Public Employee Press

Local 1549 nixes a new task in evaluators

When the Dept. of Environmental Protection added a new environmental health and safety task unrelated to their jobs to the standards for evaluating Clerical Associates in Local 1549, they fought back and won.

The union brought the issue to DEP's attention three years ago at a labor-management meeting, said outgoing Clerical Division Director Ronnie Harris, who spearheaded the fightback with union rep Janine Thomas. Executive Vice President Alma Roper filed a grievance, and when management refused to budge, the union filed for impartial arbitration. Counsel Rep Eddie Douglass, DEP Chapter Chair Rosalind Smalls and Shop Stewards Gerald Moore and Barbara Volpe prepared the union's case with Assistant General Counsel Dena Klein, and three of the Clerical Associates testified at the hearing.

"The evaluation was unfair because we were being rated on a task that didn't apply to us," Moore said. "The stewards and our lawyer did an outstanding job," Smalls said. "We're clericals - you can't rate us on a technical standard that has nothing to do with us."

On July 22, the arbitrator agreed with the union, ruling that the new task added to the Clerical Associates' annual performance evaluation "constituted an out-of-title-work assignment" that required the grievants to know and enforce "environmental laws and regulations unrelated to their clerical and administrative functions."

"It's the duty of a shop steward to testify if you feel something's not right," Moore said. Douglass noted that when members file a grievance, it's important to stick with it all the way. "That's how the union gets good results," he said.

"This was a successful collective effort by the staff of the Clerical Division, the chapter, and the rank-and-file members. When we work together, we win," Harris said.