PEF CONTRACT!

at 625 Broadway July Membership Meeting to talk about the proposed NYS -PEF Contract.

The following text is excerpted from the PEF Information Line for Monday July 19, 2004:

"PEF has reached a tentative PS&T contract agreement with the state, after 19 months of bargaining. The Executive Board will meet on Friday, July 30 to review the pact and vote on sending the pact to the general membership for ratification. Pending the outcome of the Executive Board vote, ballots could be mailed to members by mid-August.

For more complete contract information please use the following web addresses:

www.pef.org/pst2003/contractinfo/final_significant_improvements.htm

www.pef.org/pst2003/contractinfo/gains_and_tradeoffs.htm

Compressed Pay Period (CPP)

The following Email was sent by Mike Keenan to Joe Lattanzio Re: his June 25th Bulk Email concerning the Compressed Pay Period Pilot Program in the Central Office:

As you are aware, an employee and supervisor may mutually agree to change the employee’s passday. It is the experience of the PEF/encon Steward Council that changes of a CPP passday are usually requested by a supervisor wanting an employee to attend a work-related event on the normal passday. In addition, each time sheet requires supervisory sign-off. Thus, we question the premise implied in your June 25th memo.

We also wonder why the normal chain of command was not followed. CPP currently has less than 200 participants and 100 supervisors. Yet, your memo was sent to around 1000 employees. Why wasn’t your memo sent to the Division Directors to transmit through the supervisory ranks? This method would have insured that the supposed "some CPP Pilot participants" were given corrective guidance without unduly sullying DEC’s environmentally successful and employee morale friendly CPP Pilot.

Finally, we are intrigued that a request for a meeting with the PERC Committee has been characterized as claiming "oversight responsibility for this program." A review of the preamble of the CPP Guidelines recognizes the role of the Albany Pollution and Energy Reduction Committee (PERC). In addition, the actual CPP program design, sign-off to GOER and Civil Service, employee training and program report were all joint LM efforts. Finally, Article 24.4 of the contract includes both "scheduling of employee workdays within established workweek" and "institution of alternative work schedules" Thus, it would appear PERC indeed has a role concerning the administration of this program.

See you at the August 26th Membership Meeting!