Loading...
Minutes 01-08-04 MZNUTES OF THE COLLECTTVE BARGATNTNG SESSTON BETWEEN THE NATTONAL CONFERENCE OF FTREMEN & OTLERS BLUE COLLAR WORKERS AND THE CTTY OF BOYNTON BEACH, HELD AT 9:30 A.M. ON THURSDAY, 3ANUARY 8, 2004 TN THE HUMAN RESOURCES CONFERENCE ROOM, CTTY HALL, BOYNTON BEACH, FLORZDA Present: For the City: Wilfred Hawkins, Assistant City Manager Arthur Lee, Director of Human Resources For NCF&O: Sharon Munley, President of Local 1227 Bob Kruper, Union Steward Mike Osborn, Union Steward Don Roberts, Union Steward Richard Smith, Union Steward Richard Stone, Union Steward Mike Taylor, Union Steward John Wolcott, Union Steward Opening The meeting began at 9:47 a.m. Mr. Lee distributed an updated matrix to the participants. A sign-in sheet was circulated. Approval of Minutes of December :L6, 2003 There were no changes or corrections to the minutes. Review of Articles on Which T.A. Has Been Given Mr. Lee transmitted typed articles to Ms. Munley, with the comment that all agreed- upon changes had been incorporated. He asked that she review them and let him know if they were correct. Ms. Munley will give copies to the stewards for their review as well. Restricted Sick Leave This article was discussed at the November 20, 2003 negotiation meeting and the Union was concerned that an employee could be put on restricted sick leave at the sole discretion of the Director or head of the department, leaving the Union powerless to intervene on the employee's behalf. Mr. Hawkins recalled that they were trying to come up with a standard that could be applied throughout the City to help insure an equitable administration of the policy. Meeting Minutes Blue Collar Union Negotiations Boynton Beach, FIodda .lanuary 8, 2004 The parties discussed this article at length. Mr. Hawkins stated that restricted sick time was brought into the picture when a pattern of abuse appeared. For example, one "red flag" would be an employee who habitually called in sick on Fridays and Mondays, or who took sick days as soon as the hours had accumulated. Pis. Piun/ey felt it was important that people were educated about what restricted sick time is and when it would be applied, and she wanted this in the contract. Mr. Hawkins stated that when a person is on restricted sick leave, he or she has to bring in a doctor's note each time that they are sick. Pis. Piun/ey thought that/t was important to state this/n the contract so that people would be aware of it. Mr. Hawkins stated that this policy would be applied when a department head discovers a pattern of abuse of sick time or when the employee has a very Iow number of hours in his or her sick leave bank. There was general agreement that it is incumbent upon the employee to let management know if a personal health issue will cause a lot of sick time. :In the absence of any such explanation from the employee, and in the face of repeated instances of calling in sick, management has to believe that sick time abuse might be occurring. Section 2 of the City's proposal suggests that restricted sick leave be put in place for three months on the first occasion, six months for the second occasion, and twelve months for the third occasion. Mr. Hawkins stated that this schedule was over a year's period of time. :If an individual has difficulty and is put on this restriction and does not get into further difficulty, he or she comes off of the restriction and if a year passes with no problems before the next instance, he would start over at the three-month level. The six months would only be brought to bear if the individual had problems after coming off of the restriction within a year's period of time. A sample policy from Public Works was discussed, but it included both sick time and tardy time, and was unacceptable to the Union. The Union will discuss this and come back with their thoughts at another meeting. Sick Leave Donation After discussion, the Union agreed to the City's language for this article. Both part/es gave T.A. to this art/cie. Sick Leave Ms. Munley requested that she be given a printout of the amount of sick leave accrued by each employee and Mr. Lee offered to provide it. She felt that she needed to have this in hand before much could be said about this article. Meeting Minutes Blue Collar Union Negotiations Boynton Beach, Florida January 8, 2004 Mr. Stone inquired about whether sick leave would be paid out at 30% or 50% on retirement. Mr. Hawkins will get clarification on this. Mr. Taylor brought up an idea of being able to work and get the money for your vacation at the same time. He said that some people needed the money more than the time. Mr. Hawkins commented that people also needed to take time off. Hr. Taylor commented that if a person had two weeks of vacation and took one, he still might like to have the second week in cash instead of as vacation. Mr. Hawkins said he did not necessarily disagree with that and could envision a payout in cash of say 40 hours a year to a person who had at least 80 hours in his or her vacation bank. Mr. Taylor also stated that the cap on sick leave of 1,040 hours was too Iow and the 3 to i ratio was too high. He felt that it should remain at 2 to 1 like it had always been. Mr. Hawkins stated that most organizations in the private sector put a cap on sick time because it was a liability for them. The City wishes to reduce its long-term liability as much as possible. Wages The Union asked for 5% market adjustment and 5% on merit and to extend the maximum. Ms. Munley felt that the bulk of the money should be with the market adjustment. The City offered 1.5% the first year, 2.0% second year, and 2.5% third year, of a three-year contract. This was less than what the general employees got and the Union could not accept this. Ms. Munley stated that if the Union negotiated any amount of money and the City gave more to the non-represented folks, it would kill anything the City and the Union were trying to build during negotiations. Mr. Stone recalled when the Union had negotiated a 3% raise and the City had given the general employees 3.5% and what hard feelings that had caused. Mr. Hawkins said he would pass that information up the chain. Ms. Munley asked about whether the wage increase would be retroactive to October 2003 and Mr. Hawkins stated that they would have to discuss this. Ms. Munley stated that they had to tread cautiously on the performance appraisal issue because it had been hurtful to people. She did not feel there should be much money attached to it, especially since the program was still in its infancy. The Union wants pay taken out of Pay for Performance until the system works better and more fairly than it does now. Mr. Hawkins stated that Pay for Performance was not going away and that upper management would work harder, tweak the system, talk to the supervisors, and hold them accountable for properly administering the program. Mr. Hawkins thought that if the parties could agree to exactly what "Meets Standards" involves and could communicate that to the supervisors, who would be held accountable for it, that people might get scores that they felt were more fair. 3 Meeting Minutes Blue Collar Union Negotiations Boynton Beach, FIodda .lanuary 8, 2004 Both sides agreed that they had to clearly state what "Meets Standards" involves. The Union felt that people were not getting "Meets Standards" when they thought they should be. Mr. Hawkins stated the way the goals were supposed to be set and the way the weights were set was to look at the person's job and design goals and weights based upon their jobs. This was to have been done between the employee and management. Mr. Osborn stated that "Meets Standards" is 6.3% to 7.9% for patrolmen and 2% for the blue-collar workers. This did not seem fair to him. Another steward commented that everyone had been getting good evaluations until the City tied money to the appraisal. Mr. Hawkins commented that the supervisors were supposed to go back and look at job descriptions and when they were looking at what "Meets Standards" was and what the goals were, if there was anything in the job description that needed to be modified, they were told that could be done. The second half was that if they were asking the employee to do something above and beyond that job description, that should be within the goals and the method by which an employee could reach those goals should be clearly communicated. The comment was made on the Union side that the job descriptions could be modified to where everything was in a person's job description and that the supervisors were trying to make everybody do everything. They wanted too much cross training. Pay for Performance comments: Some of the supervisors have the attitude that if they mark down the middle, 2, it saves them paperwork. Some supervisors were told by their supervisors to "keep it Iow."One employee was told upon asking what he had to do to get higher than a 2, ":if you have to ask what you have to do, then you do not deserve it." Ms. Munley asked if there could be a standard where if you Meet Standards you get "X" and if you exceed them, you get an additional 1%. The Union was not asking the City to throw the Pay for Performance thing out but to tweak it to be fairer for the employees. Mr. Hawkins stated that the performance evaluation was meant to be an incentive system where people who perform above minimum standards could be rewarded and that is the way it is set up. People are told what they have to do to meet the minimum standards of the job and they are also supposed to be told what they can do to get above the "2" rating. The City believes that Pay for Performance is one of the better performance evaluation programs available today. The management in the City all felt that it was the best system that could be used - there was no one person "pushing" it. 4 Meeting Minutes Blue Collar Union Negotiations Boynton Beach, Florida January 8, 2004 Mr. Hawkins understood the Union's frustration with various supervisors who could have done a better job of using the system. He stated that the City had taken steps within the last six months to give the supervisors more training. Mr. Osborn mentioned that during the last 6-month evaluation, he observed at least four different ways that the performance evaluations had been done. Mr. Smith stated that the employees pay for the supervisors' mistakes and the employees never get it back. Specific cases were mentioned where people appeared to be performing above and beyond "Meets Standards" but were not so rated. There is a perception of lack of parity. Ms. Munley asked for a complete packet of information on the Pay for Performance system and the City agreed to provide it. The Union asked for some detail on the way the system worked. Mr. Hawkins stated that the purpose of the six-month evaluation was for supervisors to alert employees who were in danger of not getting a satisfactory score that they needed to improve. The feeling on the part of the Union was that the City would never be able to monitor the supervisor's execution of the program because there were just too many supervisors. Ms. Munley inquired whether a committee had put the program together and the response was affirmative. She said that the Union should have had a voice in the issue because something was implemented that has hurt the employees. Mr. Hawkins understood that supervisors who did not apply the program correctly might have hurt some people. Even though there are a lot of managers, Mr. Hawkins felt it was important to understand that the problems mentioned could be corrected. The City was working very hard with the supervisors to see that they understand the program and administer it the right way. Mr. Hawkins felt that the Union's problems were correctable but not necessarily in this particular meeting. He was not dismissing the Union's concerns but could not solve everything in one discussion. Mr. Hawkins commented that after the contract was settled, a discussion could be held about some of the problems. Mr. Hawkins felt that if the parties could come up with a way that the system could be used fairly, that the Union would be comfortable with, and talk about the money attached to it, perhaps a one-year contract would be in order. Msi Munley said the Union wanted parity. Mr. Hawkins stated that they had to figure out how that could be achieved. The comment was made that the genera/emp/oyees get 2 or 3% and the Union has to settle for 1.5%. On the other hand, if the Union gets 2.5%, the City w/I/go ahead and give the genera/emp/oyees the same thing, but the 5 Meeting Minutes Blue Collar Union Negotiations Boynton Beach, Florida .lanuary 8, 2004 City never brings the Un/on up. Mr. Hawkins said the Union should make a counter proposal. Mr. Hawkins also stated that they were looking at their proposal as a total package, and that they had not discussed all of it yet, including the advantages in the vacation plan. He thought that they could talk about the market adjustment and then about Meets Standards and making sure that people can get a good score to come up with a good raise. Mr. Osborn stated that the market went up 2.85% this last year. Also, he said that Mr. Hutchinson had been given a :L6.8% raise and did not have to jump through any hoops and meet standards. The City Manager got a 4.33% raise. Mr. Hawkins said that these examples were of senior management and that was different. Also, those people were on contracts and could be fired tomorrow and that could not happen to the Union people. The Union commented that the patrolmen's wages were increased 7 to 9% for going to :L2-hour days and that half of Utilities went to :LO-hour days and there were no wage increases for them. Ms. I~lunley said that the City needed to get closer to the Union's proposal of 5% across the board and a 5% market adjustment. Also, she felt that there was a need to i~gure out a way so that people could get a fair score. Mr. Wo/cott added, "Or, not tie so much money to it." Mr. Hawkins said that with Pay for Performance, someone could get up to 4%. The Union asked to be shown one person that had gotten a 4% increase. Ns. IYun/ey sa/d, "What about 5% across the board and 3% at expectation?" The comment was made that it was doubtful that someone would actually get the 3%. I~lun/ey commented that they had to find a way to see that someone who gets that percentage at expectation actually gets it instead of 1.52%. There is still a problem with the mechanics of the system. It can't produce a fair score for people in some cases. Mr. Osborn commented, "A person could go all year long and not be disciplined for not doing his job and then get a rating below standards. If he screwed up the whole year long, you would have thought they would have disciplined him somewhere along the line during that year. A manager would not wait until the year-end evaluation to say that the employee did not do his job and was not getting a raise." Mr. Roberts said that from the beginning they were told that Pay for Performance would not be used as a disciplinary tool in the evaluations, but he mentioned frequent comments from management that, "this may affect your evaluation." Mr. Hawkins stated his perception that the Union was basically still at 5 and 5. Ms. Munley said that was correct and that they still wanted to get close to that, and the issue of how people get scores had to be worked on. 6 Meeting Minutes Blue Collar Union Negotiations Boynton Beach, Florida January 8, 2004 The parties spoke of various ongoing grievance issues, including the Sanitation pickup schedule issue, which Mr. Hawkins stated could be bargained, even though the schedules had already been published. Next Meeting There will be a joint white collar/blue-collar negotiation session on Wednesday, January 14 from 10:00 a.m. - :L1:30 a.m. and from 1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. in the Police and Fire Training Room. The blue-collar unit will also meet in the same place on Thursday, January 15, from 9:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. The meeting was ended at 12:30 p,m. Respectfully submitted, Susan Collins Recording Secretary (olo8o4)