ATU KITSAP MEETINGS:
540 Bruenn Ave,
A word from our President/Business Agent
02/29/2008
Contract Update – February 29, 2008
Greetings Brothers and Sisters,
Time to catch up on the progress of a new contract. Our existing contracts expired on 2/15/08. They continue to be valid until a new agreement is reached. We participated in a bargaining marathon from Feb 1 – Feb 15, 2008, with 8 sessions in the two-week period. We were able to reach agreement on some relatively minor issues, but not on most of the substantial issues, therefore we are moving on to request help from a Mediator for any further negotiations. Washington State Law allows the Union to request mediation if an agreed contract hasn’t been achieved within 90 days of the start of negotiation.
We are just finishing up the review of the minutes and I meet with Jeff Cartwright next week to complete the final minutes. Next week I will also meet with our core contract team members to review our final list of issues to take forward. Suzanne and I met with John Clauson and the new Worker/Driver supervisor, Phil, to review non-generic issues for that program. I have scheduled with Ellen Gustafsen to have a sub-group meet on 3/15 to review non-generic Access issues. As soon as we have the list completed we will meet with the full contract team and send out and post a copy so the membership can see the pending items as well as the hard work put in by your brothers and sisters at the table.
The Union is hopeful that with help from the Mediator, there might be earnest progress made toward the new contract settlement. If not, then we will be forced to move to Arbitration. We trust that won’t be necessary, however that is largely determined by Management’s willingness to negotiate.
As we shared with you before, both sides had agreed to negotiate to one contract with separate appendices for program specific differences. In mid-January Dick Hayes informed me that Management had changed their mind on this. This was over 2/3rds of the way through bargaining. The Union believes this is both regressive bargaining and may be considered an Unfair Labor Practice as well. We are reviewing this with our legal counsel to determine, what if any action should be taken.
If you have any specific questions please call the office at 895-1384 or speak to any of the contract representatives. When the minutes are finished, we can circulate them so you can see what work has already been done.
Happy Leap Year and our next update will be when we reach agreement, receive a final offer or after mediation, whichever comes first.
Strength in Unity
Local Union Officers and Elections
At February’s Meeting we had a change of two of our officer positions. Gaylen Beardsley resigned his position of Secretary/Treasurer. The Executive Board appointed Access Operator, Elaine Clifford to complete the remainder of the term through 6/30/08. Larry Carbaugh also resigned his position as Executive Board Officer representing the Access Operators. The Executive Board appointed Robert Dickinson to complete the rest of that term.
Please
join me in extending our appreciation for Larry’s hard work over the past two
½ years! He will remain our WEB
officer and allows us to continue to call on him for computer work.
THANKS! Also, we wish to
thank Gaylen for stepping up to the plate and helping us transition to our new
office and settling out the separation of assets with the change in local
membership. Although it was only 4
½ months, it was a big hurdle. THANKS!
Elaine
has successfully gotten us through the year-end audit report.
Thanks to Connie Dawson, Mike Sabah and Dave Cleator for performing the
year-end audit. The books are in
good order and the committee report will be presented at the March membership
meeting. The Executive Board will
use the report to prepare a budget that will be presented to the membership at
the April meeting.
Elections:
Every three years we have elections, and that time is coming near. In March the election committee will meet to set up the nominations (April 3) and subsequent balloting. Since we are now a single property, we don’t need to do the mail ballot procedure. We will be doing a full day ballot box some time in mid April. The Committee will be chaired by Malinda Chavez, and include Kitty Ward, Terra Slain and Naomi Lee. The committee will send a letter to every member at least 15 days before the election to inform them of the date, place and time.
If you have any questions please call the office at 895-1384
Union Dues and Fees
With the transition of our local effective October 1, 2007, we’ve had a fresh look at the dues and fees being received from Kitsap Transit, both in total amount and in scheduled order.
We
just completed an audit of the books and in that process discovered a “fly in
the ointment”. For the operators
convenience Kitsap Transit had been deducting the International Per Capita Fee
from one pay period and the $5.00 Defense and Arbitration Fee from the other.
When
Elaine and I reviewed this we discovered that sometimes an employee doesn’t
have pay in a single pay period, therefore there wasn’t income to withhold
from. Kitsap Transit is obligated
to withhold and remit these fees from any pay in the month.
We spoke with Sue in payroll. To
fix this problem you will see a change in the way Fees are collected and
remitted to the Union. Both fees will be taken from the first pay received in the
month. Therefore if you don’t
receive pay in the first pay period, it will be taken from the second (or third
if applicable). We do not have a
choice in paying these, so this solution will take care of any partial month
pay.
When
an operator goes on to L&I or Short Term Disability they receive income
calculated from their earned income, but do not receive payment from Kitsap
Transit. Therefore, Kitsap Transit
is unable to do the auto withhold and remittance.
The Union will then need to bill directly to the member in order to
collect any Fees or Dues owed to the Local.
Elaine will set up a billing process to include notice and payment
options. For the potential Fees
still owed since October 1, 2007 to present, she can set up a payment plan with
you. If you’ve had paychecks each
pay-period since October 2007 this would not apply to you. We hope to have this
set up by the end of March 2008. If
you have any questions please call the office at 895-1384.
We will discuss this at the March membership meeting.
11/28/2007
Brothers and Sisters,
We held our first negotiation sessions with management on November 19, 2007 and
again on November 27, 2007, each for three hours. For those of you who may
not be aware, we have 2 reps for the worker drivers, 5 reps for Access and 5
reps for Routed. In addition Mark Dawson, the VP/ABA is sitting in with me
as my back up. We are, for the first time negotiating for all work groups
at the same time. Our goal is to have one contract for all, with generic
issues being the same for all, and any differences called out in specific
language or appendices. When we are working on the generic issues, two
from each team are invited to the table with Mark and me. If negotiations
are about a group specific issue then that group will be invited to the table.
For the most part the WD reps won't be in the day time negotiations and
we've asked management to have some evening meetings for that purpose.
Otherwise, I will represent their interest on the generic issues in the contract
when they are not present.
The contract team has completed their preparatory work and are ready for
negotiating the 'meat and potatoes'. We have an outstanding group from
Access and Routed. They have donated plenty of their time off to prepare
for representing you all. We are also negotiating during hours when most
of the drivers are off shift, to reduce the expense to the membership. When
you get a chance, say thanks for their hours of hard work.
So far we have not moved as far along with management as we would have liked or
expected. I'm proud to say, that is not at all attributable to your reps as
we have been on time and prepared. Management however has included
their attorney in their bargaining group, and has not honored the start time and
preparation standards. We hope that as we move forward with them this will
improve, yet we'll have to wait and see if progress picks up a bit. Thus
far we've worked on establishing the negotiation ground rules. We hope
that will be concluded at our next meeting scheduled for 12/5/07. There
will be a delay over the holidays as the next meeting time provided by
management is 1/5/07. I will give you the next update in January, as well
as at each union meeting. Our next meeting is Thursday, December 6, 2007,
at 10 am, 2 pm and 7 pm at the West Bremerton Bowling Alley.
Fraternally,
Rita C. DiIenno, President/Business Agent
Amalgamated Transit Union #1384
360-895-0177
Cell 360.584.3245
10/31/07
Brothers and Sisters,
Happy Halloween
The November regular meeting is scheduled for Thursday November 15, 2007 at the
west Bremerton bowling alley. Times have changed to 10 am, 2 pm and 7 pm.
This new schedule is in response to drivers request to accommodate more
operators. We will run a three month trial to see if it results allowing
more to attend.
The main subject of the meeting will be the upcoming contract negotiations for
all operators, scheduled to begin November 19th. We will also review the
possible negotiation for the back up worker drivers. Your contract team
representatives are:
WD: Steve Carver and Ken Ames
Access: Connie Dawson, Dave Cleator, Larry Carbaugh, Betty Miller and
Elaine Clifford
Routed: Doug Bauer, Tom Kyle, Suzanne Chinick, Malinda Chavez and Gary
Jackson
ATU: Mark Dawson is my back up.
I've had three meetings with the wd reps and another 3 meetings for the access
and routed reps. We will be presenting the primary issues for bargaining
and answering any questions you may have. Hope you all can attend on of
the meeting. Knowledge is power!
Sincerely,
Rita C. DiIenno, President/Business Agent
Amalgamated Transit Union #1384
360-895-0177
Cell 360.584.3245
10/07/07
Brothers and Sisters,
This is an update regarding our first of three Saturday contract meetings.
We met yesterday to begin our contract planning. The first meeting was to
discuss picking the team (or teams), the process of who what and where, and
planning for next Saturdays meeting.
I offered the members to decide how we would select the contract representatives
and who would be at the table. As well, we discussed whether we should go
to the table together as one group at least for the common contract items.
As most of you are aware, it was through a general election of the Routed
operators three years ago that allowed me to sit at the table to represent you.
I offered the same opportunity this time.
After a thorough discussion and input from all present, the group consensus was
to do the following: Post a notice, soliciting letters of interest to
participate, to be given to an executive board officer (Mark Dawson,
Gaylen Beardsley, Larry Carbaugh, Nacho Espinoza or Suzanne Chinick) or put the
same in my mail slot at Charleston Base no later than 5pm Friday, October 12.
The Ex Bd officers will solicit interested parties. At a meeting on
Saturday morning at 9:00 they will select, from those who give a letter of
intent, five members from Access and five members from Routed who will be
the contract team. I will contact the Worker Driver Steward for their
respective interest.
The next contract planning meeting is from 10-1 on Saturday, October 13 at
Bremerton Lanes in west Bremerton. The operators have asked me
to select two operators from each group of five who will be the principle
representatives to sit at the table. The three remaining will serve as alternates,
subject matter experts and subcommittee members. I will make that
selection after the main contract meeting that day.
Please note, that much of the work for the contract may be on personal time,
including Saturdays. We plan to begin negotiations the first week of
November. Monday afternoon I will be posting forms at each of the
bulletin boards that will include a survey of subject importance and allow for
open ended input of the subjects you have that you want considered for taking
forward to the contract table.
If you have any questions contact me directly or your Board members. The
contract committee will take it's primary directives from the next two contract
planning meetings. We will post this and our progress on the Union Boards.
Thanks to all who showed and participated!
Sincerely,
Rita C. DiIenno, President/Business Agent
Amalgamated Transit Union #1384
Cell 360.584.3245
09/28/07
Brothers and Sisters,
Thank God It's Friday! We close out the week and enter a new chapter for
Local #1384. As you are aware, the Local divided and the three Kitsap
bargaining units have relocated to Kitsap County effective October 1, 2007.
As we searched for a new office, our first goal was to locate centrally. I
had secured an office on Kitsap Way and was ready to sign the lease until one of
our members advised us that he is familiar with the office (his mother had
rented there before) and that office is prone to flooding and rodents. We
dropped that option. The Bowling alley will let us continue to have the
membership meetings in their large meeting room, but over three months and over
8 tries, never came to agree on renting us a room for our office.
As of this week we were down to two options, staying within the budget.
One is a room above the Admiral Theater in downtown Bremerton, and the other is
a new office being built at Towne Square in Port Orchard. They are both
approx 400 square feet with Utilities included. The Admiral wanted $450
plus a "lease out" clause of 90 days, the only parking is time limited
street parking. At Town Square the space is inside the mall, with
unlimited access (any time night or day), parking and $390 plus a full lease
without the "lease out" clause. The lease escalation clause ends
the term with rent less than the beginning terms at the Admiral. At our
last meeting of the executive board the vote was 1 in favor of Bremerton and 4
in favor of Port Orchard.
Since I wanted to meet the interests of the membership, this week I canvassed
members between ACCESS and Routed. When the members heard that the
membership meeting is still central (at the bowling alley) 3 said they
didn't care/doesn't matter and the rest said they preferred Port Orchard
for the parking and price. We will realize a $720 savings in the first
year alone. Not one member asked that we lease the Admiral space.
Based on the Executive Board vote, and the membership feedback, I signed a lease
yesterday for the space at Town Square. We will post the new address and
Officers on our WEB site and bulletin boards.
I've attached a copy of our meeting notice for October. Hope you can make
one of the regular meetings and come to the contract planning sessions.
Congratulations to our new officers: Mark Dawson, Vice President/Assistant
Business Agent; Gaylen Beardsley, Secretary Treasurer; and Suszanne Chinick,
Executive Board At Large. Blessings to you all.
Sincerely,
Rita C. DiIenno, President/Business Agent
Amalgamated Transit Union #1384
360.895-0177
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ATU LOCAL 1384 KITSAP
WA
1700 SE Mile Hill Drive, Ste 213 360-895-1384 Cell 360.710.9077 |
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