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Business
Analysts Approve Accretion Deal
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Bargaining Team members Laurel Campbell, Mary Hodgman,
Laurie Mayfield and Vickie Crumbley-Fulmer count the ballots on
Tuesday, December 6, 2011. |
On Tuesday,
December 6th, Business Analysts from the City of
Tacoma voted 17 - 5 to accept the City’s offer to accrete them into the Local
120 City of Tacoma unit. This was an improved offer over the one
rejected by the Business Analysts on November 15th.
This new offer includes PTO/Sick-Vacation conversion rights, restoration of
longevity pay, Appendix A placement, abolishment of the 'quarter-step' pay
plan, replaced by a 6 step pay range, overtime eligibility for the BA-I's, BA-II's and most importantly, the
BA-III's.
No wage adjustments were included in the offer.
This historic vote brings to a close a 9 1/2 year long struggle with the
City to give overtime pay, longevity pay and seniority rights to the
Business Analysts. It started in June of 2002, when the City embarked
on the Business Systems Improvement Project, and promised to make any new
jobs that were created as a result of the project into Union positions.
The City instead chose to use appointive positions in
the Management Analyst classification to avoid Union representation for
these people. Grievances and a unit clarification hearing with
PERC ensued over the following years, but the will of the employees
prevailed, and they voted to join the Union in April, 2010.
Big thanks are in order for the bargaining team members Mary Hodgman, Laurie
Mayfield, Vickie Crumbley-Fulmer and Laurel Campbell, for their patience,
dedication and endurance, as they bargained tirelessly with City negotiators
for the past 20 months.
Seniority and Bumping Rights for both the Business Analysts and the
Broadband Techs will be negotiated along with the main City of Tacoma
bargaining Team, who is currently meeting with City officials to iron
out unresolved issues from the Class & Comp negotiations last spring.
The new deal goes into effect upon approval by the City Council.
Click!
Broadband Techs
Settle Contract
November 14, 2011
Broadband Services Technicians voted to accept the City's Memorandum of Understanding
(MOU), which upon ratification by the Utility Board and City Council will
officially bring the 8 new members under the main Local 120 City of Tacoma
bargaining agreement.
The MOU
provides for overtime pay, clarification of standby pay language, PTO/Sick
Leave-Vacation conversion rights, retroactive restoration of longevity pay
to August 30, 2010, withdrawal of take-home vehicles for employees on call,
abolishment of the old 'quarter-step' wage scale, replaced by an 8 step pay
range, placement in Appendix A of the main contract, and a one-time lump sum
payment of $600, to compensate for the removal of the take-home vehicles.
No pay adjustments were included.
This vote brings to an end a 2 1/2 year process that included 12 months of
bargaining, a unit clarification hearing with PERC, a merger election, and a
card signing campaign that began in the summer of 2009.
 The Broadband Techs voted to join Local 120 in the summer of
2009, only to face one obstacle after another at the hands of Click!
management, from forcing a unit
clarification hearing, to a
merger election, and now protracted contract negotiations, all spanning
the better part of two years.
With City negotiators doing their best
to draw out bargaining for as long as possible, the Broadband Techs had
finally had enough, and called for the informational picket in July, in an attempt
to break the stalemate.
After bringing in a mediator, the stalemate was broken, and
a deal was reached.
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March 29,
2011
City
Unit Ratifies
Contract
Members of the City of Tacoma Bargaining Unit
voted to accept the City's March 21st contract offer, resulting
in the end of "AOR", the Application of Rate system that has
served us since 1995. The deal brought to a close an era
of wrangling, grievances, arbitrations and pay raises for Local
120 members over the past 16 years.
AOR is being replaced by a new classification
series: IT Analyst, which will be implemented by transferring
employees who currently receive AOR into the new IT Analyst
classes that are equivalent to their AOR levels.
A two year contract extension and wage freeze
for 2011 and 2012 are included in the deal.
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COT Members Approve Merger with Click!
Broadband Technicians August 19,
2010
The results of our recent Unit Merger election, which combines
the 9 member Click! Broadband Technician unit with the
159 member City of Tacoma unit were reported by PERC on
August, 19, 2010.
- In the Click! unit, there were 9 votes
for the merger and 0 votes against it.
- In the City of Tacoma unit, there were 99
votes for the merger and 6 against it.
80 Yes votes were required to win from the COT
Unit, and 5 for the Click! unit.
The merger increases the City of Tacoma bargaining unit to 168
members, the third largest in the City of Tacoma. The
merger brings greater strength to our Union, and provides
greater bargaining power to both units.
Click! management fought fiercely to stop this merger, spending
thousands of dollars in legal expenses and manager's salaries to
hold a hearing back in March, to fight against holding this
vote. Their claim was that these employees did not share a
'community of interest' with other Local 120 members, even
though they do similar work. PERC ruled in our favor, clearing
the way for this merger election.
Talks with the City will begin shortly, that will work to bring
these new members under our existing Contract.
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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
7/15/10
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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Bargaining Unit Elections
City bargaining unit officers were
elected at the November unit meeting for the 2011 - 2012 term.
John Ohlson was re-elected to Policy Chair for a
fourth term.
Andy Long of the IT Department was elected Policy
Secretary.
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Council Approves 2008 - 2010
Contract
The Tacoma City Council voted to approve the Local 120 City
bargaining unit agreement on April 1, 2008. The new pay
rates go into effect as of the April 14th pay period, and retro
pay will be included in the May 2nd paychecks.
A big thanks goes to the members of the Union bargaining
team, and also to the 'new' City negotiators, who helped get us
to a quick resolution on some contentious negotiation issues
that were showstoppers under last contract's 27 month long
negotiations.
Read more about the negotiations on our
contract negotiations page.
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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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