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Minutes 04-22-04BLUE COLLAR AND WHI'rE COLLAR COLLECTWE BARGATNTNG SESSTON BETWEEN THE NATZONAL CONFERENCE OF FTREMEN & OTLERS AND THE CI'TY OF BOYNTON BEACH HELD ON THURSDAY,, APRZL 22, AT 10:30 A.M. ZN CONFERENCE ROOM B, cI'rY HALL~ BOYNTON BEACH~ FLORZDA Present For NCF & 0 Sharon Munley, President, Local 1227 Debbie Lytle, Steward, Utilities - White Collar Bob Kruper, Union Steward Don Roberts, Union Steward Mike Taylor, Union Steward Rick Smith, Union Steward John Wolcott, Union Steward For the City: Wilfred Hawkins, Assistant City Manager .lohn .lordan, Assistant Director of Human Resources Arthur Lee, Director of Human Resources The meeting began at 10:30 a.m. The Union was furnished with a final draft copy of the Agreement and the Union responded to it with clarifications and suggestions as follows: Blue Collar Final Draft Agreement The bonus increase is missing from the Blue Collar document. Mr. Hawkins stated that the City would add the same one that was in the White Collar document. Article 7, Union Representation, Section 3, second paragraph, should say consultation with management. Article 9, Union T~me Pool, Section 2, second paragraph, should say "at 50%" instead of "a" 50%. Article 11 should be skipped because in Ms. Munley's document, it was the wrong grievance and arbitration procedure. Tn Article 12, the heading should say "Disciplinary Appeal and Arbitration Procedure." Section lA, third line, should say after memorandum, "the discipline shall not be considered." Under Disciplinary Appeal Steps, Ms. Munley did not believe it should say A after Step 1. On the third line, Ms. Munley requested the elimination of the last word "or" in the phrase beginning "...a written complaint with his or her department director or." It should say, "with his or her department director during regular work hours." Meeting Minutes Joint Blue and White Collar Negotiation Session Boynton Beach, Florida April 22, 2004 On the sixth line of Step 1, at the end of the sentence, it should say "appeal," not grievance and the same would be true anywhere else in this article. On the next page, there should be a space after "F." In Step 3, Ms. Munley suggested moving paragraph B up so that it would read that Step 3 is in the event of a suspension, etc. to provide a flow of what happens after Step 2. The mechanics of how they were going to choose the arbitrator could come at the end of the article. Section 7 needs to be added and it should say, "The term 'day' shall mean Monday through Friday, exclusive of holidays recognized by this Agreement." In Article 13, Section 2, where it says, "All authorized work performed in excess of 40 hours," it should say in any one workweek. The words "actual work" should be deleted. In Wages, Article 18, Section lB it should say effective October 1, 2003 and now says effective April 1, 2004. It appeared as if both increases were retroactive. Mr. Hawkins stated that this was a typo. Section 1B(4) should say, "...performance evaluation score is below 1.0, no wage increase will be applied." Section C should read, "An employee that is at the maximum salary range shall receive the market adjustment increase and the performance evaluation wage increase, if applicable, added to base. As a result of this wage adjustment, employees who were at maximum of the salary range and who will now be outside the official pay range will be redlined." In Section 2B, the end of the sentence should say "effective on April 1, 2004." This covers the person that did not meet standards in the beginning but then did after the first 60 days. Section 5, Promotion and Reclassification, should be moved into Article 19 and that Article should be renamed, "Promotion, Reclassification, Transfers, and Demotions." Article 20, Standby Callback, has been fixed. In Section 1, the last sentence was missing and it should read, "The employee shall receive one hours' pay at the overtime rate for each day or portion thereof they are assigned standby beeper duty'; and the City had already fixed this. In the next to the last line, it should be "he/she," instead of Hr. In Article 22, "Employees Assigned to Training Duties," the end of the first sentence should have the word position made plural, "positions." Ms. Munley thought that the word Article should be capitalized throughout the document, if mutually agreeable. Mr. Hawkins agreed. Ms. Munley said that on the 6th line down in Article 24, agreement should be capitalized in the two places in which the word appears. The parties generally agreed when speaking about the Agreement itself, it should be capitalized. Meeting Minutes .loint Blue and White Collar Negotiation Session Boynton Beach, Florida April 22, 2004 In Section 3 of Article 25, "sick" is in and it needs to be deleted. Also, it should say, "to use sick leave." In Section 8 of Article 25, the underlined third paragraph about discipline and restricted sick leave, Ms. Munley preferred the Restricted Sick Leave Language in the White Collar Agreement. The parties agreed to use the language from the White Collar Agreement in this Section of the Blue Collar Agreement. Ms. Munley request deleting "personnel files" from Article 25 and substituting the language under General Provisions. In Article 51, Page 75, the word article should be capitalized. This concluded the changes Ms. Munley wanted to make in the Blue Collar Agreement, with the exception of Task, which the parties decided to consider after proofreading the White Collar Agreement. White Collar Final Draft Aqreement ]:n the Preamble, in the second paragraph, third line, "of Boynton Beach," should have a lower case "o" in the word of. In Union Representation, Article 7, Section 4, it should reflect 100 hours and 4 stewards. Then it should say, "an employee who is" in numbers i and 2 in Section 4, first line. Under 3, the word is should be removed from "an employee attending is." In Section 6 of the same Article, it should read 100 hours. ]:n Union Time Pool, Article 9, Section 1, the 4~ line down says "and list" and it should say, "a" list. Under the last paragraph, second line, it should say 100 hours, not 200 hours. Discipline Article Ms. Munley asked to delete the term "extreme" as a modifier of conduct in this Article. It was agreed on both sides that more definition needed to be provided for what constituted extreme misconduct. For example, "refusal to sign a disciplinary form" is listed under Extreme Misconduct and this seemed inappropriate to both parties. Ms. Munley preferred to proceed with the term "unlawful conduct" instead. Mr. Hawkins thought that the Labor Management Committee could do further work on defining instances of misconduct. Ms. Munley asked if the City would agree to eliminate the term "extreme misconduct" in the White Collar Agreement and adopt a wait-and-see attitude. Mr. Hawkins agreed to do this. Mr. Jordan commented that in light of this suggestion, in order to be consistent, the terminology for levels of misconduct would have to be restructured and redefined. Extreme would be redefined, and Ms. Munley agreed. Meeting Minutes .loint Blue and White Collar Negotiation Session Boynton Beach, Florida April 22, 200~, Ms. Munley asked that the City double check the article number on Employee Appeals and Grievances, on the last page, Item 2. It now said Article 10, but both parties agreed this was the old language. In the Basic Workweek Article, Appeals was missing. There was only grievance, and not appeals. Mr. Hawkins had it in his package, and asked if the Union wanted it to be the same in the Blue and White Collar Agreements, and Ms. Munley responded that this was correct. The Disciplinary Appeal and Arbitration Article that was done in the Blue Collar Agreement was missing from her package totally. Mr. Hawkins commented that this had been an error on the part of the City. In Basic Workweek, Section 4, there was a question mark after the word "holidays." Then on the third line down, it says "holidays" and this should be struck through. The same paragraph says that holidays are and are not covered in the same paragraph. This would be the one after "funeral leave." Ms. Munley said that the entire language about shift bidding from the old contract was missing and needed to be included. Ms. Munley said that Transfers and Demotions should be moved into one Article that would be tiUed Promotions, Reclassifications, Transfers, and Demotions, and Mr. Lee agreed. Ms. Munley said that the article in front of her still had the "pluses" in it under A, B, C, and D. Mr. Lee said that Time Records should not be in the White Collar Agreement since they did not punch in as in the Blue Collar Agreement. The Blue Collar Agreement has the 7-8 minute rule, but the White Collar did not need that language. The City agreed. The automobile allowance will be in General Provisions and does not need to be repeated elsewhere in the Agreement. The parties agreed. Ms. Munley said that the next Article was Pay for Training, but they already had an article called Employees Assigned to Training Duties, and that language was duplicated in this Article. Mr. Lee said that the order was a little off because he had done some rearranging. In Leave of Absence, Article 30, the word "article" at the end of the Section should be capitalized. Ms. Munley commented that Wages was missing from her package and the City said that the same changes that were made earlier would apply. Under General Provisions, Article 39, in the third paragraph on the second page under Section 5, the reference to extreme or unlawful misconduct should not contain the word "extreme." :In Article 43, Probationary Employees, Ms. Munley said that there was an underlined sentence in Section I that was not present on the T.A.'d page for this article. She felt that the statement was understood. The sentence in question reads, "Probationary employees may be terminated or without just cause." The parties agreed that this was the law in the case of the initial probationary period and that it pertained to all newly hired or re-hired employees. The City Meeting Minutes Joint Blue and White Collar Negotiation Session Boynton Beach, Florida April 22, 2004 agreed that the second sentence had not been on the T.A.'d article, and Ms. Munley preferred to leave the second sentence out, as it was in the T.A.'d article. Both parties understood the law underlying the sentence, and agreed to include the sentence for the benefit of the person reading the Agreement. :In Collateral Documents, Article 5~., on the third line, the statement "...collectively referred to as collateral documents" should be followed by, "which have been presented to and agreed to by the Union." This was in the T.A. signed on March 26, 2004. Mr. Hawkins agreed. Ms. Munley wanted the City to verify that the PPM numbers referring to Tuition Reimbursement were correct. Mr. Hawkins stated that they were standard but this would be checked for accuracy. A discussion ensued about the proposed Union Time Out form that was prepared by Mr. Jordan. The form is first completed and signed by the employee's Supervisor/Manager or designee to authorize release of the employee and contains the time the employee was released from work. It is then signed by the Management Representative at a meeting or by the Supervisor releasing the employee for a meeting with a Union representative. This portion of the form requires the meeting start and end times. The third signature on the form contains the time the employee returned to work and is completed and signed by the employee's Supervisor/Manager. The City stated that this was for the protection of the employee as much as it was an administrative tool for management. Ms. Munley said that in Section 3, it stated that the Union hours did not need to be counted for collective bargaining, grievance investigation and consultation with management. Also, there is no 100 or 200- hour maximum on it. Also, Collective Bargaining was on the form and the Union does not "get charged" with that. Mr. Jordan had used the terminology from the old Time Out form and reformatted it. Mr. Jordan said that this form was only used for keeping track of time and pay was not a part of it. Ms. Munley said the form should not say "paid" and "unpaid." Unless they have exhausted their amount of hours available including the Union Time Pool hours, they are paid. Both parties agreed. Mr. Jordan said that this form was basically to cover Union work outside the City workplace like a convention, for example, in this case, it would be N C F & O business and would be unpaid by the City. Ms. Munley said this was true unless it was coming out of the Time Pool. Mr. Jordan said that it would be tracked in one of those other categories, then. Mr. Kruper said that the form designates Union Hours for Collective Bargaining and they do not use the hours for that. Ms. Lytle said they could use Time Pool hours to attend a Union seminar for the day and be paid by the Time Pool, so it was not even really unpaid when using Time Pool hours. Mr. ,lordan said it would be modified, but that he was going by the existing form. Meeting Minutes .loint Blue and White Collar Negotiation Session Boynton Beach, Florida April 22, 2004 Ms. Munley said that Grievance, Collective Bargaining and Consultation should not be charged to the Union. The City foots the bill for these. Collective Bargaining should not have Union Hours next to it. Predetermination, however, does have Union Hours associated with it. Mr. Jordan will eliminate Union Hours, Unpaid, and add the words "Time Pool - Yes or No." The heading will include the words, "City of Boynton Beach." The revised form will be presented to the Union one more time to verify agreement. This concluded the review of the White Collar Agreement. Blue Collar Agreement - Task Article Ms. Munley stated that the language, "The City will make every reasonable effort not to schedule employees to work on holidays" had been omitted. She then stated that they could either leave Wednesday as the makeup day or let the City pick the make up day but compensate the employees if they had to work that day. The Union had asked for double time if asked to work on a Saturday or Sunday. Mr. Hawkins stated that the City had a problem with the double time that was being requested. He said that this would probably happen on one or two Saturdays a year, if that. The City was willing to pay time and a half, but not double time in these instances. Mr. Kruper said that this left the employees exposed to being asked to work on Saturdays throughout the year, and Mr. Hawkins stated that the City wanted that flexibility. Ms. Munley asked for time and a half if the make up day is scheduled for Wednesday, but double time if scheduled on a Saturday or Sunday. The Union commented that it had given up its demand for overtime on rolloff, and had given up getting time and a half for having to stay to help another driver, and he thought that the City should give them what they were requesting. Mr. Hawkins stated that the City would caucus on this. The parties agreed to have lunch and return at 2:15 p.m. The meeting resumed at 2:28 p.m. Mr. Hawkins suggested this language for the Task article: "Should the City determine it necessary to schedule a makeup day dudng a week when a holiday falls, and the makeup day is different than the day the employee normally works, the employee shall receive his hours at double time if the makeup day is on Saturday or Sunday or time and a half if the makeup day is on Wednesday." Mr. Hawkins suggested another paragraph with the statement, "The City will publish a holiday service schedule and make up day schedule at least six months prior to the holiday. The Union thanked Mr. Hawkins. The parties expressed the belief that they "had a deal." 6 Meeting Minutes .loint Blue and White Collar Negotiation Session Boynton Beach, Florida April 22, 2004 The City will take care of the "clean up" items suggested at this meeting and will get the corrected final draft to Ms. Munley as soon as possible. The final draft will have two places for signatures, and Mr. Hawkins and Ms. Munley will meet to jointly sign each page of the Agreement. The Union Stewards agreed that this task could be left to those two parties. Prior to this meeting, the final revised draft will be given to Ms. Munley. Mr. Hawkins preferred that the Union ratification took place with an Agreement that was the final one, and not one that could/would be changed. Thursday morning, April 29, was set for the meeting between Ms. Munley and Mr. Hawkins to give final T.A. to the Agreement. Mr. Hawkins asked for formal notification of the date for the Union's ratification vote, and it was later confirmed to be May 3. The Chambers will be provided on that date from 11:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Mr. Munley stated that the negotiation sessions had been a good experience. She appreciated the City's cooperation. The meeting was concluded at 2:42 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Susan Collins Recording Secretary (042204) 7