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 Organizing Update
Business Analysts Vote
to Join Local 120!
April 14, 2010, Tacoma, WA
By John Ohlson, President, Local 120 AFSCME
After 8 long years of campaigning, card signing, grievances,
arbitrations and more, the Business Analysts of the City of
Tacoma's IT Department have voted to join Local 120's City of
Tacoma Bargaining Unit.
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In a landslide
election,
City of Tacoma's IT Dept
Business Analysts voted 2:1 to join Local 120 |
After a 7 day
waiting period, the vote becomes final, and the new members
begin the process to transition from at-will employees who
worked nights and weekends with no pay, to represented workers
who will now be able to enjoy standby pay, overtime pay, job
security, seniority, layoff protections and time at home with
their families on nights & weekends, governed by the
2008 - 2010
Local 120 COT contract.
The new members
are part of the 140 member City of Tacoma bargaining unit, which
represents IT workers, Warehouse Technicians, Cable TV workers,
Buyers, Artists, and Print Shop workers.
This organizing
process began back in 2002, when the city signed a
letter of
agreement with the Union, promising to voluntarily recognize
any new jobs created from the Business Systems Improvement Project (BSIP) as represented by the Union:
If the City creates any
new classifications as a part of or as a result of BSIP/SAP
that is not supervisory, confidential or is clearly not
bargaining unit work of any of the signatory Unions, the
City will voluntarily recognize that classification as being
represented by the appropriate signatory Union.
The negotiations for this letter of agreement were difficult,
and even involved some bribery by then
HR Director Phil
Knudsen.
The final compromise was embodied in the above clause from the
letter, and it was hoped that the city would make good on its
promises.
But when the project ended in 2004, the city instead chose to
utilize the "Management Analyst" classification to place the IT
Department employees in their new jobs, thus avoiding Union
representation, since the MA classification itself was not
'new'.
In 2006, the Union filed a unit clarification with PERC, seeking
to recognize the MA's as bargaining unit members, since they
were performing the business analysis work of our Application
Developers. The city won the unit clarification, after
testifying that the MA's didn't work 'behind the screen' of SAP,
but rather did end user tasks 'in front of the screen'.
The Business Analysts are charged with configuring & maintaining
the city's SAP computer system, and have been reclassified from
Management Analysts to IT Business Analysts, and finally to
'Business Analysts' over the years.
Fast forward to 2010, and the required number of BA's signed
union cards have been gathered to trigger the certification
election, and we are now over 20 members stronger, making the
workplace a better place for everyone.
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Click! Broadband Technicians Organize
With
Local 120
By John Ohlson, Local 120 President
I am pleased to announce that Local 120 has grown by nine new
members in July, 2009; a majority of the Broadband Service Technicians
at Click! Network have signed union cards, and PERC has
officially certified Local 120 as their bargaining
representative.
Please join me in welcoming the following new members:
Gary Vance, Henry Lee, Eric Ortiz, Hong Kim, Bill Goodwin, Ken
Cross, Jerry Barrette, Ted VanTyl and Patrick Jacobs.
The new members are awaiting the outcome of a PERC hearing,
to determine whether or not they will be merged into our existing
bargaining unit, or to create a separate 9 person unit.
This new group pushes Local 120 membership to over 700 members
for the first time in many years.
Bill Goodwin and Henry Lee have volunteered to be
Shop Stewards for the new group.
City Class & Comp Negotiations
Underway
The City of Tacoma bargaining unit began negotiating
implementation of the long-awaited Class & Comp study in
August. This
study includes a salary survey, reclassification of some jobs,
and an attempt by the City to move to a merit-based pay system.
Additionally, the City has dropped their proposal to eliminate longevity pay, and
has tentatively agreed on wage adjustments for Appendices B & C.
The bargaining team has been meeting with management since
August, and have requested a mediator to help resolve the
impasse.
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| City Loses
"Citywide Bumping" Arbitration, Celeste Returns To
Work!
 Local
120 Recording Secretary Celeste Suliin Burris has won her
grievance arbitration, challenging the City's assertion that
there are no city-wide bumping rights when employees are laid
off.
Celeste was laid off in July 2006, as part
of a massive staff cut requested by City management. She
filed a grievance against the city because past practice has
been to allow employees to bump across departmental lines in the
event of a layoff, yet she was not allowed to bump when her
position was eliminated. The Union presented various
pieces of evidence supporting our claims, including written
policies, memorandums, and city web pages that all acknowledged
city-wide bumping rights for employees.
As a result of the win, Celeste will have
her employment status at the city restored, will receive back
pay, and will retain the right to bump the least senior employee
in her classification.
Update: 9/24/07: The Tacoma Fire
Department has created a new position for Celeste to work in, at
her original pay & classification.
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