March Union Management Communications Committee Report

– By Kerry Graber and Debbie Brookman

The Union Management Communications Committee (UMCC) met on March 22 in the first of on a new schedule of monthly meetings.  Meeting monthly was a suggestion from Ecology management to take up the coming budget issues and to allow more timely discussion of issues. 

Four topics of discussion were taken up at this meeting:  Communication Issues, Hiring while preparing to layoff; Overtime Eligibility Audit, and Budget

Present at the meeting:

Ecology Management: Chris Parsons – Human Resources (HR) Director, Corinna McElfish for HR, Pam Durham substituting for Amy Heller, HR labor relations, Polly Zehm, Deputy Director, and Pat McLain, Budget Manager

Ecology Representatives for WFSE: Kerry Graber –Chair and for SWRO, Marcie Mangold for CRO, Kasey Ignac for small Field Offices, Sally Lawrence for NWRO, Kathy Conaway for RFO, Kurt Unger for HQ, Scott Mallery – Resource,  Kerry Carrol - Resource, Rebecca Padgett - Resource, Joan Gallagher – WFSE, Debbie Brookman – WFSE (note taker)

1.     Communications Issues

Kerry opened the meeting with appreciation for tone of the meetings and everyone’s dedication to preparing agenda items and taking the issues seriously. We want to keep focused on exchanging information honestly and towards solving problems. We want communications to evolve to being less formal, less constricted. We’d like to be able to resolve issues without grievances and demands to bargain and use these meetings for that purpose. As we head further into difficult budget times we will need to communicate effectively.

We asked the human resource participants not to change the wording on our agendas when they are distributed to upper management because we choose our wording carefully and deliberately.

The move to electronic pay stubs – we asked for more marketing to employees of this kind of change, with multiple communications and a variety of ways so that the messages don’t get lost.

Overtime Audit – Some employees experiencing the audits or responding to information requests feel blind-sided.  Letters designating individuals as overtime eligible were bureaucratic and blunt.

Budget Communications are the exception.  Pat McLain does a great job with her budget updates. They contain the right amount of detail, and whenever we provide feedback, she is responsive. We’ve heard from our members, and share the comment, that having that information relieves stress. We’d like to see more of that. The up-coming all-staff meeting is another effort that is really appreciated.

Budget Ad Hoc Release Time – Scott Mallery, chair of the Budget Ad-Hoc committee, asked why he was the only person released to attend. The ad hoc group was starting to make some headway and develop some expertise and get into the “meat and potatoes.” We were taken aback when told that only one of us had release time to be here today.

Frustrations were expressed with the lack of detail on the budget at the program level. We want to help and provide solutions to the budget challenges we’re going to have, and to do that we need more detailed information.

Information Requests – Kerry acknowledged that we’ve made a lot of information requests so that we can better understand the issues and be articulate in our conversation with Ecology. The concern is that we often don’t hear directly that there is a problem with fulfilling an information request.  Joan shared that we don’t want to see information requests from the union treated as if they were public disclosure requests (because we have a contractual agreement on how requests should be handled that is different than public disclosure.) We have specific time frames we have to meet, the information is needed to know what our next step should be.

Chris Parsons responded to this issue – they understand there is a difference between public disclosure and Article 39.4 requests. They often receive multiple, overlapping requests from multiple sources. The requests frequently require compilation of information that is not readily available. It would help them if the requests could be coordinated by the union folks before they’re sent off to HR. It would also help if we could identify priorities – which request is most important? Which ones have time frames that must be met?

Joan believes that we can make this process more effective – for both parties. Kerry suggested we work on providing and receiving feedback. She’ll bring this issue up to the stewards group and work harder to not submit overlapping requests  In turn we  hope that HR will do better communicating back to us when there are problems – before everyone jumps to conclusions about requests.

Follow-up on issues raised at UMCC meetings – Kasey Ignac gave an example from the last UMCC meeting where we raised a concern with requiring travel from  the BFO. Kasey acknowledged that Polly made a call to the manager at the BFO and talked to him about it. According to Kasey employees are still being required to travel unnecessarily to staff meetings in NWRO and HQ.

Polly said she would talk to managers again.  She talked to them previously about the difference in perspective between management and staff about whether or not a particular meeting should be attended in person. She cares about folks not having to make that trip if it’s not necessary.

Negotiations – Kerry expressed our concern that we believe a layoff will occur. We also anticipate having supplemental contract negotiations at Ecology. Chris commented that he was not aware that this could occur at Ecology – he’d heard that it would not. Debbie explained that we are pursuing it actively, in discussions with the Labor Relations Office. Joan asked if they are opposed to this idea? No (but they don’t look very excited about it either). Kerry explained the benefits, from our perspective, to engaging in supplemental bargaining.

2.    Hiring while preparing for layoff

Reassignment as a pre-layoff tool – Chris explained that we have done this before and have to be careful not to preclude a formal layoff option for someone else. We look for duties that are funded by other sources where we can move an at-risk employee. It takes looking at the picture 3-5 months down the line. 

Ecology has done this process twice – once during the Water Quality (WQ)  layoffs and the second time with the general budget layoffs. The WQ layoffs and reassignments were very concerning to us. On the other hand, when the second round of layoffs occurred, there was much more transparency and concerns were significantly mitigated.

Educational prerequisites and hiring – We are very concerned that Ecology is making changes to requiring degrees for positions that have not required them before. It has significant impacts to layoff options for a number of Environmental Specialists (ES) who have given a lot of years to the agency. Chris responded that the timing of this is coincidental and is tied into the OT eligibility audit. There is an interest in moving towards requiring higher educational requirements for positions. However, the ES series is one where there are a lot of opportunities for flexibility and differences in specific position requirements. Chris said he would revisit the issue in relation to hiring.

It cuts both ways – it’s been helpful to employees to have a generic job class that they can grow into. Chris thinks it can hurt when it comes to things such as compensation – having a job class that requires higher level degrees can often result in higher compensation. Polly stated that it is not their intent to disadvantage employees who came up through the ranks and gained their expertise through experience rather than formal education.

Kerry explained a core concern.  Employees in positions who are at risk of reduction look to the job announcements and find they are unable to take action on it because all the posted positions have required degrees. Was this intentional? Chris stated that this was not their intent. HR asked managers if a vacant position needed a degree to accomplish the job duties. They look at the job market – do they need to be more flexible regarding a degree requirement to get the candidates they need?

Kerry Carrol explained her experience. She’s been watching the recruitments since June 2009. She’s only seen one position, an ES2, that didn’t require a degree.  Many jobs being filled were previously performed by individuals without a degree, and the position had been filled without one in past recruitments. She believes managers may be thinking that they all need to require degrees so they don’t get “stuck” with the layoff candidate who doesn’t have a degree.

Joan offered an option that recruitments have “desirable” qualifications that require degrees but to not make it an absolute requirement, precluding your existing employees from applying for the position.

Polly doesn’t think the motivation is related to Kerry Carrol’s concern. She thinks some of these issues may be resolved once they make their decisions on what direction to go on the OT audit.  (See topic #3)

Hiring Announcement Deadlines and external hiring – Scott stated a concern that jobs are not being posted, or that a lot of hiring was occurring over a very short period of time with employees denied opportunities to either apply or get hired preferentially over external candidates. We realize the contract only requires seven days posting but we’d like to see fourteen days posting.

Internal candidates are almost always going to be the most qualified candidates. In particular hiring internally avoids setting up the agency to have to layoff people who were just hired and have little seniority.

Polly is surprised to hear that we have the impression that more external recruitments took place than internal. Ecology had to hire externally in the Richland office and will have to seek hiring exemptions for that area – it’s just very difficult to hire in that office. However, almost all the other hiring was done internally. Polly said they were trying to be very attentive to making opportunities available to internal candidates and, sometimes, available to those who were on the statewide transition pool (very few candidates ended up coming from this list). From her perspective there’s been a lot of internal movement. She’s heard from those co-workers who get left holding the bag when their co-worker promotes to another position and vacancies are left open.

Scott was asked if he had data to support our assertion that all this external hiring is occurring? Scott replied that this is part of the problem – the lack of data – compounded by some information that has come out showing that vacancies were being filled.  We couldn’t really tell whether it was internal or external hiring. We may have jumped to a conclusion when the job announcements were all “open” to the public. This is an area where communications could be more effective.

Polly stated that this is a challenge, to figure out how to communicate this kind of information effectively. She said “The conversations we have at the UMCC obviously isn’t getting the job done or you wouldn’t jump to these conclusions.” She has been keeping an eye on keeping a reservoir of funded vacancies to manage the budget. She cannot guarantee we can avoid a layoff – not today and not immediately after the budget comes out – but she is doing what she can to keep the agency in a position where it can be mitigated or, hopefully, avoided. We may not agree to go to fourteen day notices but we are looking at better ways for postings and transparency. She could use our help and our trust.

Joan suggested that one possible solution is to post higher level positions for internal candidates only. Kerry suggested that Polly may also choose to respond to this during Friday’s all-staff. We try to trust in what we are told, but when employees come to us upset and with questions it is easy to begin doubting what we thought we understood.

3.    Overtime Eligibility Audit 


Chris explained some challenges they’ve run into. They have mixed units in some program areas where some positions require degrees and some do not.  In struggling to use the “learned professional” criteria provided by the U.S. Department of Labor, some end up in OT exempt positions and some end up OT eligible (for example when applying the degree requirement). Ultimately, many more employees may end up being OT eligible – at the same time acknowledging Ecology cannot afford to pay OT. 

Communication Plan - Chris shared that they have a communication plan to help employees prepare for changes as the audit progresses: 

a. Setting up on the HR website links to  “OT eligibility information” for employees, supervisors, and managers.

b. Power point presentation on the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and another one on both FSLA and the contract.

c. Quick reference guide for supervisors and managers which had originally been used but has been modified to be more understanding of the professional, OT eligible employee. 

d. Updated articles on the issue and links to the prior articles by Chris. 

e. Revised training plan for managers and supervisors on how to manage 40-hour work week employees by Chris.

Next Steps - The IT groups in the environmental programs are going to be the next to be piloted for the audit. The employees are going to be prepped before they give out any letters, including an information session for the IT group to ask questions. This will be happening soon. It will be discussed at Friday’s all staff.  Polly committed to have Amy, Joan, and Kerry meet before the IT roll-out to talk about what’s going to happen and to whom.  Chris will keep us in the loop.

Joan asked if we can preview the power-point and training curriculum before it is presented – we may have valuable feedback. Chris will send Debbie a copy.

4.    Budget 

Funded Vacancies

Do budget funded vacancies have to be reported to DOP on a monthly basis?

Pat explained that we have information on funded FTE’s and it was sent through the end of January in mid-February. They haven’t sent an update because they’re waiting for the budget to come out before redoing the work. It’s not simple data to gather, due to the complex and sometimes uncertain funding of many FTE’s They understand that we need this information to discuss layoffs and to answer questions our members have regarding what kind of opportunities they may have, if they face a layoff.

Climate Policy Group budget - Kerry raised a concern with the positions themselves. They are high level EP’s and were all hired from outside at the highest salary steps in their salary range. Polly explained that they were all hired through “open competitive” process. She’s not sure who was in the candidate pool or if internal candidates applied or met the qualifications. Polly was pressured to make them WMS positions and she wouldn’t do that. In light of the discussion on hiring, Kerry asserted that these positions are the types of jobs that should go through internal recruiting first.  Polly said there may not have been the expertise needed internally for the specialized work.

We are also concerned that the out of state travel rules don’t apply to this group. We’ve got members complaining to us that they can’t drive to Portland, and then we note that the travel budget for this policy group is  mostly for out of state. Polly explained that there is slightly better language coming on out-of-state travel for those Portland trips. However, the Western Climate initiative is required by executive order. The travel is related to that work – Janet Adair is a co-chair and is on one of the subcommittees. They just sent a request for an exception to the Office of Financial Management to allow this out-of state travel – it’s not optional. The meetings occur at least every two months and require in-person negotiations (they do not allow teleconferencing for these particular meetings).

Health of the dedicated funds – Pat explained that fund transfers occurred in State toxics, local toxics, and the litter account (there is information on this on the web page). The transfers were made a variety of ways. When the flood and litter account transfers were made, program reductions had to be made. Those reductions freed up money that was transferred to the General Fund. In the state and local toxics accounts, the operating expenditures were kept whole. During this session proposals were made to restore the fund balances for state/local toxics as originally intended

There are other funds where we primarily get fee money. In Water Quality, it comes in sporadically through the year. What is different now is we are not going to be surprised.  Keeping track of the money coming in will help us mitigate the situation so that layoffs are not necessary.

Air Quality has big fluctuations and State/Local toxics accounts are based on the price of a barrel of oil. We have to be strategic with how much margin we leave in these budgets to buffer and protect staff resources.  Overall, the accounts are in pretty good shape.

Kurt asked about the water resources bill that WFSE supported that would move the program away from being reliant on the General Fund. Can WFSE help to gain legislative support on these kinds of issues? Pat replied that they can do so, like any other interested party, but the positions need to line up with the Governor’s budget priorities. Ecology must support the Governor’s budget.

What is the agency’s position on furloughs? Pat explained the bills as currently written give agencies some flexibility, $30,000 or less earners can use vacation leave to cover the 10-days of furloughs, retirement is unaffected, and health benefits are protected if you’re a part-time employee. In the name of equity, the house has proposed applying it to positions, regardless of funding sources. Once the bill is passed Ecology will look to the Governor’s office for guidance, specifically from OFM on what direction must be taken. Currently the impact is an unspecified reduction across all fund sources. If the bill allows agencies to develop their own plans, they expect to hear from OFM what can and can’t be included in those plans.

More meetings scheduled for April and May.  The UMCC will hold more discussions with our managers on April 30 and May 26.  Reports on these meetings will be provided in future bulletins. Contact your UMCC representative to suggest discussion topics ■