Negotiations Update May 6-10, 2002
The NAATS pay team met with the Agency�s team this past week and unfortunately
we got absolutely nowhere. We began the first session discussing the previously
tau�d Holiday article. Management agreed to eliminate the 8 hour provision in
section 2 c. which now reads "When an employee works a holiday or day in lieu of
a holiday, he/she shall be entitled to pay at the rate of his/her basic pay,
plus premium pay at a rate equal to the rate of his/her basic pay, for that
holiday work which is not overtime work as defined by 5 USC 5542(a). Holiday pay
is paid in addition to any other premium pay granted for night or Sunday work
and in addition to the hazard pay differential. An employee on holiday leave
shall be entitled to his/her basic rate of pay for that time during which the
employee is on holiday leave."
Management then gave us their E-5 proposal which was not substantively different
than their last offer. We looked it over and agreed as a team that we didn�t
have any questions since the offer, for all practical purposes, had not changed.
We caucused for the rest of the afternoon to discuss management�s tactics and
lack of movement. By the end of the afternoon we had written our U-7 proposal to
give management in the morning. The changes addressed in our latest offer were
primarily made to protect new hires starting pay rate. We added language which
would require the agency to agree to move the SCI payout criteria through the
system to the FMCS if a joint workgroup could not come to agreement in a timely
manner. We also added some language surrounding the ATC pay bands and how pay
bands would be adjusted.
Other key differences are 1.) essentially having no cap or top-end on the "H"
band, 2.) protecting our annual government-wide increase, 3.) if an OSI is given
that it be tied to bargaining unit success (not upper management�s) and be a
minimum of 1% of payroll added to the government wide increase, and 4.) that
movement between bargaining unit facilities will be considered a transfer, not a
demotion (command center to AFSS is the only example of this possibility at the
moment).
Management was unhappy with our proposal to say the least. They did agree with
our language the SCI workgroup procedures but nothing else. They took an hour
caucus to add this provision to E-5 and now labeled it as E-5A. They said that
it was "their last best offer". We stated that it was unacceptable. Both sides
agreed that we were wasting each other�s time since "management would not change
their offer". I told them that I believed the reality to be that they did not
have the authority to change it and we needed to move the negotiations to a
level in the Agency where the authority existed. We ended the meeting on the
afternoon of 5/8.
I met with Wally on 5/9 and briefed him on the situation and we agreed that the
next step is to try to set a meeting with Ray Thoman. We are in the process of
doing this now. I�ll keep you posted. Any other questions on the negotiations or
how the pay system will work, e-mail me and I�ll try to get you the answers
regards,
Bill