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Minutes 10-30-03 MTNUTES OF THE COLLECTZVE BARGAZN~NG SESS:[ON BETWEEN THE NAT1~ONAL CONFERENCE OF F~REMEN & OZLERS, WH:[TE COLLAR WORKERS, AND THE C~TY OF BOYNTON BEACH, HELD ON THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2003 AT 9:30 A.M. ~N CONFERENCE ROOM B, C~TY HALL, BOYNTON BEACH, FLORI~DA 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 circulated. Approval of Minutes of October 14, 2003 Meeting Later in the meeting, both parties agreed that the minutes were satisfactory. Grievance/Discipline/PPM Discussion Ms. Munley stated that in reference to the PPM, the Union could not give up its right to arbitrate cases. They want to have their grievance and arbitration article where they can arbitrate cases. Also, the PPM says that the Human Resource Manager's decision is final and the Union cannot go there. When someone gets a discipline notice in his or her file, the Union wants to be able to take action. Without that ability, the file can be padded with all those written disciplinary notices to the point that when a suspension comes up, the arbitrator believes the City and therefore, the Union has not been able to challenge it. Mr. Hawkins stated that page 37 in the PPM talked about arbitration in the context of suspension without pay for 5 days or greater. Mr. Hawkins asked Ms. Munley if the Union wanted to be able to apply arbitration on all suspensions and below, to include written discipline, and Mrs. Munley confirmed that this was the case. When Mr. Hawkins asked why they would want to do that on a written reprimand, Ms. Munley responded that the reprimand might be grievously unfair to someone. Ms. Munley stated that they also could not agree with the arbitrator not being able to modify the discipline. At a minimum, the Union has to have what it has now. Mr. Hawkins stated that the arbitrator could either sustain or reverse the discipline. Ms. Munley felt this was unfair and said, "What if you give somebody ten days off for some dumb little thing? Because, you guys are not always going to sit in this chair. Now we Meeting Minutes NCF&O Negotiation Session - White Collar Boynton Beach, Florida October 30, 2003 can't have the arbitrator change the penalty when the penalty does not fit the crime? We cannot go there. The whole point of arbitration is to make sure that what happened was fair and just for the crime, if a crime was even committed." Ms. Lytle said that although the arbitrator could reverse the disciplinary outcome, the arbitrator might also decide that it would be more appropriate to apply 3 days instead of l0 days. Ms. Munley agreed. Ms. Lytle said the arbitrator has to be able to modify it because it is not always black and white. Mr. Hawkins was willing to be flexible with the language outlining under what circumstances arbitration would apply. The City was not disagreeing with the idea of having arbitration in the contract. He thought that the parties needed to decide upon which circumstances would call for arbitration. He was having a hard time understanding why the Union would arbitrate written reprimands when written reprimands were removed from the file after three years. Mr. Lee said they were not removed from the file, but they were not counted after three years. Mr. Hawkins said they could even work on the three years aspect. To Mr. Hawkins, arbitrating written reprimands is overkill. He stated that he wou/d give the Union arbitration for suspensions. Ms. Lytle stated that she did not know why so much time had to be spent on this. They had never gone to arbitration for white or blue collar, to their knowledge. Ms. Munley stated that the cases that were lined up to go to arbitration were not about written reprimands. Ms. Lytle said they would not frivolously spend their time, money, or effort on stuff like that, but had to have the opportunity to do it should the case arise. Ms. Munley said that the Union Hall was running a business and had to spend its money wisely because arbitrations are expensive. Usually, when the Union arbitrates cases, they are about people who did not get paid correctly, were terminated, or where there were serious wrongs done to people. She did not think that there were any current cases that were about written reprimands but, there cold be and the Union had to have a safety net in the event they need to fix something. Ms. LyUe indicated that if the employee were to get reprimands that were justified, the Union would not arbitrate, but would counsel the employee or take some other action. Ms. Munley said they were trying to be logical and find a solution. Mr. Lee stated, "This is why we are trying to put a structure in place that is logical because you might not always be there." Ms. Munley said that when an arbitration goes into the Union's house, it goes in front of a committee and they determine whether to arbitrate or not. Ms. Munley is not on that committee. The Union has a certain amount of money for arbitrations and has to decide which cases will be arbitrated and which ones will not. Ms. Munley said that the Union needed the ability to arbitrate at all levels. She also said that negotiations and saving people from injustice were their two main things. Meeting Minutes NCF&O Negotiation Session - White Collar Boynton Beach, Florida October 30, 2003 Mr. Lee stated that they must draw the line somewhere and if they include written reprimands, then they would probably have to include written counseling and written verbal memos also. Ms. Munley stated they already had the ability to place a refutation in the personnel file on receiving a verbal or written warning. They would like to put "counseling memo" in this section also because it is not in there. Where does it fall? It is not stated. Except for the fact that Ms. Munley wants to use Federal Mediation instead of the arbitrator proposed by the City, the Union has a perfectly fine article on this right now. It only needs two tweaks. The Union needs Federal Mediation instead of Mediation, Inc. and class action has to be defined. She said they needed to say where terminations go because that was a preoblem they had. She said that there were only a few tweaks needed to the machinery they already had and that there was already a prohibition on arbitrating verbal and written warnings. Mr. Hawkins stated that the old contract refers to the PPM for Progressive Discipline. During the negotiations, the City gave the Union the currently-approved, updated PPM. Ms. Munley said that the old PPM was already in the contract and that the problem with the new PPM is that it goes too far. It goes into appeal and arbitration and that is the part they could not do. She needed to caucus to see what the Union could use from the first part of the updated PPM. Mr. Hawkins stated that there were very minor changes between the old PPM and the updated PPM. The Union has a concern about arbitration and how to apply that and the part where the arbitrator cannot modify discipline. Mr. Hawkins agreed, as far as the contract was concerned, that he would be wi/ling to a/Iow the arbitrator to modify disc/pi/ne. As far as what can be arbitrated, if the City a/lowed arbitration for written reprimands, he did not want verbal and counseling items induded in arbitration. Ms. Munley stated that verbal and counseling were not in the contract now. Mr. Hawkins asked whether the Union would want to arbitrate a first-time written reprimand of an employee who had never been in trouble. Ms. Munley stated that every case had its own merits and the Union would have to investigate the matter. Whether it was the first instance of discipline or not did not enter into it. The Union is concerned with whether the penalty fit the crime and if it did, whether there were mitigating circumstances. Ms. Lytle stated that different departments and areas in the City handled things differently. Ms. Munley asked where the PPM discipline language would be cut off because the City wants progressive discipline, which they already have, and a grievance article, which is a different article now. So, Ms. Munley wanted to keep the grievance article the Union already had with a few changes. The old contract already has PPM except for the grievance piece. Ms. Lytle said that the City amended the PPM and would continue to Meeting Minutes NCF&O Negotiation Session - White Collar Boynton Beach, Florida October 30, 2003 amend it and massage the language. She did not want to refer to the PPM in the Union contract at all because it was subject to change, and Ms. Munley agreed. Ns. Munley stated they needed the Union's discipline art/c/e, Art/cie IX, and they could possibly rev/se it to make it look more like the PPN article the City had given them. They did not want to have the grievance and arbitration piece in the discipline art/de. They wanted it in a different article and they wanted it to look like the Union's article. Also, Ms. Munley thought it would work better if the grievance/arbitration process were to be expedited. She said that it was not right to make someone wait a year for arbitration when it could be done quicker, cheaper, and smarter. However, there were certain things in the "machinery" that the Union did not want to give up because if they did, they could not defend people properly. Ms. Lytle said it was kind of scary that they had never had a case that went to arbitration and were now working so hard on the language to fix it or modify it. It appeared to her that perhaps the City was going to do more discipline. Mr. Ricard indicated that the City was possibly adopting a "harder line." Ms. Lytle said that for example, they haven't had predetermination hearings before and now all of a sudden there were all kinds of them. Mr. Lee said they had predetermination hearings before. Ms. Munley stated they had not been back-to-back for days on end like they are now. Mr. R/card said that if the City were going to take a harder line, the Union would need to defend their people when needed. Mr. Hawkins stated that it could also be that people were doing more things now to merit discipline. A lengthy discussion ensued about the grievance and discipline procedures. The C/ty wants the grievance procedure to be included in the disc/p#ne procedure so that a manager or an employee reading it would be able to see the entire procedure in one p/ace, from start to finish. The City would a/so like a separate grievance art/de for non- discipline matters, even though the language might be the same. Mr. Hawkins explained that the City wanted to distinguish between discipline up to and including termination and arbitration and grievances for other, non-discipline things. Mr. Hawkins did not want to confuse the discipline process with anything else in the contract. When asked to clarify this by Ms. Munley, Mr. Hawkins explained that there had been a problem in the way grievances were written up. Ms. Munley thought that was a whole separate issue. Ms. Lytle thought it would be redundant. Mr. Hawkins thought it may be redundant but there would be a clear-cut delineation between discipline and everything else in the contract. That was all he was trying to accomplish. The processes between those two might be very much alike. Ms. Munley did not know that this would fix how a grievance was written because there was already language on grievances. She had seen some grievances that were not very clear and did not provide enough information. Mr. Hawkins said that he was trying to 4 Meeting Minutes NCF&O Negotiation Session - White Collar Boynton Beach, Florida October 30, 2003 distinguish between discipline matters and other contract matters that might generate a grievance. Mr. Ricard understood where Mr. Hawkins was coming from, saying that if a person were to pick up the contract booklet and knew they had a disciplinary problem, all the rules and everything that had to be done could be found in that one place. I~,ls. Nun~ell sa/d, "Except that/t sa/d on page 20 that regu/ar emp/oyees sba~~ have just cause appea/ and gr/evance r/ghts as out#ned/n art/de X. "She thought the person would just keep on reading. Ms. Munley asked Mr. Hawkins to tell her what problem he was trying to fix with this. Ms. Munley thought that doing what the City wanted would create too many things to follow and that it would become a nightmare. Mr. Hawkins stated that he did not equate this with a problem. He was just trying to make it clear that the disciplinary process had to do with specific rules and outcomes and that the discipline process should not be confused with anything else in the Union contract. When asked by Ms. Lytle why the City would want to say the same thing twice (grievance), Mr. Hawkins responded, "Because a person could go directly to that process and follow that process through from being written up to what the next step is, all the way to arbitration if it goes that far. It is all in one article that can be followed through from beginning to end." Ms. Lytle suggested identifying grievances as disciplinary or other, and following the same grievance procedure for both. Mr. Hawkins said they had articles that specifically outlined the procedures for a disciplinary matter and that the Union already had that. Ms. Lytle asked how the City wanted the grievance procedure changed for grievances other than discipline. Mr. Hawkins felt that the Progressive Discipline article should contain everything that talks about discipline, and that article l0 should deal with grievances for everything e/se in the contract. Ms. Munley felt she was beginning to understand this -- that it was for clarification and streamlining and for the reader to be able to read all about it on one page. Mr. Hawkins agreed. Mr. Lee said there were several grievances or disciplinary processes where there was difficulty determining where the discipline appeal took over and the grievance process left off, particularly with the pre-determination step. :In one of the processes it says one thing about pre-determination and what it is for and then you go through the grievance procedure, which really doesn't say anything about pre-determination, and you get to the end and ask the question: Do we have a pre-determination for this particular situation? Then you refer back to the discipline process. Mr. Lee was caught between the grievance and the disciplinary processes. He saw the disciplinary process as some type of penalty, whether written or not, that has been applied and can be 5 Meeting Minutes NCF&O Negotiation Session - White Collar Boynton Beach, Florida October 30, 2003 appealed. The City was getting grievances for things like "blue shoes" that were related to safety but the supervisor would not listen to them. So, the Union puts it into the form of a grievance so everyone can sit down and talk about it. It was not really discipline at that point but a legitimate grievance. IYr. Hawk/ns suggested putt/ng everyth/ng related to d/sc/p//ne /n the Progress/ye D/sc/p//ne art/de. All other gr/evances for any other art/c/es/n the contract would come under Art/c/e 10. Mr. Lee gave an example of a pre-determination where the City had said it would be taken to arbitration later. He gave it to the City Attorney, who said that Mr. Lee would have to go through the grievance procedure first in order to get there. We are saying that this is duplicating the process. Why go through this when we have already gotten to this point? Ms. Munley stated she realized that and that even if the Union accepted the City's suggestion (see previous paragraph in italics), the grievance process should be streamlined. MFi Hawkins said the City had agreed to that up front. He was not changing anything but he asked the Union to look at Section 4. Ms. Munley said that after the initial action for issues that were violations of the contract and NOT discipline, there would be a process, and it should be identical to the other process. If the two grievance procedures were not identical, a nightmare would be created. Mr. Hawkins did not believe the language in the two processes was that different. Ms. Munley suggested that there was another way to fix this issue. The discipline article the Union already has directs the reader to Article 10. :If there were another article that said, "Violations of the Contract Other than Disciplinary Matters," it could also direct the reader to Article 10. Mr. Hawkins was trying to avoid going back and forth like that. Mr. Hawkins expressed the view that discipline was the one thing that really affected people, even if they were exonerated. He did not want this mixed up with such things as whether a person got paid overtime for something or whether his manager would not give him the blue shoes he needed for safety. Mr. Hawkins wanted to make the discipline a standalone article that includes everything related to discipline so that a person can follow it from the beginning to the end. Ms. Munley wanted to talk to the stewards about it. She did not believe it was "broken." She understood that the City was trying to streamline the procedure and she did not have a major problem with it. She wondered, though, whether it would have a negative impact on something the Union needed to do. She had to think about it. Meeting Minutes NCF&O Negotiation Session - White Collar Boynton Beach, Florida October 30, 2003 Ns. Lyt/e suggested that Hr. Hawkins rewrite it the way he wanted it and see if the Union could agree with it. Mr. Hawkins stated that he wanted to see Section 4 in Article ::[0 under Progressive Discipline. Mr. Hawkins suggested working on Unauthorized Absence from Work and Training, including the step-up issue. 3ob Posting and Bidding Process Mr. Lee stated that the City proposed taking this article out and allowing it to be a management right. Ms. Munley stated she would have to think about that one a long time. Ms. Munley stated that there needed to be one job posting and bidding process instead of the three that exist now: Blue Collar, White Collar, and the PPM. Ms. Munley thought that they needed to come up with a fair way to post jobs that everybody could agree on. Ns. Munley stated that in the Union world, there should be a process outlining what needs to be done about job posting. Ms. Munley asked what happened to the old way of doing it. Mr. Lee said it had come out of Civil Service and there was a lot of discriminatory things that happened under it. When they tried to recruit or diversity the workforce, it was like you had to be here a certain number of years before you could do anything. Nobody could get promoted, and that was one of the reasons the City wanted to throw this out. Ns. hCunley asked that the City bring them what they want to fo#ow, either the PPh¢, or some other process. It might be something the Un/on could agree w/th. Ms. Munley stated that with three procedures, two of them would be violated, no matter what. Ms. Lytle thought it was expecting a lot of the Union to expect it to manage the City's hiring practices. She stated that she could not check everything out and see if the City was handling it properly The only time she finds out about it is when somebody questions it and says, "! applied and ! didn't get this." I~lr. Lee agreed that Human Resources should have the responsibility for this. He also agreed with Ns. I~unley's feeling that there should be one process that is fo#owed by everyone. Ms. Munley asked Mr. Lee what the Police and Fire had and Mr. Lee responded, the PPM. The City tries to use the PPM universally except that the Blue Collar unit is governed by the old Civil Service method. Ms. Munley inquired about the discriminatory items Mr. Lee had mentioned earlier. Mr. Lee responded that there was an eligibility list that came out of Civil Service and it was discriminatory. He stated that the current PPM was more open and competitive. Ms. Munley asked if the Blue Collar procedure would 7 Meeting Minutes NCF&O Negotiation Session - White Collar Boynton Beach, Florida October 30, 2003 be more affected by the Savings Clause (which says if something becomes illegal, you can't do it any more.) Ms. Munley did not want to give up ]ob Posting and Bidding in the contract and stated that the Union wanted one procedure that will be followed by everyone. Mr. Lee indicated they would have to pull the Police and Fire contracts because for promotional positions, they had a slightly different procedure. The recruitment process the City uses, including the Police and Fire, is the same. Ms. Munley stated that the Union might as well keep what they had if it was PPM anyway. At 10:50 a.m. a CAUCUS was called. The meeting resumed at 11:24 a.m. Ms. Munley announced that on the grievance issue, the Union wants to consult with their attorney. Ms. Munley does not have any other contracts where it is like what the City wants. She understood the intent to streamline the process, but discipline and grievances were always standalone articles. The Union was willing to agree to .lob Posting and Bidding today as follows: The Union is willing to delete the Recruitment and Selection section in Article 22 (because it looked like the City's process for that) if the City could accept the .lob Posting and Bidding they already had with these changes: 1) Add the preference points from number A7 in Article 22, 2) that appropriate bargaining unit designations be placed on all job postings and job descriptions, and that 3) every effort will be made to promote from within when an employee has the skill and ability that meets the requirements of the position. Ms. Munley wrote these points up in the form of a Union Proposal, which she distributed to the City. Next Meetings On November 13, 2003 at 9:30 a.m., a White Collar meeting will be held. At 1:30 the same day, there will be a Blue Collar meeting. The same arrangement will occur on November 20, 2003. The meeting ended at 11:33 a.m. Respectfully submitted, Susan Collins Recording Secretary (103103) 8