CIVIL SERVICE EMPLOYEES ASSOCIATION   

CSEA, Local 1000, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO

 

 CONTRACT DEMANDS LIST

 

Apparently there are some members who read and understand our present union contract. Here are some of their observations. I know in the past, new contracts have been approved by members who as a rule haven't read or don't understand the new contract, but they vote their approval for it anyway. This must change. We urge you to carefully read the new contract when it comes up next year. If you don't approve of what it says, by all means vote NO! The world will not come to an end. Voting down a proposed contract happens frequently in unions. It means negotiations resume. Employment generally continues under the rules of the old contract and any money lost while negotiations have gone on is repaid in a lump sum.

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Our union represents a number of departments and I must confess I don't know what issues others encounter. Don't hesitate to make suggestions that are unique to your department and e-mail them to Teeley2@yahoo.com. I would also like to interview those in departments other than cleaning and maintenance, and find out what they do and what their day is like. Your name won't be used, at your request, and we might put the information on this site to let others know what your job entails.

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THE FOLLOWING ARE ITEMS THAT SOME OF OUR MEMBERS HAVE SUGGESTED WE CONSIDER IN UPCOMING NEGOTIATIONS.

 

The current contract is for five years. We should go back to the old three-year length. A lot can happen in five years, including huge inflation. What do we do if inflation far exceeds the three or three and a half percent increase as is in our current contract? Do we have to wait three or four yeas to fix it? We could end up asking for a twenty-five to thirty % cost of living raise, just to break even, which management will surely fight.  

 

        

According to my reading of our current contract, we have no process in place to handle dismissal of an employee. This is wrong. It gives the employer complete power to dismiss anyone for any reason. Here is a quote from the web site of the NY Dept of Labor-

                 

Q: Can an employee be fired without due cause?
A: Yes. New York State is an "employment-at-will" state. Without a contract restricting termination (such as a collective bargaining agreement) an employer has the right to discharge an employee at any time for any reason.)

 

New York is an “employment-at-will” state and as such the employer has the right to fire someone without even giving a reason, but we are a union and our rights must be protected better. We had a dismissal procedure two contracts ago, but in our last contract, it had mysteriously disappeared.  A dismissal procedure is in place in every union contract I have seen and apparently the CSEA representative dropped the ball.  I've heard the school district hires a high priced labor lawyer to negotiate for them. The best we have to work with is someone from CSEA who is negotiating a slew of other contracts at the same time. We have got to do better in this negotiation.

 

 

This custom the school district has of taking away any vacation days over five days not used, should also be changed. Why should the school district just confiscate unused vacation days without compensating the employee? We have earned these vacation days, they belong to us, and no one has the right to steal them away from us, that is unless the CSEA allows them to! I propose that the excess days over the five now allowed should be compensated for at some rate agreed upon by both parties. This option should apply not only at the end of the employee's service year, but at the end of his period of employment.

 

Sick days should be allowed to apply to an employee who has to care for a close family member, such as a sick child or to take a close family member for medical treatment or appointment. It may have been allowed by management in the past, but this could change in a heartbeat. We should make this a written policy.

 

Lunch times and break times shall not be assigned by the school district, nor should it try to get the employee to agree to a fixed schedule. These times should be decided by the employee and may be changed by the members' individual decision or circumstances.

 

The practice of expecting others to add to their work burden to fill in for an absent member, such as is routinely done in some departments, must be stopped and a substitute should be used. The exact number of no-substitute days by the District may be negotiated.

 

I think that we should insist that the binding arbitration rules are left in the new contract. Binding arbitration is the bedrock of most union contracts. The fact that we only got this in our last contract says a lot about the competence of CSEA's representatives that they have sent us for past contract negotiations. We pay a LOT for union dues and we should get the best negotiators they have. Without binding arbitration, the school board or management can make any changes they want to in the contract and we have little recourse. And don't think this will never happen.  If it does happen, our contract might as well be used in the bathroom.  

 

Requests for vacation time should be assigned by seniority and not for other reasons. In other words, a less senior employee would not be given approval, while a more senior one gets turned down while requesting the same vacation day.

 

Presently new hires must work for a year to qualify for two weeks paid vacation. Management has decreed that a ninety-day trial period be in effect. They have then added this 90 trial period to the time needed to qualify for vacation, thus it becomes waiting for fifteen months. If we work for one year, then it should mean we are immediately qualified for our vacation, and our contract should reflect this in no uncertain terms.

 

Management should put up new job postings on all union bulletin boards, not just the boards in management offices. Union personnel should not have to hear about openings through the grapevine and then request copies to put up on their own bulletin boards for these jobs. There should be enough time allotted to employees to read and submit their resumes. The time can be negotiated, but it should be more than a week. I wish management  would be fair about considering a present employee for a position, instead of offering the job to an outsider(too often a family member or a friend) beforehand, then falsely posting that the job is available. I don't have much hope that it this practice will be halted.

 

I understand management has proposed that we continue for another two years under the terms of the old five-year old contract. Our raise for this year amounted to 3 ½ percent. The government has just given social security recipients a 5.8% cost of living raise starting with the January payment. I interpret this to mean we start 2009 2% in the hole as far as the cost of living. The government is giving banks, mortgage lenders and others, hundreds of billions to get the economy going. They are talking about lowering taxes besides. The only way left to pay for bailing out a few industries can only come from one other main source-printing money! This causes more inflation because there is so much more money floating around, that it is worth less. Meanwhile we are expected to get along with 3.5% for the next two years. Think about this when you vote on the contract extension in January.