It's official! Our own Ecology Local is approved.

By Paul Pickett

Last fall a group of Ecology union members petitioned AFSCME for our own Local. Last month Ecology WFSE members got exciting news. We received a letter from AFSCME International President Gerald McEntee, who told us “the Department of Ecology request is granted.”

This is an historical event for our agency. With our own Local we’ll have more autonomy in the union, our own budget, the ability to choose our own delegates to WFSE committees and to conventions, and other direct and indirect benefits.

This is an important step, and now there’s lots of work to do. Over the next month we’ll work on fine-tuning the new Local Constitution, developing the structure of our new Local, and resolving other transition issues. Then later in the summer we will formally receive our Charter and hold elections for officers.

We need to determine our share of the reserves in Local 443. The result of this effort should be a healthy bank account balance when our Local starts up. A group of members are collecting data and developing a proposal.

There are several issues with the Constitution that need resolution:

• How many members constitute a quorum at a Local meeting?
• What Executive Committee officers will we have? How are they selected?
• How many Local meetings do we hold every year?
• How will elections be held?

We need to decide what Committees we’ll need to have in place to begin with, and find members to participate. Some committees we’ve discussed include:

• Finance Committee – support the treasurer and develop the Local budget
• Stewards Committee – support stewards training and problem resolution
• Grievance Committee – review grievances and recommend them for further action
• Communication Committee – communicate with members; manage the newsletter, website, email communications, mailings, etc.
• Political Action Committee – make endorsements for local elections
• Election Committee – a group trained in best election procedures to run our elections

In general, we’ll need to develop a set of policies that will be ready for adoption at our first official Local meeting, such as committees, standing rules for meetings, and other essential business functions. We want to start this new Local on the right foot, so we are spending some time thinking through how to organize policies to be useful, transparent, and effective.

Behind all this is the question: what are our values that we want to support and codify in our Constitution and policies?

We’ve had a lot of discussion about openness, inclusion, good communication, accountability, and responsibility to members. What do you care about? We need your input.

Please join us and be part of this new era! If you can’t make it but would like to help, please contact me, Elena Guilfoil, or any other steward. “Many hands make light work.” Pick a topic that interests you and decide how much time you have to offer – anything you can do will help!

Ecology Union Members--HELP PLAN THE NEW LOCAL!

Two special meetings are scheduled: Wednesdays, June 13 and June 27

Ecology Lacey building, Room R1D-16/17
Meetings start at 5:30 pm
Dinner is provided—Everyone is invited!

Ecology UMCC Report

Prepared by Jim Wavada, W2R-ERO and Dolores Mitchell, TCP-HQ

Union Members who participated in Ecology’s April 30th meeting of the statewide Union Management Communications Committee, and with union advocate Debbie Brookman, said the event at Headquarters had a new feel to it.

The principals had agreed at the earlier meeting to limit Agenda items to concerns and questions not covered by contract provisions.  Both groups brought guests to define or respond to specific items on the Agenda; nothing was tabled pending consultation with absent parties.  This gave the entire meeting a new, productive feel. The Director engaged in discussion of all the major items on the agenda.  He listened carefully and responded directly.

• SB 6211 the Brownfield Bill - Privatization/Contracting OutSenate Bill 6211, based on the Brownfield Recommendation purchased with public funds would privatize site-cleanup-oversight and regulation.  Executive Management invited TCP Program Manager Jim Pendowski to respond to economic, environmental, and ethical concerns we’d voiced about the bill—and to hear how we will react to re-introduction of the bill when the legislature reconvenes next January.
  
  UMCC Member Dolores Mitchell laid out our explicit concerns about the substance of the bill—and particularly the scheme that would delegate to “licensed site remediation professionals” (private sector contractors) authority to sign-off on the adequacy of independent site cleanups.  Members see the transfer of duties from Ecology’s expert and committed staff to profit-driven corporate contractors as a move away from public service and accountability.  Pendowski promised communications on this issue will be more transparent in future; he said meetings would be scheduled in all of the Regions.

• Field Staff On-The-Job Safety - Bargaining Unit member John Blacklaw described inadequacy and incongruence among current program-by-program or region-by-region Field Safety guidance and the Agency’s Safety Plan.  He observed a lack of definition and transparency in the relationship between the decision-making Safety Council –composed of paid Safety Coordinators— and Program volunteers on the various regional safety committees.
  
  Janet Hyre heard the concerns.  She explained the difference between the Agency’s “Safety Manual” and “Field Safety Guides” and Hyre pledged to work with an ad hoc group of bargaining unit members to resolve any redundancies and fill any gaps between the program safety plans and the agency safety plan.
  
  Blacklaw encouraged the agency to use the LEAN process (1) to identify and fill gaps in field safety manuals and processes, and (2) to coordinate and update the guidance, across agency programs and regional offices.  He pointed out that we also need to make staff trainings (based on those manuals) a priority.  Management agreed to work with Blacklaw on this project.  So now we have a joint project coming out of a UMCC meeting.  Everyone I talked to after the meeting sees this as a significant improvement in our shared understanding of the role of the UMCC.

• Layoff Notification Process - UMCC discussed the recent layoff notification practices and Members supposed it could be improved by letting employees know, even during the informal notification, about their contract rights as the process progresses.  Management rejected any role in giving employees union information; but did agree to advise potentially affected employees that they are at risk and to tell them where in their building a list of stewards can be found.
  
  HR conceded failure to provide regional area representatives with timely notification of proposed layoffs.  Amy Heller resolved to eliminate such notification delays in future, because employee must exercise some contract-rights within five days, in response to a formal notice.

• Facilitation Services - UMCC Member Jim Wavada again expressed members’ concerns about the routine practice of contracting out for facilitation services, despite investments of employee time and public dollars to train Ecology staff in facilitator skills.  He asked for a status report on the work of the Facilitation Ad Hoc group.  Executive Management acknowledged our interest and concern.

• Facility Use Protocols - UMCC Member Bob Penhale explained that policies seem inconsistent, between the Regional Offices and between the Regions and Headquarters with respect to events of common interest to Management and Employees.  Members believe some cooperative /co-sponsored events would benefit the whole agency.  UMCC Member Jim Wavada cited as an example, member interest in a presentation about the Blue-Green Coalition.  Management asked us to send a short list of such ideas.
  
  Altogether, this UMCC meeting seemed more focused on clear responses and cooperative solutions than previous meetings.  It doesn’t mean we don’t have to continue to be vigilant; but it does demonstrate that focusing on the “Communication” in the committee’s title may yield some long-term results.  Stay tuned!

Steward News

By Paul Pickett, Assistant Chief Steward

Layoffs – Stewards Respond

Ecology stewards and WFSE staff met last week to review the layoffs of April and May. We had filed a “Demand to Bargain” over the impacts of that layoff and wanted to prepare ourselves for negotiations. We also want to look ahead to further layoffs in June and July based on the final supplemental budget passed by the legislature this spring.

There were several impacts of the layoffs that we were concerned about:

• How do the layoffs affect workload, both for the employees left in the program where cuts occurred, and for the employees who bumped into new positions?
• How will staff placed in new positions receive training, mentoring, and other organizational support, so they are successful in their new position?
• Will staff who have “reasonable accommodations” for disabilities have their accommodations reviewed and updated to reflect new duties and work conditions?

We also identified several areas where we feel management fell short and that could be improved for the next round of layoffs:

• The union received notice of layoffs at the last minute and had to scramble to provide representation for staff being laid off. Employees were called into meetings on short notice, sometimes only a few hours, to be told they were being laid off, and then had only three days to provide updated and detailed resumes.
• Management could have provided more information up front about the layoffs, including the reasons for the layoffs. When requests for information were made, response was slow. We’d prefer prompt responses to our requests, rather than the appearance of “foot-dragging”.
• Negotiations weren’t scheduled until after layoffs and subsequent bumps were done. This defeats the intent of effectively negotiating impacts. Negotiations should be scheduled as soon as possible after the notice of layoffs.
• Management informed the union that no “Informal Options” would be offered. This is optional under the contract, but this position appears draconian and not helpful to employees being laid off.
• The union only had a seniority list that was over six months out of date, and did not include Veteran’s time, the layoff units, or part-time/full-time status. Therefore we had no clear idea what seniority criteria management was using for choosing Formal Options.
• Communication to employees could have been improved, especially about their representation rights, and about their options for finding a job in their old job class after a demotion.

Stewards will be part of on-going negotiations and discussions on these topics. Meanwhile, we are already working on the next round of cuts. If you have any questions – ask a steward!

WFSE/AFSCME Communicators Conference

By Jim Wavada and Dolores Mitchell

This year’s AFSCME/WFSE Communicators conference on April 20-21, 2012 at the SeaTac Hilton came at the conclusion of a brutal legislative session in Washington State. We saw the beginnings of a Wisconsin-style effort to “blame the public worker” for the Great Recession. 
The Tea Party Republicans were after our jobs and they made no secret of it.  We had to scramble and lobby our friends aggressively to preserve our basic rights to organize and to preserve our contract.  Thanks to some “confused” Senate Democrats, lovingly referred to as the “Roadkill Caucus,” it was a very close call. 

This conference was the perfect antidote to the post adjournment depression that had settled like a ground fog on many of us.  It showed weary survivors an effective way to fight back, reframe the issues, expose the villains, and show the public the real heroes that we all are. In short, it was great!

Blaine Rummel, AFSCME Associate Director of Communications, started off the training with a rousing presentation on the recent fight for Wisconsin, which continues with a hotly contested and expensive June recall election against Gov. Scott Walker and his legislative allies.  Blaine demonstrated how everyday union rank and file members can communicate our bigger message about collective bargaining rights more effectively than anyone else.

Here’s a clue—make it personal and understand the basic elements of a good story.  A mid-morning plenary session led by Deb Kidney and Korey Hartwich of AFSCME International taught us just how to do this.  Facilitators led groups in an exercise designed to demonstrate the power of personal stories.  Some were moved to tears by the heart-wrenching stories from the Council 28 members who stood between clients and catastrophe in so many cases. With effective storytelling, we help taxpayers and voters understand how our jobs help them to live better, safer lives.

The second day of the conference allowed participants to focus on one of two topics--working to be more effective public speakers or learning to use social media like Labor Web, Facebook and Twitter more effectively. Korey Hartwich led the training on effective public speaking and WFSE Council 28’s own Laura Reisdorf led hands-on computer lab training in the use of Facebook and Twitter. 

The training closed with a report on values-based communication and training on how to use the new Heroes Handbook v1 from communications consultant Ella Andrews.  This report and the handbook are the culmination of a year of research into how to effectively communicate our progressive values to voters and taxpayers.  Andrews walked us through using the basic elements of good story telling: a hero with tools, a villain with weapons, a threat to be countered and a quest that is noble.

This storytelling approach to communications comes out of hard science.  Cognitive research on the connection between neural activity in the brain and decision-making revealed that our amigdula (that small piece of the brain that generates our fight or flight reactions) generates most of our decision-making and helps us define about what we value most.  We then use our higher brain function in the cerebral cortex to gather and organize the factual data to support the decisions we’ve already made about how we feel about something.

In other words, the facts don’t matter if they don’t jive with the emotional attachment we have to an idea.  Appealing to the cerebral cortex, where we test and process facts, is a waste of time until you have successfully appealed to the amigdula, popularly referred to as our lizard brain. 
Conservative communications guru Frank Luntz, wrote Words That Work, based on this same research.  His handbook of the anti-government rhetoric has been used by antigovernment lobbies for a decade with a lot of success. Luntz learned that facts don’t matter, if you don’t first get people onboard the same emotional, values-driven train as you. Luntz realized that to change a person’s values system, you must first send a convincing message to their amigdula, often referred to as their “lizard brain—not their cerebral cortex. 

That’s the major insight inspiring the Hero’s Handbook we all received as part of this training.  The small handbook is chock full of survey-tested language for expressing values that union workers embody.  It lays out the basic elements of a hero/villain story and suggests how to put your story on the correct side of that line using carefully chosen words. Best of all, this incisive training regimen is going to be available to all union members.  WFSE Council 28 will be sponsoring a “train-the-trainer” session on the Hero’s Handbook in the near future.  Look for locally available versions of this training soon.

They could have named this year’s annual Communicators Conference the “Eye-popping, Totally Awesome, Finally We’re Going To Fight Back, What a Great Way to Tell Your Story” Conference.  But that would violate most of what we learned that weekend in SeaTac. Instead, we’ll just make a note that it was one of the better organized and effective trainings that WFSE Council 28 and AFSCME have ever offered, and that more is coming.

2013-2015 Bargaining Update

The Federation’s General Government Bargaining Team has reached tentative agreement on more than half of the next contract after just three days of bargaining. By doing this, the united and ready Federation bargaining team freed up more time for summer negotiations on more complicated articles, including compensation. Visit WFSE.org > Bargaining > General Government for more information!