From the trenches...Reports from your Business RepsUnit 3 - Electrical Testers * Training has long been an issue for the Tester Unit, which currently has no formal apprenticeship program, and has many specialty areas within the series. The testers are ready to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the new Joint Training Institute (JTI), which has been launched by Local 18 and the Department. One of the Institute's short-term goals is to assist in the design, development and delivery of specialized training and apprenticeship programs. Testers will work with the JTI to identify training needs and develop programs for basic and specialized training. * Unit President Dave Almanzan, who represents testers in the Electrical Station Maintenance Joint Labor Management Committee, has been sounding the need for greater recruitment and hiring of testers. In response, management has approached Dave for more information and has indicated that it intends to increase the hiring of testers.
* The Half-Time Civil Service Committee has completed its benefits statement
and is now preparing to submit the package to the Joint Resolution Board
for approval * Good news, part-timers: A letter of agreement was signed, authorizing half-time/part-time employees to pay one-half of the parking fees paid by full-time employees assigned to an AQMD site as a permanent-reporting location. Half-time is defined as working less than 30 hours/week. * A reminder for employees conducting safety tours: You can go to the Joint Safety Institute DWP intranet website for an updated, current list of the classes that are being offered. * If you need an ergonomic assessment and you do not have a worker's comp case, ask your supervisor to contact Marc Hendon at 213/367-1240. Units 8 and 18 - Clerical * Clerical, Supervisory Clerical and Administrative Bid Plan Committee nominations have been made for both committee and subcommittee participants. Notifications were made in mid-January. Remember: If you have any suggestions about anything to do with your work, please contact your Business Representative. * General information: Please do not forget to review your personnel file; this is your right. Make sure that any address change is on file with both the Department and Local 18. Verify the beneficiary of your death benefit with both DWP Retirement and Local 18. Also, contact the Worker's Comp office in order to update your Designation of Personal Physician form. Thank you.
Last year, we kicked off a Joint Labor-Management Committee for Senior and Principal Security Officers. The JLMC has been meeting monthly since August, 2002. The committee is taking on a range of issues, including minimum staffing, training, improved internal communications, and bid plans. We expect this year to see the transformation of many of our discussions into concrete policy for the Security Group.
* The annual bid period is once again upon us. As of this writing, there will be 14 seniority bids and eight interview bids.
* The annual bid period is here again. There are nearly 40 bid vacancies in the various classes. Once again, there are not enough "A" level equipment operator bids. Local 18 has been told that seven more of them will be put into the Department budget beginning this July.
* We are currently discussing the matter of new-power plant construction with the City of Pasadena Human Resources Department. We are proposing that all construction work be union. * Pasadena City Council elections are coming up on Tuesday, March 4. We are discussing election strategies at this time.
* Many members are excited about the Spring, 2003 kickoff of the Mobile Data Dispatch System (MDDS). They look forward to working with the new laptops, but some still have a few reservations. * The first phase of the rollout will be in the Harbor Field Services Unit, with West Los Angeles, Valley and Metro to follow. The second phase will be in Field Collections, using the same rotation, with the final rollout in Field Investigations. * The project team has been making presentations to the field groups and is answering our members' numerous questions. MDDS is expected to have real-time capacity once the bugs are worked out with Customer Information System (CIS). Please call any of the project team members for an update, or if you have any questions. They are: John Fernandez; Alex Godfrey; Andy Hernandez; Lance Holcombe; Shig Kakudo, and Nance Walker-Bonelli. You can also go to the MDDS website through the Department intranet. * Last year, several members in the CSBU field groups were involved in customer-related incidents. After many discussions with CSBU management on this issue, it was agreed that more had to be done to support the members who were involved in these incidents. Meetings with the LAPD, Corporate Safety representatives and DWP's Legal Department were held in Metro and Valley Field Service/Field Collection Units. While these meetings were informative, many members still believe that if they are involved in an incident, they are alone. They must and will face the consequences of their actions, whether it is a sigh of relief for evading a criminal during a crime, or disciplinary action/arrest for defending themselves. * We reached agreement to reinitiate the Confrontation Committee. We are looking for ideas on what you think management's response should be to employees, customers or members of the public who assault our people. Please contact any of the Shop Stewards or me at the Union office if you have any ideas. * If you are involved in an incident in the field, it is important that you remember to file all the necessary reports-whether it is a "Near Miss Form" or a police report, and call the Union hall to report what happened. We will keep an on-going record of incidents and how management is following up on them. Unit Chair Tony Marufo wants to remind all members that if an incident happens in one field group, it can easily become a safety issue for next person who is doing the same kind of work. Please encourage each other to file the necessary forms/reports; we need to document all incidents, no matter how minor they may be. * We will continue to work with CSBU management to address the unresolved issues of 1) employees' liability when they act in a defensive manner, and 2) the Department's responsibility towards its employees when they are involved in such incidents during the performance of their duties. * Important news for meter readers: Please use the appropriate forms to request that a Radio Frequency Meter be installed in locations that are hazardous or not easily accessible. This program was initiated last year and to date has proved to be very successful. We want to thank Al Cardiel and Ray Thorton for their diligent work in getting the RF meters installed throughout the numerous locked-out and not-easily accessible meters.
* Dave Huff stepped down as Unit 19 Chairman at the December, 2002 meeting in order to assume the responsibilities of Joint Labor Management Administrator. Vice-Chairman Steve Leyva has taken over chairmanship duties of Unit 19. At our upcoming February unit meeting, we will nominate and elect a new Unit Vice-Chairman. We very much want to thank Brother Huff for his on-going dedication and tireless efforts in representing all the members of Unit 19. * Members of the Bid Plan Committee will be meeting with management in order to discuss some of the changes that were made after our initial meeting last December 9. We are still hoping to get the bid plan out to a vote and then implemented early this year.
* General Shops employees have performed nine turbine generator overhauls in the last three years, as opposed to just one in the previous five. Further, their skills and expertise will be challenged over the next four years at the Castaic Power Plant, performing upgrades and modifications on all seven units. Management has set our members a hefty chore, and on a tight schedule, but I'll bet money that Shops will come through again. How about you?
* Jeff Firestone and Alex Roberts made a presentation to management advocating the creation of a dedicated ESR Service Investigation group. Management responded well to both the proposal and reasoning behind it, and is exploring ways to implement it * Jeff Firestone, Joe Moreno and Bill Punches have been representing the unit in negotiating an ESR Bid Plan with management. The document is very near completion, and we hope to announce soon that it has been adopted.
* Worker safety tour members recently identified several safety concerns during a review conducted at JFB. They included: jagged metal edges on dispensers that had caused injuries to several members, and the unsafe manner in which paper products and other materials were being stacked in the hopper rooms. * After several discussions with management on how best to address these issues, plastic dispensers were installed. We are now working with management to find a solution to the stacking of the items in the hopper rooms. All members at JFB are encouraged to thank the worker safety tour members and the Custodial Service Attendants for their diligence in identifying unsafe practices and items in the building, and finding creative solutions to resolve them. * Management has been attempting to circumvent its commitment to honor the JFB Bid Plan by not posting the Open Stations on an annual basis, as it should. Local 18 filed a grievance in order to ensure compliance in this matter. We will keep members abreast of any progress on this issue as we go through the grievance procedure. Special thanks to Shop Steward Andre Smart Bey and CSA Sam Mukahal for their commitment to speak out on behalf of our members on this issue. * CSA Seniors are currently assessing all of the outlying facilities so that labor and management can sit down and talk about the standards that will be used to clean and maintain all of the facilities that were once contracted out. Thanks to CSA Seniors Violet Jones, Chris King, Felipe Landeros and Mawoke Lawonga for this very important work. We will continue to work with management in order to develop a structure that will lend support and training to all of the CSAs throughout the Department.
* Joint labor-management efforts are paying off! Unit members in both Reprographics and the Print Shop have been deeply involved in making decisions about acquiring new leading-edge industrial-graphics equipment. Operators are being trained, and new procedures are being put in place to incorporate these new capabilities in order to better serve DWP business unit customers. * Many safety issues previously identified in the joint labor-management process have been resolved, and more are being identified for future resolution. Communication between members and management has been proactive, cooperative and productive. Let's keep it up!
* At the present time, we are addressing issues of seniority, the Bid Plan and instances of excessive discipline in areas where there are little or no training or work procedures. * We have sent Labor Relations a letter demanding a "meet and confer" concerning the reopening of the Water Treatment Operator/Water Utility Operator Bid Plan. We expect to hear from them in the near future.
* We are closer to reaching an agreement on the Retiree Medical Trust. The Burbank City Council has committed $2.4 million to the Trust over the next three years. We will soon call a membership meeting in order to have a final discussion on the Trust. Then, it will be put to a vote of the unit's members. * Burbank City Council elections are coming up on Tuesday, February 25, with a runoff on Tuesday, April 8, if needed. As in Pasadena, we are currently mapping out election strategies.
* As the "shut off" work should have been completed during the third week of January, the Unit meetings will resume on Tuesday, February 11, at 4:30 p.m., at Graziano's Pizza, in Mojave. * Mojave employees also completed tunnel work for generators below Power Plant 1 and grouted the channel at the Los Angeles Aqueduct Filtration Plant.
* One of the three Trunkline Crews is being moved to the water district to work on the Regulator Station Project. Essentially, this move is designed to cut down trunkline work until management can learn how to effectively supervise this kind of job. I guess management will be hiring more engineers and consultants, and trying to contract-out this work!
* This year, Unit Chair, Carlos Saldana, has scheduled monthly meetings, to be held at the Boylston Yard on the 3rd Wednesday of the month. "We anticipate that we will continue to have a great turnout and informative discussions during our unit meetings this year," Carlos says. Unit 55 meetings can also be found in the Meeting Notice that is sent out to all members and is posted throughout Department facilities. * On the Joint Labor-Management Committee front, Ed Eberlee, Cameron Ogan, David Ray, Carlos Saldana and Gary Schmerbeck have been doing a great job of bringing up issues and working with management to resolve them. * A reminder to all Unit 55 members: All JLMC minutes are updated monthly and are available through the ITS web page, or at each yard in the TeleComm JLMC binders and bulletin boards. All our members are encouraged to use the JLMC forms to bring up their concerns and issues to the committee. We want to thank the many members who have already discovered that solutions to their issues can be found by using this process. * All IBEW members are encouraged to use the services that the TeleComm
Section can provide. It has become apparent that Business Units are circumventing
the highly skilled and knowledgeable employees in this section. We ask
you to work within your Business Units and encourage them to find their
IT solutions within the Department's TeleComm Section. In addition, it
is of great concern that many IBEW members are working outside of their
classifications by performing TeleComm work (i.e., installing radio equipment,
data routers, etc). Unit 55 members ask that you please refer to your
DDR when being asked to perform work that is normally done by TeleComm.
Thank you for the solidarity on this issue, brothers and sisters! |
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