time were to be needed during the contract term. Mr. Hawkins suggested putting in a management process tool such as saying, "but not limited to," to allow for donations during the contract term. Ms.' Munley suggested that bargaining unit members may be allowed (may~ not shall as in City's proposal) to donate up to 5 hours of accrued vacation, sick, or comp time for this purpose and that this would be subtracted from whatever "bank" they tell us in the month of .lanuary during the term of the collective bargaining agreement. After discussion this was changed to i to 5 hours. Ms. Munley stated that the donation would be a voluntary. Mr. Hawkins agreed to replace "shall" with "may." Ns. Munley stated, ":If we get the 65 or so dues-paying members to give 2 hours each for a total of 130 hours, would you supplement the time up to the 200 hours?" Ms. Munley asked Ms. Lytle if she had used 200 hours in the last year and she answered that she had probably used about 30 to 40 hours. The City caucused about this issue. Mr. Hawkins stated that the City would donate up to one half of whatever hours the Union Time Pool had booked on February 1 of each year. Ms. Munley felt it would be too difficult from an administrative point of view to do this each year. She preferred doing this at the time the new contract is ratified by the members, letting the membership know that the donation would be deducted from their individual "bank" of vacation, sick, or comp time once a year in January during the term of the contract." :If an individual drops out, resigns from the Union, and wants their donated time back, the issue could be addressed individually, administratively. Ms. Munley stated that they should attempt to get a good response on the voluntary opt-in Meeting Minutes White Collar Collective Bargaining Session Boynton Beach, Florida October 2, 2003 and assume that nobody would want to take his or her hours back. Mr. Hawkins noted that in the Fire contract, once time is put in, it may not be retracted. A person can decide not to do it for a given year, during the "opt-in", ratification phase, but that decision cannot be made during the year after that opt-in period. Mr. Hawkins did not disagree with this approach. Ms. Munley read the Union's response as follows: "Bargaining unit members may donate from 1 to 5 hours of accrued vacation leave, sick leave, or comp t/me to be banked and subsequently used to permit designated Union stewards to engage in representative actMt/es. The donation wi//be deducted once each year of the agreement in January of each year. And the rest would remain the same. Ns. I~un/ey added, "The City w/ii match up to 50~ of the amount of hours that are booked by the Union at the end of the enrollment period each year. "Ms. Munley wanted to enroll the members who wish to donate time only during the ratification phase of the contract, advising the members that the donation would be deducted in January, annually, for the term of the agreement. This is because each year, the time could conceivably be "used up" and would have to be "refreshed. "It was agreed that there would be a one-time opt-in period at the time of contract ratification, with a deduction to be made of the donated amount annually in January for the duration of the contract, un/ess someone resigned from the Union. Ns. Lyt/e asked if the surplus hours could be roi/ed over to the next year, but the City wanted it on an annual basis with no roi/over. Representative activity was discussed and Ms. Munley inquired whether Union-related training could be added to the list of representative activities. Mr. Hawkins agreed that it could./~s. I~lun/ey then added "and training" fo/lowing "representative act/v/ty"/n the Un/on 77me Pool art/de. She continued, saying "The deductions w/ii be made from the emp/oyee'~ appropriate leave bank once each year in January during each year of the Agreement. Ail donated t/me w/ii be calculated, banked, and d/~r/buted on an hour-to- hour basis. A list of those employees donating to this time bank shall be maintained by the Union, a copy of which wi//be provided to the City Nanager and Finance Director. The City wi//match the number of hours at a rate of 50% each year of the Agreement based on the number of hours accumulated by the Union." Mr. Hawkins suggested that each party work on a version of this item and hold off on TA until the next meeting when the parties would compare notes. Everyone agreed that they were all on the same page concerning this portion of the Union Representation and Time Pool articles. Ns. I~lunley suggested putting Section 6 concerning time-out slips from the City's Union Representation art/cie into the Un/on 17me Pool art/cie. I~r. Hawk/ns agreed. Ms. Munley stated that the current contract allows leave without pay for up to two Union stewards to attend conferences, seminars, and/or similar events or other union activities related to their representative function, provided the leave does not adversely effect the on-going day to day operations in the department. The City's proposal offers 4 Meeting Minutes White Collar Collective Bargaining Session Boynton Beach, Florida October 2, 2003 to allow leave without pay for Union stewards, combined, a total of 10 days per year to attend conferences, seminars, etc. as above. This has to have further discussion. Ms. Munley mentioned Section 2 of the City's Union Representation article pertaining to Union officials coming onto City property. She took exception to "Non-employee officials shall discontinue any meeting and leave the premises of the City when directed to do so by the City Manager or any management level employee acting on behalf of the City Manager. She suggested that the last two sentences be deleted, the one just mentioned and "Nothing in this section shall preclude or interfere with the City's right to control access to City facilities for safety and/or security purposes." Ms. Munley stated that it already said, "with prior notification and approved by City Manager." She did not want just any supervisory person, who may or may not be informed as to the Union's rights under the law, to evict them from the property if they were acting under the terms of the agreement and within their rights as a Union. After discussion, it was agreed on both sides that it would be preferable to obtain perm/ss/on of a department head where a meeting might take p/ace rather than the City Manager, Mr. Lee commented that prior to the events of September 11, the level of security was not what it is now and this is where the approval issue came in. Anyone who is not an employee of the company is subject to a security protocol. Mr. Hawkins said the City wants to know the Union is on the property and wants them to follow the City's security protocol. Ms. Munley stated that the Union was willing to do that. Mr. Hawkins stated that if the Union planned to meet with the employees at 6:00 a.m., prior to when the City lobby opened, that someone would have to be aware of it and on the scene to see that the City's security protocol was adhered to. He commented that if one were in the building they would automatically be subjected to the security protocol of leaving their driver's license and so forth. When on the parking lot outside, though, the City wants to know that the Union is going to be there. Ms. Munley wanted to provide the City with a list of the drivers' licenses of each of her staff and herself. She did not see why they had to notify the City if they were outside of the building. Mr. Hawkins stated that if they were outside and a police officer came by and challenged them, they could be asked to leave the property. Once the City is notified, it becomes the City's responsibility to make certain that the Union representatives are not harassed or questioned by the authorities. Pis. Piunley asked the City to remove the words "approved by the" in the second line of Section 2 of the City's Union Representation arb'cie and also remove "Non-employee officials shall discontinue any meeting and leave the premises of the City when directed to do so by the City Pianager or any management level employee acting on behalf of the City Pianager." The City agreed. The fo/lowing sentence, "Nothing in this section shall preclude .... "w#/remain. Ms. Munley stated that she understood this as meaning that the Union would abide by the City's security procedures and the City would not Meeting Minutes White Collar Collective Bargaining Session Boynton Beach, Florida October 2, 2003 treat the Union any differently than any other member of the public. Mr. Hawkins agreed. In Section 3 of the City's Union Representation article, Ms. Munley noted that the City would provide paid leave to the Union stewards for collective bargaining and grievance hearings. B1 and B2 seemed redundant to the Union. Mr. Hawkins suggested adding the words "presenting or responding to a disciplinary action/investigation," striking the word grievance in B2. Ms. Munley suggested that the word "arbitration" be added after the word grievance in B1. Mr. Hawkins agreed. Mr. Lee suggested saying "and/or arbitration." Ms. Munley agreed. Ms. Munley commented that the last paragraph on the City's Union Representation article had to be redone because they had just discussed the number of hours and the matching by the City and so forth. There was some question as to whether this should be in the Union Representation article or the Time Pool article. Mr. Hawkins thought that it would have to stay in the Union Representation article since it spoke of how time was applied to the specified actions. Each party can work out the wording and come back to discuss at the next meeting. Ms. Munley did not understand the reference to the Union Time Pool because they were talking about paid hours. Mr. Hawkins pointed out that in the last sentence of the paragraph they were talking about additional hours (over and above the number of hours granted by the City). He thought it would be a good idea to study this and decide where it should go in the contract. Mr. Hawkins understood why the Union would not want to include Section 3 in connection with the Time Pool but it had to be understood how the time would be applied. He commented that someone had asked whose time would be used first, the City's time or Pool time. He thought that this needed to be discerned. Ms. Munley disagreed, saying that they were talking about having the City match the Union Time Pool hours. Both parties agreed that the 40 hours mentioned under Section 3 had to come out since the number was to-be-determined (TBD). Mr. Ricard stated that in the Union Time Pool article it states that any hours used with pay would be funded by the Time Pool and the Time Pool tells you how you get those hours (the additional hours referred to at the. end of Section 3). Ms. Munley agreed but stated that the Union wanted to discuss this. Ms. Munley stated that on the second page of the City's Union Representation article, it appeared that someone had complained about people taking too much time off for Union business. Ms. Munley commented that the "as referenced in Section 4" should be Section 3. She asked if the City was aware that free speech could not be limited and that it was possible that people would talk about Union issues around the water cooler, so to speak. Mr. Hawkins understood that. Ms. Munley referred to the paragraph at the top of the second page of the City's Union Representation article, saying that she did not know why this article was needed since the Union had always had the right to take time off for Union business when it did not 6 Meeting Minutes White Collar Collective Bargaining Session Boynton Beach, Florida October 2, 2003 interfere with the operation of the business. Ms. Munley asked if the first paragraph could be deleted. Mr. Hawkins said that it did appear to be redundant. He said the City needed to rework the language on the bottom of the first page and the top of the second page. Ms. Munley wanted to talk in caucus with the Union about the number of hours of paid time offered by the City, and the Union would probably request something more than 40. She suggested moving Section 6 to the Union Time Pool article or at least repeat it in that article. Mr. Hawkins thought this might be the better thing to do. Ms. Munley inquired about the 10 days per year in Section 5 and whether anyone had ever done that (take 10 days off a year without pay to attend conferences, seminars, or other Union activities). She asked why the City wanted to take away 10 of the 20 days that was granted in the previous contract (the one that just expired). Even though this was not used, people will experience this as a loss. Ms. Lytle stated that allowing the 20 days off without pay did not create any kind of adverse effect. Ms. Munley thought this was a non-issue and should be left off. The City wanted to discuss this item in caucus. Collective Bargaining Mr. Lee advised that the City's article on Collective Bargaining relates to the just-expired Union Contract Article 7, Union Representation, Section 1. Ms. Munley asked if the paragraph had been kept verbatim in its entirety and Mr. Lee and Mr. Hawkins agreed that it had been. Ms. Munley commented on Section 3 of the City's article, which says, "Nothing in this Agreement, nor any past practice, requires that bargaining sessions be conducted during normal working hours (8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.)" She said, "Why would you say that? !t's a business thing that we are doing and if it is after 5:00 p.m., the bargaining unit membership will want to come to it - that's how it always happens. ! don't think we need this language. ! think we could agree if we get down to the wire and want to go to midnight we can. !'ve done that to get a contract. !s this for a reason?" Mr.' Hawkins stated that it was a matter of being clear. Mr. Lee said there was always the issue of whether the business could be conducted after hours. Ms. Munley said that they could do anything they agreed to do. Mr. Hawkins said that if the schedules did not allow it to be done during the day, it would have to be done after hours. Ns. I~unley believed that this was something that could be agreed upon that did not have to be put in the contract. I~lr. Hawkins agreed because '~f you can't meet, you can't meet." Ms. rvlunley noted that in Section 2 it referred to no more than two stewards being able to attend collective bargaining. Their Constitution says that the bargaining unit determines the bargaining team. She assumed they could limit it to "X" number of people and still be within their guidelines. But, it had always been that stewards could participate in the bargaining because they were the people that were "in the trenches" Meeting Minutes White Collar Collective Bargaining Session Boynton Beach, Florida October 2, 2003 all year and knew what was working and what was not working. That is why they would do that. Mr. Lee said that their concern was when all the stewards or most of the stewards show up. Ms. Munley reminded them that they were talking about the blue collar (which has numerous stewards) and not the white collar, which only has two. Ms. Lytle's understanding was that collective bargaining was open to everyone so they would not limit who was going to attend. She said they might want to limit the number of participants at the table. Mr. Hawkins said this might be the word they want to insert (participates). He agreed that they could not limit the number of people who were going to come to listen. The Union suggested saying, "No more than two Union stewards may participate at the bargaining table etc." Mr. Hawkins said that would be fine. Ms. Munley said it would be more consistent to say 4 stewards since that is the number the parties were talking about. The Union wants to talk about this Section further. Ms. Lytle spoke of bringing in expert witnesses on either side. Mr. Hawkins said that there had to be some flexibility. He said they had already established that either side could bring in other parties with due notice as they go through the process. Mr. Ricard stated that if there were 4 stewards they would have to look at how that would work in the Time Pool. Ms. Munley thought that collective bargaining was a "freebie". Ms. Munley asked if Section 3 was being eliminated as discussed, and Mr. Hawkins said that he thought this could be handled. Progressive Discipline Ms. Munley inquired whether the City's article represented a new discipline policy. Mr. Hawkins stated that it was the same thing. Ms. Munley stated that she had not looked at it yet. Mr. Hawkins said they captured the PPM language and inserted it. Mr. Lee says it was pretty much what the Union had although some of it was a little different. Ms. Munley asked the City to bring to her attention the differences. Mr. Lee said it was not different from what was in the contract but in the last contract everything that was in the PPM was not totally agreed to and the City put that in this version. Mr. Lee said that they had put in what was in the contract verbatim. Ms. Munley asked for verification that the Procedure for Disciplinary Action was a part of the Progressive Discipline article and Mr. Lee replied that it was. Grievance Procedures The Union referred to their proposal for this article. Ms. Munley asked who Mediation, Inc. was. She said they never figured this out because they never did it. The Union's proposal had struck out Mediation, Inc. and inserted, "the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS)." Mr. Lee said that the Mediation, Inc. was what the City 8 Meeting Minutes White Collar Collective Bargaining Session Boynton Beach, Florida October 2, 2003 Attorney had recommended the last time. It is supposed to be a group of retired judges and that is what they do. Ms. Munley said, "they mediate but they don't arbitrate." Ms. Munley said they never used them but someone told her that the City had never had an arbitration, and she asked if that was true. Mr. Lee said the City had experienced arbitrations with the Police and Fire Units, but not this one. Ms. Munley asked if there had ever been an arbitration action with any NCF&O unit and IVlr. Lee responded, "Not since I've been here." She said this was a good thing if they were able to settle things. Mr. Lee said there were several issues that were up for arbitration but the City Manager was able to work it out and so it never went to arbitration although an arbitrator had been selected. Ms. Munley said that 99.9% of the time the Union would not grieve a verbal warning, a written warning. Usually they start talking serious arbitration when they start talking about suspensions, but they would still need to have the ability to do that for any kind of discipline that goes in the file. Mr. Hawkins said there was such a thing as a verbal written. Ms. Munley asked if that was a verbal written waming and he responded that it was. Ms. Munley said that after 3 warnings, there might be a disciplinary notice. Then the Union needed the ability to act on it by saying, "Wait a minute. Did that actually happen? If it did, is the penalty you're giving out to that person matching what actually happened? That's where we need the ability to make sure that the file doesn't get filled up with junk. And that's the grievance process. Because if we can only arbitrate at the suspension level and the file is full of all this discipline, the arbitrator would regard it negatively. Mr. Hawkins said, "Let's qualify that. A person can get verbal, verbal written, and then move to a "counseling memo" and ! think there's already language that talks about how long a counseling memo can stay in a person's file. Ms. Hunley thought it was 18 months. Mr. Lee said "or how long it can be applied - it stays in the file." Mr. Hawkins said that those things technically go away after a certain period of time and the only thing that can be applied is when you get to the suspension level. Mr. Lee said that Ns. Munley was expressing interest in arbitration ability from that level and in the current Grievance and Disciplinary Process, it does not exist at that level. !t is only after the person gets a 3-day suspension or more. Ms. Munley did not agree exactly. She thought they could put something in our file if we receive a verbal or written warning. Discipline that is more severe than a written or verbal, but less than a four-day suspension, shall be applied through the expedited grievance. !t does not really say that she cannot arbitrate other things. She would just go back and arbitrate them the old way. Ms. Munley then agreed that the City was right - it had to be a 3-day suspension. She felt that this could be a problem because it allowed the City to pack the file with all these disciplinary notices and yet the Union cannot arbitrate it and grieve it unless it is 3 days or more. 9 Meeting Minutes White Collar Collective Bargaining Session Boynton Beach, Florida October 2, 2003 Mr. Hawkins said the Union could grieve a 3-day suspension. Mr. Lee noted that in the City's Grievance Procedure, it stated in Section 4B that, "Discipline which is more severe than a written or verbal warning but less severe than a four-day suspension shall be appealed through the expedited grievance and arbitration process, or by appeal to the Human Resources Director, at the employees' option." Ms. Munley realized that she had been wrong. Ns. I~lunley said they did not like the I~lediation, Inc. and wanted FI~IC~ instead and I~lr. Hawkins agreed to that. The parties will come back with written proposals on the articles on which they are close to agreement - Union Representation and Union Time Pool. Next Meeting The White Collar bargaining unit agreed to have a session on Thursday, October 9, from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. The Blue Collar bargaining unit will meet on Friday, October 10, from 11:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. On Friday, the parties will have lunch before starting the meeting. There will be a break for lunch in the White Collar session on Thursday, October 9. Adjournment The meeting adjourned at 11:39 a.m. Respectfully submitted, Susan Collins Recording Secretary (100203) 10