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December 18, 2018

Topics


Monthly Meeting

Due to the holidays and everyone's jammed schedules, there will be no TEA Monthly Meeting on 12/19/2018. Enjoy your time with friends and family. Reflect on all of our accomplishments in 2018, and we will start 2019 renewed and energized to affirm and advance TEA's 2019 goals.


Call for Leave Donation

Mary Natwick, WW Administrative Staff, will be away from work for an extended period and facing a serious medical condition. She could very much use donated leaves during this time.


WW Bargaining Update

Now that WW Staff and WW Supervisors have ratified their contract, the following typical steps need to occur on the County's side, to have the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) implemented:

  1. Office of Labor Relations (OLR) prepares Transmittal Documents, Fiscal Note and Legislations and routes to Human Resources Department/Prosecutors Office for legal review;


  2. OLR signs the contract and routes to the Executive. The Executive has 45 days to review, but we may see some time savings here. Executive routes to Council. This should occur sometime in January.


  3. The CBA is received by the Clerk of the Council, a Council Sponsor is found (probably the Regional Water Quality Committee Chair);


  4. The CBA gets first reading before Council and referral for Council Action;


  5. Staff develops a Staff report on the legislation and could recommend "do pass" expediting on the Consent Calendar.


  6. The CBA package is voted on by King County Council;


  7. CBA is sent to Executive's Clerk for Dow's signature;


  8. The CBA becomes effective 10 days after signature.


  9. Wastewater HR determines a Prospective pay period on which to calculate back pay and initiate new pay ranges and General Wage Increases (formerly COLA).

Due to the County's process, TEA is anticipating that the implementation of the CBA could stretch into March, 2019, most likely.

There are some opportunities along the way to expedite and the Office of Labor Relations has assured me that they will to try to assist in that regard.

Alton Gaskill
TEA President

The TEA Board will initiate a Pre-Bargaining Team in January, as well as seek membership input into what are important CBA issues for discussion.


Transit Bargaining Update

TEA Transit will be scheduling a meeting in January to discuss the contract bargaining objectives with members.

President's message

Last week I called Bob Railton, Labor Relations Manager, for OLR, to personally thank him, and see how we, TEA and County, could work better together in contract negotiations. Bob was the 3rd negotiator on the TEA WW CBA. He has been a negotiator for 34 years with King County. Bob is a wealth of information regarding the labor landscape and County labor processes. He has a keen eye for both the strategic and tactical application of County policies and County's vision for labor relations moving forward. When asked what makes a good negotiation, Bob stated the following are key factors in good relations and reaching a good agreement:

  1. Respect the schedule, make yourself available to meet, and keep meeting dates when possible. Be on time;


  2. Responsiveness to requests for information;


  3. Be as prepared as possible for negotiation meetings;


  4. Give others the respect and consideration that you would want them to give you.

Seems pretty basic, right? Yet it can be very difficult to get all of the necessary parties together given everyone's schedule. And it can be very disappointing if there are last minute cancellations, parties are unprepared, lack information to bargain the issues, individuals that do not show up, or are late, for meetings. These factors can applied on both sides of the table of course, but the fact is, individual respect, personal accountability, and timeliness are critical to creating the good will necessary to promote favorable outcomes to TEA's members.

Alton Gaskill
TEA President


TEA Board

Alton Gaskill, President
Michael Sands, Vice President
JR Meksavanh, Secretary
Sally Turner, Treasurer
Roger Browne, Wastewater Bargaining Chair
Jerry Williams, Transit Bargaining Chair
Ken Madden, Council of Representatives Chair