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Steel Workers Local 9479
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Elections
Canceled
The
elections scheduled for Tuesday, March 14th at our local office will not be
required. There were no positions with more than one person nominated.
Therefore the nominees, once vetted by our staff rep Roy Robinson for
eligibility and wiliness to serve, will assume their duties as of our May
meeting.
President
– Ernesto Pena, Housing.
Vice President –
Mary Hasaan, Council Office.
Financial Secretary
– Chris King, Sanitation.
Treasurer – Erwin
Horn, Development Services.
Recording Secretary
– Jackie Catron, Water.
Grievance Co-Chairs
– Michealle Frey and Frantz Orozco, both with Streets.
Guards – James
Scantlen, Development Services and Honorio Lara, Parks.
Many employees will
already know Ernesto Pena and Mary Hasaan. Both of them have been very
active in civilian employee concerns over the years and have addressed our
concerns numerous times before council.
Additionally,
Ernesto has long been active with civilian associations, having been a
member and officer of the TPWA before joining us. Mary and her husband, who
is a retired city employee, have also been community activists, and Mary is
currently a member of a city board.
Again
the voting that was to take place on
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
is not required and
has been canceled.
Police
and Fire Pay Raises?
Recent
weeks have seen a flurry of activity by police and fire employees trying to
agree upon how to sell the idea of a 10-10-10 pay raise for uniformed
employees to the city council. Granted, this is just a starting point, but I
would like to suggest that any pay raises or incentive returns include all
employees, not just those in uniform.
Please
don’t forget that the last time uniformed employees were granted 5-5-5 pay
raises in addition to their guaranteed step raises, that much of the money
came from eliminating all cost of living raises and merit increases for
civilian employees. Since even this was not enough, a further 15 million
dollar reduction in health benefit costs was also transferred to city
employees.
Should
cost of living increases be granted to uniformed, the same increase should
also be given to civilian employees. It would be extremely unfair to tell
one group of employees that they have to exist on under funded merit raises
alone, while the other group receives COLA’s in addition to guaranteed
step raises.
While no one disputes that the uniformed employees have difficult and
dangerous jobs, I think that sometimes the dangers experienced on a daily
basis by our civilian employees are forgotten. It takes a lot of courage to
stand in the middle of the street fixing potholes while cars and trucks zip
along a foot or two from where one is working. Additionally other civilian
jobs contend with equal if not greater hazards.
Remember
as you go into this year’s budget session that civilian employees have
not recovered from the pay raise inequities of the 5-5-5 years. It would be
most unfair to make us watch history repeat itself again this year. –
M.R. Frey – Letter to Council
HMO
Not Available in 2007?
During
the Employee Health Benefit committee meeting it was revealed that HMO Blue
may not be available next year. Also, there may be a problem getting any HMO
provider to bid on the city’s insurance. 
Human
Resource Director David Ethridge stated that H.R. will be working with
United Health Care, who is our current PPO provider, to try and come up with
some sort of plan to address this shortfall, but that is still in the
planning stage.
Apparently,
the present provider HMO Blue is loosing a ton of money. With the present
wage pinch, only employees who feel they may need additional services are
choosing the plan. This makes the premiums received as income very low and
the premiums expended on claims very high.
What
does this mean to the employees who use HMO Blue? Who can say for sure?
However, it does suggest that if current users have any important tests or
surgeries that will need done in the next year or two, they may want to
think about scheduling them this year.
While
it is too early to know what will happen to HMO coverage next year, anyone
with an expensive medical procedure looming over, them may start considering
having it done this year. Just in case.
Health
Care, what the City contributes
Full Time Employees
Member $221.00 month, $2652.00 year
Memb+Spouse
$221.00 mn, $2652.00 yr.
Memb+Children
$359.00 mn, $4308.00 yr.
Memb+Family $359.00 mn, $4308.00 yr.
Part Time
Employees
Member $111.00 month, $1332.00 year
Memb+Spouse $111.00 month, $1332.00 yr.
Memb+Children $180.00 month $2160.00
yr.
Memb+Family $180.00 month
$2160.00 yr.
Per
Open Records Request 03-2006
Strange
ways to fill positions
Lots of departments
are trying imaginative and new ways to fill vacant positions. Not
necessarily good ways mind you, but admittedly different.
The CIS department
has been with out a director for several months, so some employees decided
to try something different. Apparently while interviews for the CIO position
were being held, some CIS employees were
offered an opportunity
to sign a petition supporting the current interim director.
Word
is some employees balked and statements about possible ethic problems were
tossed around until someone finally contacted the Human Resources department
about the petition. Needless to say H.R. recommended that the petition be
stopped. This must have relieved a bunch of the CIS employees, since it was
pointed out if an employee doesn’t sign it and the current interim
director receives that position then he may see a copy of the petition
without that
employee’s name on it.
Equally bad would be signing the petition, having it found by a new
hire CIO and being turned over to the city manager’s office as
inappropriate.
The
Street department took a different approach last year. Employees were either
‘slotted in’ or ‘offered’ the opportunity to fill vacant positions
so they could show their potential until the positions were hired.
Reportedly some were told point blank that there would be no t-rating of
their pay for working in higher grade positions.
Like
the CIS employees, this leaves employees who want to promote in a tough
spot. Agree to work at the
higher grade with no additional pay or guarantee of the position… or
refuse and risk a total shut out when people are being interviewed since
they will have experience in that position and you won’t.
Both sets of employees know first hand how it feels to be between a
rock and a hard place. L
Changing
Technologies Addressed
During
a meeting on the 31st of March, Ms. Suhm stated that she really
wants to reinstate the tuition
reimbursement program. Most
employees will agree the reinstatement of the tuition benefit, which was cut
several years ago would be welcomed as a means to help in pursuing our city
careers.
I did
bring up that not only the tuition reimbursement, but also city paid
training is desperately needed. As
a senior employee working in CIS I was hired as mainframe programmer using
COBOL, ALC, and JCL. The
movement away from the mainframe to a server operation means that the very
skills I went to school for; the very reason I received my promotion to my
current position are no longer desirable.
When positions within CIS are opened they always have skills listed
that a senior mainframe program-er would not have trained for or cannot
brush up on down at the local community college. This effectively blocks CIS
employees from qualifying for promot-ional opportunities.
I am sure that there are other departments where senior employees are
facing the same blocks. I requested Ms. Suhm assist in determine-ing a means
to assist these employees. Even
if the employee is willing to pay for their own additional training, once a
job is listed with the new skills
requirement it is too late to go back to school.
- Linda P.
Performance Review
Audit
Recently
the notion of an independent or non-departmental appeal of performance
reviews was discussed with City Manager Mary Suhm. She is adamantly opposed
to this, and feels that another layer of bureaucracy is not the
answer.
Suhm
stated that if an employee thinks their department is not doing the reviews
correctly, they need to let her know. She said that any incorrect review or
scoring of an employee should prompt a look at the review and score of their
supervisor.
It was
pointed out to Suhm that many employees do not feel comfortable complaining
about their supervisor or department. Also,
some employees are not given a score; not at the time of the original
review, nor later after the review has been signed off on by the department.
They sometimes can’t even get the score when they ask for it point blank.
Since the employee doesn’t know what they are receiving as a score, that
makes it difficult for them to file a grievance in a timely manner.
While
agreeing that this was a problem, she said that something would have to be
done to make the departments do what they are supposed to do. One of the
ideas was an audit of the 2005 reviews, paying
special attention to the mid-year reviews, comments and signatures… Or
lack thereof.
While
not all the details were worked out, Suhm thought that the audit would be a
random sampling, with a more detailed look at those departments or areas
that show problems. This would
be at least a step in the right direction, since problems found should
prompt changes or closer scrutiny of the 2006 reviews.
This would highlight those departments that have not been following
the rules as they pertain to the department.
As soon as anything is heard about any details or scheduling, we will
post the information.
Unintentionally
Amusing
Several
weeks ago, numerous employees attended a customer service program at the
Dallas
Convention Center
. Guest speaker Michael
Hoffman wanted us to take a good look at the person next to us, “This
person,” he declared, “was the face of
Dallas
.” Cute. Not two minutes
earlier that face had been complaining about his pay and problems with
supervision.
Hoffman
was an excellent speaker but numerous audience members were distracted by
the giant graphic projected behind him for the first half of his talk which
resembled abstract skulls. J
Snipletts!
Performance
Ratings –
According to City Manager Mary Suhm over 87% of the employees reviewed
received a 3% or above rating. The break down was 70% received a 3%, 16%
received a 5% and 1.3% received a 6%. As
soon as the first paycheck with the new ratings on them is received we will
again ask for a complete listing of the percentages. Don’t forget, this
information is public record and anyone who wants a copy of it can file an
Open Records Request. Precise Open Record Request instructions are available
on our website. Look at the menu on the left.
Anonymous
Complaining? –
Once again someone has put pen to paper to complain about our newsletters
and flyers. One of their claims is that we are one sided and inflammatory.
No. Really? Compared to what? Compared to the balanced view of
official city publications? J
Another
peeve they had were the typos that are occasionally present in the
newsletters. Oh, all right….more than occasionally. Perhaps, before
publication we need to run this past our editorial oversight department. Oh,
wait…. We don’t have one. Bummer that… We have people with full time
jobs and full time lives producing this thing on the run. Time is always
short, things happen. Learn to
live with a few typo’s. ‘kay?
This
mystery person might be interested to know that I agree with them on their
complaint about the lack of aesthetics on our posters, which are often too
busy. But, we don’t put them out very often and we have a lot of
information to cover. So art must suffer at the hands of practicality.
I was
naturally curious to know who the mystery critic was, but alas they did not
sign their name. I was tempted to publish an excerpt of their note here and
on our web site, and holding a ‘Who Wrote This’ contest. Their writing
style and hand-writing would have likely identified them in a matter of
hours. But, why embarrass their department? –
M.R. Frey J
Not
Interested –
Is how Mary Suhm said she felt about giving the uniformed employees a Cost
of Living Adjustment.
Interested
– H.R. Director David Ethridge is interested in getting ideas about what
the employees think should be offered in the new health benefit package.
Email, Snail Mail or Fax him anything you are excited about.
Life
Style Changes
– H.R. is looking into covering treatment for weight manage-ment (before
it results in surgery) and smoking cessation (before serious health problems
arise) in the 2007 Health Care Plan. As it was pointed out to them, it makes
no sense for the city to preach that employees need to improve their life
style choices if they are going to purchase health plans that deny coverage
for them.
Place
Holder Plan –
The health benefits group in looking into developing an insurance Place
Holder Plan for employees who retire and go to work somewhere else or want
to be covered by their still working spouse’s plan. Ideally, the plan
would have very high deductibles and a very low cost. It is intended that
employees could afford to continue to carry City coverage while actually
using the coverage from another employer or spouse’s employer. When the
second coverage is no longer available (say the spouse also retires) then
they would still be eligible for city coverage, since they had not really
left the plan. This would be a big help for our younger retirees.
Good
News – Direct
from Mary Suhm and especially for our mystery critic.
The City Manager
thinks that the city economy is improving. She states that both the property
tax and sales tax figures look very promising for this year. Additionally,
she is encouraged by the fact that twenty cranes are set up in various
places across the city. We are, she states, not in crisis mode this
year.
End
of year raffle Remember at the last meeting of the year you get one
raffle chance for every meeting or work session you sign in for.
Make six meetings, get six chances. So congratulations to the
members who were present at the December meeting when their names were drawn
for the gift certificates from Target, Best Buy and Chili’s.
What have
unions done for me?
The American concept of the weekend has its
roots in labor union attempts to accommodate Jewish workers who took
Saturday instead of Sunday as their Sabbath. The first five-day workweek
was instituted by a
New England
spinning mill for just this reason. Despite a boost from the Ford
Automobile company closing
their factories on Saturdays, it wasn't until 1940 that the two-day
weekend officially began nationwide.
The Time to Join is Now!
Don’t
forget about the 30 day waiting period on certain services for new members.
We don’t want anyone to miss out on assistance should they need it. The
time to join is now, so you will already be a member before any problem that
you need help with occurs.
