Guild Bargaining Bulletin Update #3

The third Guild-UFCW bargaining session was held last Monday, August 13. Sarah Palmer Amos, Bette Mercer and Marcia Todd represented UFCW. We spent the first part of this afternoon bargaining session rearticulating the rationale for our original proposals and responding to a few of UFCW's proposals.

The Guild opened by addressing several of our proposals:

Education and training: The Guild argued the need to codify the commitment of identifying career development classes and possible mentoring positions. Our proposals on two week administrative leave for GMC National Labor College (which requires four weeks on site a year) fairly requires splits the on campus requirement equally between the employee and the UFCW.

Sick leave accrual: The Guild noted that the rate of one day per month doesn't provide enough leave especially for those that have dependent care issues. Our proposal on increased sick leave (and dependent care) and on earning compensatory time for hours over 35 seeks increased flexibility for non-exempt workers.

Paid parenting leave: The Guild stated that paid parenting leave is no longer a novel notion in unionized workplaces, and is an excellent recruiting and retention tool. The UFCW offers no parenting leave presently for dads, and no leave upon adopting a child or gaining a foster child. Moms are eligible for ESL.

The Guild questioned the UFCW on a few of its proposals.

Reduction of posting period form six to five days: UFCW would like to rely more on email for job posting announcements and reduce the posting period from six to five days. We agreed to their use of email for job posting but reiterated that five days is too short of a time period -- our concern is that postings span at a minimum two work weeks. The additional day does not meaningfully effect the weeks and sometimes months it currently takes to fill a vacancy.

Opening Guild covered positions to UFCW non-Guild employees at the initial posting: UFCW's proposal would allow the most senior (meeting minimum qualifications) UFCW employee to get the job. Currently, the qualified Guild unit member with most seniority is offered the job first. UFCW's concern is that non-bargaining unit employees are excluded from promotional opportunities, causing a morale problem. The Guild countered that there are a number of jobs currently open and a number of jobs that have been filled from outside the bargaining unit; this issues is clearly a non-issue.

Reduction of overtime rate for non-exempt staff attending conferences and conventions: UFCW wants to exclude travel time from overtime, and reduce weekend overtime for non-exempt employees attending conferences and conventions from Sunday double time to time and a half. We questioned the necessity of this proposal; however, the UFCW maintains that they take a sizable contingent of nonexempt workers and that is a significant outlay of money and will be a concern with the upcoming convention in 2003.

Severance proposal: The Guild proposed a counter to the severance package offered by President Dority on August 3. The Guild proposal increases the severance from 1 week a year to 1.5 weeks of pay for each six months of employment (3 weeks a year), and reduces any pension penalty caused by early retirement by 3 percent. Any Guild member thinking about the severance package should contact either Lori Calderone or Iain Gold.

Guild pay proposal: The Guild reviewed our views on the elements of a good compensation system with the UFCW, and in walked through our pay proposal in detail. The proposal addresses professional growth development, career ladders for exempt and non-exempt positions, seniority recognition, and mechanisms, which allow the UFCW to address specialized problems of recruitment and retention. UFCW did not have any additional proposals at this time although they indicated that we should expect some proposals on time and attendance, and jurisdiction issues (who is covered by the contract and who is not. We expect that the UFCW will have any proposals on additional topics for us by our next session on September 5th.

All of our original proposals are still on the table.

We finished bargaining around 4:30 p.m. and picked the following three dates for our next bargaining sessions: September 5th, September 27th and October 2nd.

We've schedule a unit meeting for September 6th to review in detail where we are in the process. That meeting will be held in the 10th floor conference room at noon. Please schedule your lunch accordingly.

Guild committee:

Lori Calderone
Charles Davis
Iain Gold
Deirdre Lawson
Shronda McIntyre-Wilson
Jay Pascucci
Bettye Roberts
Jack Weberski