Letters to Council on
the Merit Raise Problems
Numerous
employees have complained about their performance reviews, but…
complaining to each other doesn’t help. People, if you are unhappy with
the way the reviews were done, you need to contact council. Think about who
is telling them merits are the way to go? The mayor and city manager. Do you
honestly think either one of them is going to mention how the current easily
manipulated performance reviews are damaging morale and angering the
civilian employees? NO! Of course they won’t.
We
have to let council know how damaging these reviews are to our moral and
future employment prospects. Please write, call, email council.
While it is especially helpful for employees that are city residents
to contact them, it will also help if everyone does. Face it, all they are
hearing are rosy stories from the mayor about how this will reward the
exceptional employees and encourage the slacker employees (you know, what
she considers the majority of us to be) to work that much harder next year
so that they too might have a chance at a decent raise.
Below is an excerpt of the letter I sent to each council member.
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I
am writing to ask you to please request that the city manager include
cola’s in the 2006 budget rather than merit. As you know, after many years
of stagnate wages this last year we received a two percent cola and a capped
merit. While greatly
appreciated, the cola was not enough to cover the health care increases
which many employees have had to cover over the last few years. The other
increase we received was a capped merit.
I am sorry to tell you that if you were trying to raise morale, the
merit increase did not have the effect you were looking for.
Many
employees were dismayed at the way the performance reviews were handled and
considered the new review process unjust and inaccurate. Reviews were
manipulated to reflect the available budget not to accurately appraise or
guide employee performance. The new employee reviews are more subjective
that the previous reviews, this makes supervisor/department manipulation
much easier. Subjectivity also makes it harder for employees to successfully
argue against abusive or unjust reviews.
It
was due to problems like this, that many years ago the review process was
separated from the budget process. Now, employees working conditions are
being adversely affected because the faulty reviews not only negatively
affect their pay rate but also damage their ability to seek advancement.
Often when promoting or seeking other positions employees are requested to
provide previous year employee reviews.
The
damage done by these faulty reviews will continue to affect employees long
after this budget cycle has passed.
A
truthful review of an employee’s performance should not hinge upon either
the departments budget, or the reviews of other employees. Each employee
should be rated on their own merits without outside influences determining
how they will be viewed in the months and years to come. Willful
falsification of official city records should be discouraged not used to
balance the city budget.
The
city and its civilian employees would be better served by moving to step
increases like those given to the uniformed employees or to Cost of Living
Adjustments. Before this years budget is finial, and council is once again
told how wonderful the merit vs cost of living adjustment is, perhaps Human
Resources should survey the civilian employees.
I think you would be surprised by the amount of damage this
flawed/capped merit increase is doing to morale, productivity and employee
retention. – M. R. Frey
Dr.
Elba García
- Dist 1 Ph: (214) 670-4052
Fax: (214) 670-1815 egarcia@mail.ci.dallas.tx.us
Pauline
Medrano Dist
2 Ph: (214)
670-4048 Fax:
(214) 670-1816 pauline@paulinemedrano.com
Ed
Oakley
Dist 3
Ph: (214) 670-0776
Fax: (214) 670-1833
edoakle@mail.ci.dallas.tx.us
Dr.
Reese
- Dist 4 Ph:
(214) 670-0781 Fax:
(214) 670-5117 mtreese@mail.ci.dallas.tx.us
Donald
W. Hill
- Dist 5 Ph:
(214) 670-0777 Fax:
(214) 670-3409 dwhill@mail.ci.dallas.tx.us
Steve
Salazar-
Dist 6 Ph:
(214) 670-4199 Fax:
(214) 670-1833 ssalaza@mail.ci.dallas.tx.us
Leo
Chaney, Jr.
- Dist 7 Ph: (214) 670-4689
Fax: (214) 670-1819 lchaney@mail.ci.dallas.tx.us
J.
Fantroy
- Dist 8 Ph:
(214) 670-4066 Fax:(214)
670-1834 jfantro@mail.ci.dallas.tx.us
Gary
Griffith
-Dist 9 Ph:
(214) 670-4069 Fax:
(214) 670-5117 gargrif@mail.ci.dallas.tx.us
Bill
Blaydes
- Dist 10 Ph:
(214) 670-4068 Fax:
(214) 670-1843 bblayde@mail.ci.dallas.tx.us
Linda
Koop -
Dist 11 Ph: (214) 670-7817
Fax: (214) 670-0765 lindakoop@swbell.net
Ron
Natinksky -
Dist 12 Ph:
(214) 670-4067 Fax:
(214) 670-5650 ron@ronnatinsky.com
M.
Rasansky
- Dist 13 Ph:
(214) 670-3816 Fax: (214) 670-1831 mrasans@mail.ci.dallas.tx.us
Angela
Hunt
- Dist 14 Ph:
(214) 670-5415 Fax:
(214) 670-1847 district14@angelahunt.com
Please
note that the new council members do not yet have city assigned emails. As
soon as they get them I will change this.
Word
is getting out on Code
There have been several articles on the Code Enforcement fiasco over
the last few weeks. Admittedly the Dallas Morning News “balances” each
one that even hints possibly, just possibly, there might have been political
motivation or management bungling involved in the firings. Still, the truth
is being printed and our own Scott Newland is much in demand as a
Steelworker Employee councilor, former Code employee and expert witness.
A particularly interesting article appeared in last week’s
Dallas Observer written by Jim
Schutze. Amazingly, Ms. Davis the head of Code Enforcement declined
to be interviewed, despite being warned by Schutze that things were not
looking good for her, and she might want to respond. Perhaps
Davis
felt that there was really
no good spin to put on some of the comments that the judges have been
leaving in their final judgments.
Schutze mentioned a few things that did not make it into the
DMN articles. Little things like various Judges rebuking Davis for letting
supervisors be moved or re-instated while lower level employees were
terminated or demoted, for establishing a quota system without fully
defining what an action would be, and for failing to make sure that
employees knew what the consequences would be for failure.
A side note that did not make his article was that the quota was not
pro-rated. In other words, being off work on vacation for a week or in court
did not mean that you were allowed to have less actions that month. It would
be nice to say that lessons have been learned, but apparently the department
is still putting its emphasis on case creation and not allowing their
employees enough time to do some of the housekeeping activities that are
necessary to follow up on or close the cases correctly.
Entire article can be viewed at http://www.dallasobserver.com/issues/2005-06-09/news/schutze.html
Health Insurance Blitz
Current employees are not the only ones who are concerned
about the cost of the City’s health care plan. Charles Griffith and
several members of the DCREA and DRFFA (Retired Fire Fighters) recently met with the
City Council's Finance and Audit Committee to discuss the high cost of the
City's health insurance premiums. They attempted to put a human face on the
problems being caused by the shifting of cost from the city of the employees
over the last few years. The "bottom line" of the presentation was
that the reductions of the last few years in City subsidy of the health
insurance for active and retired employees was too much and that at
least some restoration was needed and justified a higher priority con-sideration
than in recent past budgets.
Afterwards, the Council members present questioned Mary Suhm, asking
her to respond to questions that had been raised. She was asked to provide
the City Council with more information on this topic. She was not
hopeful of finding more money to increase the subsidy but she's at least
feeling pressure to try. While the Mayor will most likely oppose any
shift in funding for the employees and retirees, Council member Don Hill was
very supportive.
Schultz
zaps Mayor
Jim
Schultz of the Dallas Observer also pointed out the misinformation Mayor has
spouting about Civil Service. As reported here earlier, her numbers are
wrong and what is worse, she knows they are wrong and yet she continues to
spout them every time a camera is pointed in her direction.
He notes that Councilwoman Garcia requested a set of data, analyzed
the issue and gave her findings to Mayor. We knew this, the Mayor knew and
now some of the public knows. Schultz notes that the mayor has found it
expedient to keep beating up on city employees. Hey Jim, she has to direct
the public’s attention somewhere beside your own record, doesn’t she?
Snipletts!
Many
thanks to Gene Lantz host of ‘The Workers Beat’ and
everyone at KNON 89.3 for allowing me to discuss the pitfalls of the strong
mayor proposal. You can listen to Gene every Wednesday at
8:00
a.m.
*********
Phone
lines Fixed - After a bit more fussing and a
promise to escalate who is being fussed at, SBC sent a tech who knew what
they were doing. We are proud to report that our intermittent phone line
lock up, seems to be finally fixed.
*********
Scott
Newland – Not just an employee
councilor. J You may have noticed a
familiar name in the paper recently. Our own Scott Newland has recently been
sought out several times as a source of information for civilian employee
concerns. As a former Dallas employee, who is married to a current Dallas
employee and who is now working for Dallas employees Scott’s is getting a
lot of calls to comment on things like the upcoming budget and the political
taint that caused the Code Enforcement fiasco.
*********
Streets
– Changes started last October continue, still, but the mandatory over
time now has a hardship exception, so there is some improvement there.
Earlier in the year the word was that there might have to be a reduction in
office staff, possibly even RIF’s but one has to wonder what is going on
with that as new staff is being added.
*********
Water
- The
Southside Waste Water Treatment
Plant over on
Log
Cabin Road
has
apparently had external monitors installed on their stricken GBT building.
This is good news for their employees as they will no long have to go inside
and use handheld monitors to see if the Hydrogen Sulfide Gas
is too hazardous for them to be in there taking the reading. This is of
course a band-aide to planned repairs, which will are still over a year
away. Which means the employees
are still looking at potentially using SCBA to protect them while they
are taking their readings. You would think this is good yes? But its not.
Employees can not enter a space in a SCBA unless they have a spotter
outside. And on many of the shifts they just don’t have the extra
personnel.
Also
they are using high levels of iron to try to keep the Hydrogen Sulfide Gas
under control. They are using lots of iron, it costs money, and… it does
not control other gases that might be generated.
Tale
of Two Tiered Employees
Over
the last few years, there have been many changes made by companies and the
city that mean that newly hired employees have less benefits than current
employees. Things that employers would have a hard time getting off the
current employees with out a riot are not argued over because people say,
“It doesn’t affect me, it’s only for new hires.”
I
recently spoke to several UPS employees who assure me it does affect them.
Older UPS employees who were injured on the job are unable to come back to
UPS in other positions even when they qualify for them and their experience
should give them the edge on getting the job. Instead they are passed over,
again and again in favor of new hires. Why? Well companies with two tiered
systems have an incentive to save money by hiring new less expensive
employees.
Why pay
older workers higher benefits, when you can get young energetic employees
cheaper? Makes sense unless you are one of those older workers who cannot
yet retire but is passed over when age or injury start to take their toll on
you. The time to fight this battle is not when you are faced with this
discrimination, but rather when everyone else is agreeing to short-change
the newbies.
We are not
looking at any of these problems so far this budget year, but it is
something we need to keep in mind as the budget progresses – M.R. Frey
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.
