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UNION NEWS
SEIU MEMBERS NEGOTIATE VOLUNTARY TIME OFF
Service Employees International Union Local 790 negotiated a great Voluntary
Time Off (VTO) Program with the San Francisco Housing Authority. Employees
can take time off in increments as little as one hour with a maximum of
480 hours, or 60 8-hour days, per fiscal year. Wages will be reduced for
time off in the employee’s next paycheck following the start of
the leave. Participants in the VTO Program remain covered by medical,
dental and life insurance and continue to accrue sick leave and vacation
benefits as normal. There is no requirement to use any accumulated vacation
or sick leave. (SEIU Local 790 and SF Housing Authority)
FIRST CONTRACT FOR CHILD CARE CENTERS
The United Auto Workers (UAW) negotiated a first contract with Bright
Horizons Inc, that covers any current child care center through the UAW
Family Service and Learning Center (FSLC), provided the majority of staff
desire union representation. Any future FSLC center that chooses UAW representation
will also be covered by the same contract, which includes paid bereavement
leave, 12 weeks of unpaid personal leave after 90 days employment, up
to 6 months of unpaid medical leave per year and coverage under FMLA.
Employees may request up to 8 hours of paid leave a year for school participation
activities. Employees receive health, dental and vision insurance. Part-time
employees have 50% of the health care premium covered by the employer.
A resource and referral program, available on-site and by phone, will
be established to assist with employee dependent care issues. (UAW
International Union and Bright Horizons Children Centers, Inc.)
UNIVERSITY EMPLOYEES GET RIGHT TO GRIEVE
WORK HOURS
In a great strategic move, the Coalition of University Employees (CUE)
won the ability to grieve unreasonable denials of employee requests for
flexible working hours, shift assignments, and alternative work schedules.
The provision was originally denied during contract negotiations but was
still considered an important provision by CUE because of the inconsistent
process by which individuals were either approved or denied requests for
changes in work hours. CUE saw the opportunity to raise the issue again
when the University approached the union to include its 18,000 members
in the employee pool for negotiations with a healthcare provider. CUE
members were included in the healthcare negotiations and the union got
the ability to grieve unreasonable denials of changes in work hours. (CUE
and the University of California)
CASINO WORKERS WIN FAMILY FRIENDLY CONTRACT
The Detroit Union Casino Council’s contracts with both the MotorCity
Casino and the MGM Grand Detroit contain impressive family-friendly provisions
for a first contract. Provisions include a weekly child care subsidy of
$35 for children under 13, unpaid child rearing leave of up to 26 weeks
taken within one year of the birth or adoption and unpaid family leave
of up to 26 weeks for the death or illness of a family member. The employers
are also required to conduct a Work-Life needs assessment survey of their
employees. (Detroit Union Casino Council and MotorCity Casino &
MGM Grand Detroit)
Respite Care: Union Members Form Partnership
to Help Each Other
by Nikki Dones
As more Americans become responsible for the care of an elderly family
member, it is not unusual for full-time workers to spend 20 hours or more
a week with an elderly or disabled dependent, whether providing direct
care or finding quality care. In California, two unions have formed a
unique partnership to address this challenge.
Through Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 192’s negotiated Family
Care Plan, eligible Oakland transit workers with elderly dependents can
receive one day of respite care per year for their dependent. The respite
care provider is a member of SEIU Local 616’s Home Care Chapter.
The benefit is provided through the Family Care Plan, which is funded
by monies negotiated in 2000 to address the child and elder care issues
of ATU Local 192 members. The employer, AC Transit, contributes 3 cents
per hour for every hour worked by an ATU member into the fund that sponsors
the benefits offered under the Family Care Plan. Launched in August, the
Plan also provides a subsidy for 8 hours of back up child care when regular
care falls through, partial subsidies for summer child care programs and
an SAT college preparation course. There is also a series of workshops
for ATU members on issues such as summer job preparedness for teenagers,
choosing quality child care, dependent and elder care options in the community
and how to care for family dependents.
“We're very excited about the joint partnership Respite Care program
with ATU Local 192. The program provides extra work for our Home Care
members who rarely work a forty hour week” states Fran Jefferson,
Executive Director of SEIU Local 616. The services offered through the
Respite Care Program, include personal care, such as bathing and dressing,
preparation of meals, companionship and some light domestic work, such
as sweeping and dusting. The homecare worker will also be available to
accompany the dependent to any scheduled medical appointments or to the
grocery store.
For Oakland’s transit workers the Program is a great benefit. According
to Christine Zook, President of ATU Local 192, “We have many members
who are responsible for an elderly dependent or disabled adult. In an
industry like ours, with varying shifts, there can often be conflict around
care arrangements, picking up prescriptions, even spending time as a companion.
With 8 hours of planned care, a transit worker can feel confident that
day that his/her loved one is in the hands of a professional, union home
care worker.”
Message From the Executive Director, Netsy Firestein
Welcome to Labor Family News! As you
can see, we redesigned our newsletter and gave
it a new name. We continue to emphasize work/family
bargaining and legislative updates. We will provide
information on how unions have won these benefits
and other news related to labor and work/family
issues. We hope to distribute the newsletter to
more union locals, state labor federations, labor
councils and work/family advocates. If you have
suggestions for who should receive it, please
contact us at lpwf@berkeley.edu
or call (510) 643-7088.
In this issue of Labor Family News, we highlight an innovative program
in which two California unions collaborate to benefit their members. The
members of the bus drivers’ union, ATU Local 192 will now have access
to respite care for their elderly dependents through the Homecare Chapter
of SEIU Local 616. I love the idea of union members helping union members.
We also cover a report on how union arbitrations can be a powerful tool
to protect the rights of working families. We plan to help local unions
do trainings on this issue – contact us if you are interested.
Finally, as this new issue of Labor Family News goes to press, I will
be on a month’s paid leave awarded to me by our Board of Directors
in honor of ten years of service to the Labor Project. The extra time
off will allow me to spend time with family as well as take a long distance
walking trip and have some time for reflection. More paid time off with
family and for ourselves is something we should strive for as part of
our work/family agenda.
How to Start a Child Care Fund in Your Union
By Jenya Cassidy and Nikki Dones
How do you work with members to start to address the issue of child care
and its impact on the workplace? You may find that union members do not
see child care as a union issue. But there is a growing movement among
unions that are negotiating for help with child care needs and winning!
Here are some steps to get started toward building a union child care
fund.
1 -- Organize the membership around the issue of child care
Organize the membership to build support for this issue. If you know that
finding and paying for child care is a challenge for your members, put
it on the agenda of union meetings. Begin to establish that child care
is a union issue. Have children at events, provide child care at union
meetings, ask members share their stories and build support for a labor/management
committee to look into union members’ child care needs.
2 -- Start a Labor/Management Committee to address child care
needs
Negotiate for a labor/management committee to begin to look at the problems
and challenges that members are facing in the workplace due to child care
needs. Negotiate to get paid release time for the union representatives
on the committee. Often this is the foot in the door that is needed and
a sign that management and the union are willing to put resources toward
the issue.
3 -- Conduct a needs assessment survey to identify members’
needs
Identify the members’ real needs. Negotiate a small sum to conduct
a child care needs assessment of the members. This allows you to gather
information on what the actual needs of the membership are - such as back-up
child care, time off for sick children or after school care. You may also
identify possible causes of workplace problems such as absenteeism or
lateness. If there is no money to conduct a survey, there may be resources
in the community such as a child care referral agency or a university
labor center that can assist you.
4. – Identify no-cost resources that can be made available
to members
The committee can identify no-cost resources such as inviting the local
Resource and Referral agency to make a presentation to members about local
child care options. This is one way of bringing the issue out into the
open and identifying members who are interested in the issue
5– Use the data from the needs assessment survey in negotiating
the next contract
The information from the survey helps you to target what to demand in
negotiations. If your membership has mostly school age children, your
demands may focus on funds for after school programs. Be ready to back
up what you are asking for with the data from the survey. Prepare the
membership to back up the bargaining team.
6– Look for a fund that is under-utilized and see if it
can be diverted
See if you can tap into a negotiated fund that is under-utilized. A good
example of this is HERE Local 2 in San Francisco’s Child & Elder
Care Fund. The union had a legal fund that was under-utilized by members.
For every hour a Local 2 member worked 5 cents was put into the fund by
the employer. The union negotiated that the 5 cents would be diverted
into a child and elder care fund beginning in 1994. Now the money has
increased and Local 2 members receive a subsidy for child care and elder
care costs.
7– Build a support network with other unions
Find out what other unions have negotiated or are working towards.
See if there are ways you can cooperate and support each other’s
efforts. Develop a consortium with other unions to pool resources for
more child care in the community. (Call the Labor Project for examples).
Be sure to publicize your successes and share your stories with other
unions. The more of us who win these benefits, the better for everyone!
For more information, call us at (510) 643-7088 or lpwf@berkeley.edu
New Report on Union Arbitrations and Family
Caregiving
By Joan Williams and Danielle Hayot, Program on Gender, Work & Family,
American University Law School
Thomas Fell had been an auto parts employee at a car dealership for
5 years and active in union organizing. In February 1998, Mr. Fell received
a call from his son asking to pick him up at school. The boy was afraid
of being left alone because gunfire had shattered several windows at
the school the week before. Mr. Fell left work 15 minutes early to pick
up his son. When he called his supervisor that evening, he was told
not to worry, that “family is number one.” The following
day, Mr. Fell was fired.
Both men and women face difficult challenges in taking care of their
families in a work environment that is often insensitive to family caregiving
issues. A “family-hostile environment” makes parents vulnerable
in ways that interfere both with organizing efforts and the rights of
union members. Some union contracts have specific language that allows
workers to reconcile their work and family responsibilities. Most, however,
do not. They are forced to rely on more general contract language such
as the common requirement of "just cause" for discipline and
discharge. In such cases, the parties often are unable to agree on whether
employer requirements that conflict with caregiving responsibilities
violate the contract and they call upon an arbitrator to resolve their
dispute.
The good news is that the outcome of the arbitration is in many ways
dependent on factors which employees and unions can control. The Program
on Gender, Work & Family at American University Law School has a
new report advising workers and unions on how to successfully manage
such grievances. For example, the grievant’s success depends in
part on how the arbitrator interprets the just-cause provisions of the
collective bargaining agreement. Without contract language specifically
defining just-cause, arbitrators are often left to apply their own interpretations.
However, employees and unions can play a large part in ensuring that
fairness does in fact prevail by communicating the circumstances of
the worker’s conflict as it is taking place. The union steward
is often the first person to learn of a grievance and relay it to the
employer. He or she has the power to bring to light mitigating factors
that may have influenced the grievant’s behavior or that otherwise
would weaken a showing of just-cause.
Thomas Fell lost his case in arbitration, in part because he failed
to effectively communicate to the manager on-duty why he had to leave
work early. This report seeks to pinpoint why workers like Fell have
lost in arbitration as well as those strategies used by grievants who
have managed to win in arbitration. For more information or for a copy
of the report, please contact the Program on Gender, Work & Family
at workfamily@wcl.american.edu.
Unemployment Discriminates Against Women and
Families
By Jenya Cassidy
A new survey reveals the failure of state unemployment insurance programs
to meet the needs of American women and their families. According to
the report, conducted by The National Employment Law Project (NELP)
and the Program on Gender, Work & Family at American University
College of Law, men are more likely than women to receive unemployment
insurance benefits in 41 states. As the authors explain, unemployment
insurance usually relies on the out-dated notion of the “male
breadwinner” even in a time when 60 % of women work outside of
the home and, for many households, a female is the only breadwinner.
“States have failed to build unemployment systems that accommodate
the needs of women and families,” said Rebecca Smith, staff attorney
for NELP and co-author of the report. “Even though women now work
to a greater extent than ever before, they receive unemployment benefits
at a considerably lower rate than men. States need to include women
and fix their unemployment systems by giving compensation to women who
have to leave work due to family and other circumstances. According
to the survey:
*30 states lack adequate provisions that recognize family reasons as
“good cause” to leave a job.
*43 states do not pay UI benefits to part-time workers under the same
rules as full time workers.
*Only 13 states have specific provisions that allow a woman to quit
her job because of sexual or other personal harassment and receive UI
benefits.
*Only a handful of states allow women who quit their jobs due to domestic
violence to qualify for UI and even less provide extra UI benefits for
dependents of the unemployed.
In order to change the UI system to serve the needs of today’s
workforce, the report makes the following recommendations:
- States should enact statutes allowing that it is “good cause” to leave a job due to child care conflicts, care-giving responsibilities, illness, sexual harassment or domestic violence.
- States should provide dependents’ benefits, benefits for part-time workers and enacting temporary disability programs
- States should repeal provisions that disqualify individuals who terminate employment to accompany a spouse to a new location or to marry.
- States should enact statutes that provide that it is good cause to leave a job when child care is unavailable.
- States should include an exception from disqualification if the separation from employment is due to temporary illness of the worker or of a family member.
- States should enact broad domestic violence UI laws, covering a range of issues of violence against women in the workplace.
“Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Confronting the Failure of
State Unemployment Insurance Systems to Serve Women and Working Families”
is available online at the National Employment Law Project’s website
at http://www.nelp.org.
Labor Family News is published quarterly by:
Labor Project for Working Families
2521 Channing Way #5555
Berkeley, CA 94720
Ph: 510-643-7088
Fax: 510-642-6432
lpwf@berkeley.edu
www.working-families.org
Netsy Firestein
Editor
Jenya Cassidy
Managing Editor
Reprints Permitted With Acknowledgement. Call
us for an email version.
