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NFFE 1450
News
Sacramento Grievance Settled10/7/2008
A summary from Sacramento staff on this story follows.
...after months of negotiating with management regarding new space at 650 Capitol Mall, the move in day, March 23, 2007, was upon us.
When we walked into the office, each of us was floored to find our furniture, which was moved from the former space at 925 L Street, had not been cleaned by the contractor, as promised, and, worse, the glass “privacy panels”
that ringed our cubicles were clear. Not “translucent,” which was the term used in our March 24, 2006 MOU management, but plain, uncolored, clear glass.
After passing on the outrage of the Bargaining Unit (BU) to the Union, we were advised and decided to pursue a group grievance of the issues. On March 30, Sacramento Steward Robin Thompson drafted her very first grievance. Step one was signed by all but one BU member on April 4, and delivered to FOD Cynthia Abbott on April 5.
The grievance went through all three steps, and at each level Management went to even more obscure dictionaries trying to find citations that would define “translucent” to mean “clear.” It was truly pathetic. In her response to Step 3, Supervisory Operations Officer Nancy Flores even stated that Management had “clearly communicated their intent to allow privacy only to seated height…” This intent was not presented in either the MOU or Steps 1 and 2 management responses.
Sacramento staff took the issue to the NFFE 1450 General Membership, who voted unanimously to go to Arbitration, and the invocation was sent to Mr. Rainey July 26, 2007.
On July 30, Human Resource Specialist Marcia Dontje emailed Management’s interest in discussing a settlement to NFFE 1450 Vice President (now President)Ricardo Miranda. The month of August started with lots of samples and proposed applications to the windows, but suddenly in mid-August, everything seemed to stall, and it was clear that Administrative Officer John Stoll and Ms. Abbott were dragging their heels on the remedy.
In a September 6 conference call with Management, Steward Robin Thompson voiced her dismay at the lack of response on the part of management. Regional Administrator Richard Rainey agreed that the panels did not afford the privacy that was promised in the MOU. After the conference, Mr. Rainey’s office contacted Robin to arrange a meeting. Mr. Rainey met with her in the Sacramento office on September 20, 2008. He gave his assurance that the issues would be remedied immediately. The new panels were installed on October 7.
NFFE 1450 Congratulates all Sacramento staff for their persistence and holding true to the intent of the MOU.
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Last modified: 3/20/2010
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