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Minutes 11-18-04 MINUTES OF THE BLUE COLLAR COLLECTIVE BARGAINING SESSION BETWEEN THE NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF FIREMEN & OILERS AND THE CITY OF BOYNTON BEACH, HELD ON THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2004 AT 11:00 A.M. IN CONFERENCE ROOM B, CITY HALL, BOYNTON BEACH, FLORIDA Present For NCF&O: Sharon Munley, Trustee, Local 1227 Bob Kruper, Union Steward Jeff Mark, Union Steward Don Roberts, Union Steward Rick Smith, Union Steward For the City: Wilfred Hawkins, Assistant City Manager Jeff Livergood, Public Works Director John Jordan, Assistant Director of Human Resources Call to Order Mr. Hawkins called the meeting to order at 11 :16 a.m. A sign-in sheet was circulated and Ms. Munley distributed the Union's counteroffer. Union's Counteroffer Ms. Munley explained that if the City did not propose any change to an Article, the Union also did not propose any change. In other words, those articles would remain status quo. The Union proposes that the following Articles would also remain status quo: · Article 3 - Rights of Employees · Article 5 - Non-Discrimination · Article 7 - Union Representation · Article 8 - Collective Bargaining · Article 9 - Union Time Pool · Article 11 - Grievance procedure · Article 12 - Disciplinary Appeal Procedure Article 13 - Basic Work Week and Overtime Ms. Munley noted that the bargaining units have two distinct groups of workers: sanitation workers and the remainder of blue-collar members. For all blue-collar members that are not sanitation employees, the Union wants assurances that overtime was offered on a rotating basis, based upon seniority to those employees who normally perform the job during their regular work hours. Meeting Minutes NCFO/City of Boynton Beach Blue Collar Negotiations Boynton Beach, Florida November 18, 2004 Ms. Munley pointed out that the City deleted the entire Article dealing with time records. The remaining language was moved to Article 13 and the Union would be agreeable to deleting the remainder of the Article. Article 14 - Task Assignment The Article sets forth the Union's proposal as follows: "Daily overtime shall be offered to employees on a rotating basis, based on seniority among the employees who perform the job function. All other overtime shall be offered to employees who are qualified to perform the overtime work on a rotating basis, based on seniority." Wherever this language appears, "This article, effective as of the ratification date by the Commission, is not retroactive," it has been stricken. . Article 15 - Work Breaks - status quo Article 16 - Time Records The Union is agreeable to strike this Article. Article 17 - Compensatory Time The Union is proposing that employees have ninety (90) calendar days to use their time. Article 18 - Wages - To be discussed Article 19 -Promotions, Reclassifications, Transfers and Demotions - status quo Article 20 - Stand By and Call Back Pay Ms. Munley stated that the Union never intended that employees would pass beepers around so that they would each receive an hour's pay. This should never have happened. Language has been added to this Article as follows: "Should an employee find it necessary to hand off the beeper to another employee within the same day as he/she was to be on Stand-By, and the employee has the approval of his/her supervisor to hand-off the beeper, the employee receiving the beeper shall receive the Stand-by pay for that day, and not the employee handing off the beeper." If an employee is on stand-by for the entire week and received a call at 12:07 a.m. on Sunday night, that employee would not receive this pay until the next pay period. The Union would like employees to receive this pay in their next immediate paycheck. 2 Meeting Minutes NCFO/City of Boynton Beach Blue Collar Negotiations Boynton Beach, Florida November 18, 2004 Article 21 - Working in a Higher Class The language has been changed to read, "Employees who work in a higher classification shall receive a 5% increase in pay." The time period before this would take effect has been eliminated. Mr. Hawkins felt that this would cause a great deal of problems for payroll and that timeframes were needed. Ms. Munley stated that if the work were scheduled for an entire shift, this would avoid a lot of extra work for payroll. Article 22 - Employees Assigned to Training Duties The following language has been stricken: "Incidental training of co-workers with less experience is expected in all job classifications and is not compensable under this section." The language needs to be more explicit or totally deleted. · Article 23 - Emergency Pay Policy - Status Quo · Article 24 - Certification Pay The language has been changed to read: "Employees who currentlv have or who earn EMT certificates shall receive a one-time 5% wage increase upon earning the certificate." Article 25 - Sick Leave Ms. Munley stated that the accounting of employee's personal leave time does not appear on the pay stub and they would like this information furnished to employees. Mr. Jordan noted that this information is included on employees' pay stubs. Also, the Union does want approval of personal leave unreasonably withheld. · Article 26 - Workers Compensation - status quo · Article 27 - Light Duty - status quo Article 28 - Vacation The Union is proposing that vacation time could be taken in one or more one-half hour blocks. Also, approval of vacation leave would not be unreasonably withheld. The Union does not feel that employees should lose their vacation time after a certain period of time and employees should be allowed to carry unused vacation time in their personal leave bank. 3 Meeting Minutes NCFO/City of Boynton Beach Blue Collar Negotiations Boynton Beach, Florida November 18, 2004 Also the language has been clarified to read, "Vacation must be requested and approved or denied prior to the end of the work shift proceeding the time being requested off." · Article 29 - Bonus Days and Bonus Increases - status quo Article 30 - Holidays The language "If taken, the birthday will be charged as a vacation day" has been deleted. · Article 31 - Funeral Leave - Status Quo · Article 32 - Military Leave - Status Quo · Article 33 - Leave of Absence - Status Quo · Article 34 - Unauthorized Absence - Status Quo · Article 35 - Jury Duty - Status Quo · Article 36 - Seniority & Layoff & Recall - Status Quo Article 37 - Job Posting and Bidding The Union is proposing changes to this Article. They would like to have a period of time where jobs would be posted in-house before going outside. This would allow employees to have a first chance on jobs. Two new paragraphs have been added as follows: "Paragraph 8 -"In order to be considered for a job, the employee must pass a practical skills test. The employee with the highest score shall be awarded the position. Employees shall receive one-half additional point for each year they have worked for the City and three additional points if they reside within the City of Boynton Beach. Should the total scores of more than one individual be equal, the employee with the highest seniority shall be awarded the position." "Paragraph 9 - 'When an employee meets the qualifications and skills testing outlined in the job posting and is scheduled for an interview, a Union appointed member of the bargaining unit shall participate on the interview committee." Ms. Munley pointed out that blue-collar type employees are skilled craftsman who work with their tools and must be proficient in their jobs. She felt that these skills should be heavily weighted when considering a person for a job, which does not always happen. 4 Meeting Minutes NCFO/City of Boynton Beach Blue Collar Negotiations Boynton Beach, Florida November 18, 2004 Article 38 - Safety and Health The Union is requesting that the allowance for sunglasses over the next three years be increased to $120 this year, $130 the next year, and $140 the last year. Shoe stipend has been increased to $190 this year, $200 the next year, and $250 the last year. The Union would like the City and the Union to jointly participate on the Safety Committee and the Incident Review Board. They would like an equal number of bargaining unit members and management appointees. The Committee would vote on issues and a majority vote of the Committee members would be final and binding. Ms. Munley did not think that there were any bargaining unit members on the Safety Committee. Mr. Jordan stated that there are bargaining unit members on the Incident Review Board. Article 39 - Tool Replacement The tool allowance has been increased to $850 annually. Article 40 - Uniforms New language has been added to read - "An employee may wear a City approved alternate uniform when the employee has a medical condition, certified by his/her physician, which confirms the employee's condition prevents the employee from wearing the City issue standard City uniform." Article 41 -Insurance "Vision" has been included. Ms. Munley recognized that the City now includes vision coverage in its insurance package. The City would also pay the full cost of comprehensive, medical, hospitalization, vision and dental insurance for employees' dependents. Article 42 - Personnel Files They are proposing that discipline actions would not be held against an employee for more than one year, as opposed to the current two years. · Article 43 - Tuition Reimbursement - status quo · Article 44 - General Provisions - status quo · Article 45 - Dues Deduction - status quo · Article 46 - Pension - status quo 5 Meeting Minutes NCFO/City of Boynton Beach Blue Collar Negotiations Boynton Beach, Florida November 18, 2004 Article 47 - Substance Abuse They agree with the City's Ordinance dealing with substance abuse, except they would like to add the following language: "An employee who is referred to the City's EAP provider due to a violation of this policy shall be permitted to return to full employment duty at the City upon the sole recommendation of the EAP Counselor whether or not the employee has completed the entire number of therapy sessions required for the course." Mr. Hawkins responded that people are responsible for their actions and the City is not going to tolerate these kinds of behavior. Ms Munley felt that alcoholism is a disease. The Union feels that if a person makes a mistake for the first time and the City sends that person to the EAP and EAP recommends that this employee could come back to work, the Union would like the City to agree to this. . Article 48 - Probationary Period - status quo . Article 49 - Longevity Benefit - status quo Article 50 - Management Rights The Union agreed to move this language. . Savings Clause - Status Quo . Maintenance of Conditions - Status Quo Article 53 - Printing & Posting of Agreement The Union would like the City to print a sufficient number of copies for the Union members, plus an additional twenty (20) copies. Article 55 - Duration The term of the contract would be until 2007 and everything would be retroactive to the effective date of the contract. Ms. Munley concluded the Union's proposal. Wages will be discussed at a future date. The City requested time to caucus at 11 :38 a.m. The meeting reconvened at 11 :45 a.m. Mr. Hawkins stated that the City needed clarification on some of the Articles proposed by the Union. The City will be presenting its proposal at the next meeting. 6 Meeting Minutes NCFO/City of Boynton Beach Blue Collar Negotiations Boynton Beach, Florida November 18, 2004 Mr. Livergood stated that the City has no questions on the Articles that the Union has deemed as status quo. Article 13 - Basic Work Week and Overtime Mr. Livergood inquired why the Union feels that the City should do something different for task employees, as opposed to the remainder of the employees. Ms. Munley felt that this was needed for the solid waste employees who feel that the overtime pool needed more people. This is why the Union thinks that task would apply differently to the Solid Waste Department compared to other departments. Ms. Munley felt that the remainder of the City employees are happy with the system that is in place now as to how overtime is assigned. It has always been the unwritten rule that if a person performs a job in the daytime, that should be the person eligible to perform the overtime as well. Article 20 - Standby & Call Back Pay The City, in its proposal, provided that callback pay would have a certain number of hours of pay. Ms. Munley stated that they have not proposed any changes to this Article. Mr. Smith explained if a person was called back to work and worked two hours and continued to work an additional one minute, the person would be paid for that one minute worked. Mr. Smith noted that there are managers who are called back and receive the two-hour pay, plus time worked. Mr. Livergood felt that the City needed to clarify this so that everyone received the same treatment. Ms. Munley stated that there are employees outside of the bargaining unit that are costing the City most of the overtime. Article 21 - Working in a Higher Class Mr. Kruper said that there are occasions where people are only allowed to work out of class for 18 days, before the 20 day period would kick in, to avoid paying that person the 5% for working out of class. The Union is opposed to having a timeframe for paying people who work out of class. Ms. Munley pointed out that employees must be told that they need to get this in writing as provided in the contract in order to get paid. Article 22 - Employees Assigned to Training Duties Mr. Livergood pointed out that new employees often observe employees to watch how things are done and considered this incidental training. Mr. Kruper stated that the word "incidental" should be eliminated because he felt that this was a manipulation tactic not to pay a person who is training a new employee. Mr. Livergood stated that this is part of learning a job and a supervisor cannot follow new employees around to make sure they are learning the job. 7 Meeting Minutes NCFO/City of Boynton Beach Blue Collar Negotiations Boynton Beach, Florida November 18, 2004 Mr. Hawkins stated that there should be employees who are assigned to train new employees, and they should get paid for this training. Further, Mr. Hawkins stated that there should be regulations adopted that would apply citywide to the training procedure. Article 24 - Certification Pay Mr. Livergood inquired if any current lifeguards received their EMT certification in order to receive the one-time 5% increase. Mr. Mark stated that all the City's lifeguards have their EMT certification, even though it is not a prerequisite to the job. Mr. Hawkins inquired if the City ever hired lifeguards that did not have their EMT certification and was informed that lifeguards must have first-responder training. Article 28 - Vacation Ms. Munley noted that the City's proposal stated that "vacation request must be requested prior to the end of the work shift the work day preceding the time requested off and must be approved or denied within thirty (30) days of the date of the request." Mr. Jordan explained that this is basically a two-part procedure. The employee must make the request before the day they want to take a vacation and "approvals must be made within thirty (30) days of the request." Ms. Munley felt that this was doable, but it needed to be clarified. Ms. Munley stated that this needed to be explained separately. There needs to be a procedure for a person who requests one day of vacation and another procedure for a person requesting future vacation time. Mr. Livergood asked for clarification of the statement "approval of vacation leave requests must not be unreasonably withheld." If a supervisor denies an employee's vacation request, they need to justify the denial. Mr. Kruper noted that there have been occasions where a person has asked for time off and was denied the request because someone else already had time off. However, there have been times when the Department was short the entire week because a few employees in the Department had to play in a baseball tournament. Mr. Livergood stated that this should not be allowed. Ms. Munley felt that employees should complete a form in order to keep proper records of requests for vacation time. Mr. Livergood also felt that a copy of the request should be kept in employees' file. Article 30 - Holidays Mr. Jordan referred to the language that stated "employees may take his or her birthday with notice to their supervisor. Birthdays that fall on a weekend may be taken on Friday or Monday without prior notice." Ms. Munley stated that this language has always been in the contract. Mr. Smith stated that there has never been a problem. Employees would call in and say they are taking the day off. Mr. Jordan will work on coming up with a uniform form for this purpose. 8 Meeting Minutes NCFO/City of Boynton Beach Blue Collar Negotiations Boynton Beach, Florida November 18, 2004 Mr. Hawkins stated that this practice is problematic for the City and he thought that this Article needed more defining. The City is growing with more employees, and employees cannot keep calling in whenever they want a day off. Ms. Munley noted that in the City of Boynton Beach's proposal all this language had been stricken. Mr. Hawkins responded that the City took this language out because a birthday would be taken as a vacation day. The City has 11 paid holidays and a birthday is not a holiday; it is a vacation. Ms. Munley stated that the wording needed to be changed so that employees would not feel that they were losing a benefit. Ms. Munley recommended that employees complete the form at the end of their day (shift). Mr. Hawkins felt that the departments needed to institute this practice. Mr. Livergood wished to address emergency vacation days. He stated that if vacation days needed to be approved in advance, how could an employee take an emergency vacation day? This could cause problems for the supervisor when preparing a work schedule. Ms. Munley did not think that this occurred very often and asked how often an employee might need an emergency vacation day. She suggested giving employees five emergency vacation days. Mr. Livergood noted that Public Works has an after-hours phone number for employees to call in if they are sick and would not be reporting to work the next day. Mr. Hawkins felt that they needed to come up with some wording that would address various scenarios since there really is no such thing as emergency vacation days. Mr. Livergood inquired how an employee would ask for a vacation day at the end of his shift if there were no supervisor available. Mr. Smith responded that in that case, the lead person on-call would be responsible. Mr. Livergood inquired if that person had authority to grant vacation time and Mr. Smith responded that they did. Mr. Hawkins felt that this was unique to this department that needed to be remedied. Mr. Hawkins also stated that the City needed to better define how employees should apply for vacation time and how emergency situations are identified. Mr. Livergood stated that supervisors have a responsibility to grant or deny vacations in a timely manner and give their reasons for doing so. It is the employee's responsibility to request vacation time in a reasonable timeframe so that the supervisor could plan the operation of his department around his workforce. Mr. Hawkins stated that in other places where he worked there were clearly defined parameters and nothing was left up to judgment. Ms. Munley stated that the Union needed to address the following: (1) people who worked all night and needed to have emergency vacation; (2) people with real emergencies; (3) and employees who call in and say they are not coming in. One of her contracts has language that reads "supervisors may approve vacation with less notice in emergency situations." 9 Meeting Minutes NCFO/City of Boynton Beach Blue Collar Negotiations Boynton Beach, Florida November 18, 2004 Ms. Munley inquired if each department had a process for calling in and who has the authority to grant or deny the request. Article 38 - Safety and Health Mr. Jordan asked why the Union increased the allowable amount for shoes and sunglasses. Ms. Munley stated that the increase was due to inflation at the rate of $10 each year. Mr. Mark stated that the average price for a good pair of polarized sunglasses costs around $175. Mr. Jordan pointed out that the City now offers Visioncare and employees can now get glasses on an annual basis, including sunglasses if they are job related. Mr. Jordan will confirm if this is correct. Article 39 - Tool Replacement Mr. Livergood recommended that if employees were reimbursed for their tools, he would like assurances that employees would maintain a certain inventory of tools. He pointed out that employees take tools home and then borrow tools from other employees while at work because they do not bring the tools back to work. He would like employees to maintain a list of tools that they must have at the workplace to avoid this practice. Ms. Munley recommended that the City present some language that would address this. Mr. Livergood stated that the money should be used solely for tools; therefore, he would like to see the receipts to justify the amount of the reimbursement. The question arose who would police this. Mr. Smith pointed out that when employees take jobs that require tools, they have toolboxes that contain thousands of dollars worth of tools that the City did not pay for. Mr. Hawkins wanted assurances that employees come to work with the necessary tools and that those tools were reliable. Mr. Kruper recommended that a tool truck come to the City on a regular basis for employees to purchase tools. Employees could be given a receipt for the cost of the tool that would be submitted to the City for payment up to $850 per year. Ms. Munley will speak with those employees that need tools to perform their jobs and then discuss it at the next meeting. The Golf Course provides tools for their employees and, therefore, reimbursement for tools would not apply in that case. Mr. Smith stated that Golf Course employees do bring their own tools to work. Ms. Munley will also check on the Golf Course. Article 41-lnsurance Mr. Jordan asked for clarification of the language added by the Union that reads "The City shall provide this comprehensive coverage without the employees being forced to 10 Meeting Minutes NCFO/City of Boynton Beach Blue Collar Negotiations Boynton Beach, Florida November 18,2004 pay a double deductible as a result of changing insurance or insurance carriers." Mr. Jordan explained that this only applied to employees in the PPO where the deductible went up from $200 per year to $300 per year when the coverage changed. Ms. Munley inquired if the Union had any representation on the insurance committee. Mr. Jordan responded that Debbie Lytle and Cindy Lawson served on that committee. Ms. Munley requested that Ms. Tina Smith be placed on the committee in place of Debbie Lytle. Mr. Hawkins would like the union representative to be a steward. He was not opposed to having union members on the committee, as well. Mr. Jordan noted that the Union is proposing that the term of the contract be three years, as opposed to the City's proposal of one year. WaQes Mr. Livergood commented that when the City submitted its proposal, it contained a wage proposal. He asked Ms. Munley when the Union would be presenting their wage proposal. Ms. Munley felt that they should have something by the next meeting or two. The Union still has an issue with pay for performance. Adjournment There being no further business, the meeting properly adjourned at 12:40 p.m. Respectfully submitted, ~H.#~ Barbara M. Madden Recording Secretary (November 23,2004) 11