Bargaining continues of course. While the DAS coalition moves forward with a tentative agreement, the rest of the bargaining units continue to fight hard battles.
The first update from the Union came out on August 4th:
Although we have reached a tentative agreement with DAS, our fellow SEIU state workers in the Oregon University System are still at the table and they are facing a long hard fight for fairness.
Not only do OUS negotiators still want up to 24 unpaid furlough days for classified employees, a level way above our settlement with DAS, but they also continue to insist on a contract modification that would allow management to impose UNLIMITED unpaid furloughs at will (in 15-day increments). In addition, and different from DAS, OUS appears not to be asking this sacrifice of all employees, and is in effect putting an unfair and disproportionate share of the burden of balancing the budget on classified workers' shoulders.
These proposals are outrageOUS and our brothers and sisters in OUS need our help. We must take a stand. Please make a call and/or send an email to the Chancellor.
The points are simple - you may use these in your email or phone messages, or create your own:
Be fair to classified workers: Withdraw the proposal in Article 51 that would allow you to impose unlimited unpaid days off at will on us, and settle this contract with fairness and equity. We deserve no less than what our fellow state workers in other state agencies have won. Don't try to balance the budget on the backs of classified workers. The sacrifices must be shared by all!
Send or call in these messages to: Oregon University System - Chancellor George Pernsteiner at George_Pernsteiner@ous.edu and/or (503) 725-5703.
Re: August Bargaining Update
I wholeheartedly agree that we should call or e-mail the Chancellor. While we're at it, maybe the Governor would like another round of calls to his office. It seems to me that even the high-and-mighty OUS management must ultimately answer to the legislature and the Governor.
Re: August Bargaining Update
Apparently, the FAQs for the DAS Furlough Days and Step Freezes aren't easy or obvious to find. They've been sent out by e-mail and I keep pointing people to the SEIU 503 web site, but it must be harder to find than I thought.
So here they are, in what may be an easier location to find:
The following questions and answers are based on the tentative contract agreement reached by the State of Oregon and SEIU on July 27, 2009. This agreement is subject to ratification by the members of SEIU, Local 503 OPEU.
The tenth step is protected in the new agreement. However, because of the one-year step freeze, no one will move to that step until the second year of the contract.
That step will be "rolled back" on September 1, 2009. You will not have to re-pay the money that you received in your checks for July or August, but starting in September, you will return to the rate you were earning on June 30, 2009, before you got your step.
Just one. On June 30, 2009, a tenth step was added to the top of the salary scale and the first step was eliminated from the salary scale. On July 1, 2009, anyone being paid at the "old" first step, regardless of salary eligibility date, moved to the "new" first step. That change is permanent. Since the "old" step one is no longer part of the salary scale, no one will return to that step or be hired onto that step.
All employees who were rolled back will automatically have their step restored on September 1, 2010.
Starting September 1, employees will get their regular steps on their regular salary eligibility dates. If you are currently at the ninth step, you will move to the new tenth step on your first salary eligibility date on or after 9/1/2010. If you are currently at a lower step, you will move to the next step on the scale on your first salary eligibility date on or after 9/1/2010.
An employee who is promoted or reclassified upward will still receive an initial increase upon promotion or reclassification upward during the freeze period (except that no one can be placed on the new tenth step during the freeze period). Employees who promote during the freeze will receive an additional step either six months after their promotion or on September 1, 2010, whichever is later.
Employees hired in July or August, 2009, will get their first step increase on September 1, 2010. Employees hired on or after September 1, 2010 will get their first step increases on their normal salary eligibility dates, since they will fall outside the freeze period.
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The following questions and answers are based on the tentative contract agreement reached by the State of Oregon and SEIU on July 27, 2009. This agreement is subject to ratification by the members of SEIU Local 503, OPEU.
Employees who earn less than $2450 per month will take ten furlough days during the biennium. Employees who earn more than $2450 but less than $3100 per month will take twelve furlough days. Employees who earn more than $3100 per month will take fourteen furlough days. These pay rates are based on your gross pay rate, before deductions.
Most agencies and programs will be closed on ten specific days during the biennium. (For exceptions, see #3 below.) Those closure days are:
Friday, Oct. 16, 2009
Friday, Nov. 27, 2009
Friday, March 19, 2010
Friday, April 16, 2010
Friday. June 18, 2010
Friday, Aug. 20, 2010
Friday, Sept. 17, 2010
Friday, Nov. 26, 2010
Friday, March 18, 2011
Friday May 20, 2011
For OSAC and PERS, 2/15/10 and 2/21/11 will be substituted for 11/27/09 and 11/26/10.
Unless you are covered by the exceptions in #3 below, you will take ten furlough days on the dates listed above. If you are required to take more than ten furlough days, you will take the additional days on a floating basis (see #4 below).
Management presented a list of certain programs in which furlough days will be scheduled on a floating basis, and there will be no fixed closure days. If your program appears on the list below, you are most likely subject to floating furloughs, but please double check with your supervisor to make certain. If your program does not appear on the list, your program was designated by management to be subject to the office closures listed in section 2 above.
If you are required to take floating furloughs, either because you work for a program listed in #3 above or because you must take twelve or fourteen days and your office is only closed for ten days, you will have your choice of days off subject to operating needs. You will submit a furlough request form at least thirty days before the start of each calendar quarter indicating your requested furlough days for the next quarter. Supervisors must respond no later than fifteen days before the start of each quarter.
Nothing in the tentative agreement takes effect until union members ratify the contract. We expect the ratification vote to be complete by the middle of September. If the contract is ratified, floating furlough days can be scheduled at any time after that point. As noted above, the first office closure day is scheduled for Oct. 16, 2009 for employees in agencies/programs subject to office closures.
Furlough days will count as time worked for vacation, sick, and personal leave accruals and for health insurance purposes. Furlough days will not count as time worked for the purposes of overtime pay or PERS.
Part- time employees will be pro-rated based on their regularly scheduled hours. Seasonal employees will be pro-rated based on their regularly scheduled hours during the months in which they are employed.
Employees who are scheduled for more or fewer than eight hours on a furlough day may, with supervisory approval, adjust their schedules in a manner consistent with the practice that is used in their worksites during weeks with holidays.
No.
Management may require you to work on a furlough day in emergency situations based on operational needs. If you are normally eligible for call-in or penalty pay for working on a scheduled day off, you will get that pay if management cancels your furlough day. If management cancels your furlough day, you must reschedule the day, but management can only require you to reschedule a day once.
Yes, except for part-time employees who regularly work less than eight hours a day.
A special timesheet code will be created.
No.
If you don't schedule or take your required days, management can schedule them for you.
No, the days must be distributed evenly among the calendar quarters in the biennium. With permission of your supervisor, you can distribute them unevenly, but you can't take more than two furlough days in one month.
Yes. Furlough days don't change the regular overtime rules. If you normally get overtime after eight hours in a day, that rule is not affected by your taking a furlough day on another day the same week. But remember that furlough days don't count as time worked for calculating overtime, so if you normally only get overtime after forty hours in a week, you can't count your furlough day toward your total hours in the week for the purpose of calculating overtime.
If a designated closure day falls on your regularly scheduled day off, you will take the furlough day on another day that you select, subject to operating needs.
No, but employees subject to floating furloughs may choose to schedule their furlough days on holidays at their sole discretion.
Re: August Bargaining Update
With regards to #18 in the FAQ on furlough days, I have to comment.
Please don't take a furlough day on your paid holiday!
This would only serve to further inflate the ego of the Governor. Not only does it give them a stand for trying to take away our paid holidays, it isn't in your own best interest. It gives the State one more day of work, for no more pay. That's one of the reasons they wanted furlough days on the holidays in the first place. They wouldn't have to pay you, and you'd have to work on another day to get paid.
This is just wrong. Don't do it. Just say, "NO."
Re: August Bargaining Update
Wow, the days have flown by. I'll try to catch up on some of the stuff going on.
Back on August 26th, an update from the Capitol Mall meeting was sent out:
Re: August Bargaining Update
And on August 28th, this plea to help our OUS Brothers and Sisters went out:
Dear Brothers and Sister of SEIU Local 503,
Amy L. Tucker
Member, SEIU 503, OPEU
Re: August Bargaining Update
And another urgent plea regarding the horrible OUS bargaining:
URGENT
OUS support help needed
On August 21, after the Union rejected management’s offer of 21 furlough days and a 2 year wage freeze for classified workers in the Oregon University System, management walked away from bargaining.
We finally got a new bargaining session scheduled for Friday September 4 at Western Oregon University. You may ask why then and there? The answer is obvious. When bargaining occurs on one of the larger campuses, we have more members, so the rallies are bigger and louder. Western is a relatively small campus and when coupled with a bargaining session the Friday before a holiday weekend, management is banking on a relatively uneventful day.
We need to make sure that management gets more than they expect. We need a large crowd prepared to send a strong, loud message that OUS workers are State workers too and should not be expected to make a greater sacrifice than their brothers and sisters working in DAS agencies.
Take a long lunch and come to a noon rally at Hammersly Library on the Western Oregon University Campus in Monmouth. Western is about a ½ hour drive from most Salem worksites. Be sure to bring your whistles and thunder sticks. Email [e-mail removed to protect from spammers] if you plan to attend, so we can make sure we have lunch for everyone.
I know it's late, but still important infomation. The Chancellor needs to be shown the door. Or maybe taken out behind the wood shed. The Governor should tell this guy to take a permanent furlough. Time for the Chancellor to face some shared sacrifice.
Re: August Bargaining Update
Apparently this petition to the Chancellor failed:
PETITION TO OUS CHANCELLOR GEORGE PERNSTEINER
To sign this petition on-line, click here: http://www.seiu503.org/state/ous/OUSpetition2009/Default.aspx
We the undersigned citizens of Oregon petition Chancellor George Pernsteiner to negotiate a fair settlement with classified employees in the Oregon University System.
Classified employees provide essential services to our entire community and are fundamental to a quality education. Without their work, the university can not function and our children will not have the support they need for a quality education. If there is not progress at the bargaining table, this could jeopardize the start of the Fall term.
The new contract in the state provides the structure for a fair settlement with shared sacrifice, but OUS is demanding greater sacrifice than asked of other state workers and other university employees.
The obstacles to settlement remain:
1) OUS demand for unlimited unpaid furlough days imposed at will (in 15 day increments);
2) OUS refusal to follow the pattern set by the DAS settlement including unpaid time off and steps;
4) OUS unwillingness to bargain for our newest members, the PSU student recyclers;
5) OUS unwillingness to commit to shared sacrifice from other administrative staff.
Please use your influence to remove these obstacles and negotiate a fair contract for OUS workers.
To sign this petition on-line, click here: http://www.seiu503.org/state/ous/OUSpetition2009/Default.aspx
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This message is from the SEIU Local 503
Member Alert System.
Re: August Bargaining Update
There has been a tentative settlement for OUS. It might not be posted yet on the 503 site but watch the site for updates..........
Re: August Bargaining Update
That's great news. Not being part of OUS, I only have limited information unless someone posts here or feels something is important enough to contact me (or the web site).Do we have any details?
This still doesn't change my mind about what needs to happen to the Chancellor.