The Challenges of Negotiating Changes in Classification Specifications in Alameda County I. Union a. Always concerned with a change in working conditions b. Employer vs. employee relations 1. wages 2. hours 3. duties and responsibilities II. Must have a genuine desire to reach agreement a. Must meet and confer promptly upon either party's request b. Parties may not use delaying tactics c. Only the Agency's governing body can make binding agreement on Agency's behalf III. Employer must provide the exclusive representative with notice of decision sufficiently before the implementation date to allow for meaningful negotiations prior to implementation a. Timely response from Union b. Alameda County's Charter allows for a last, best and final offer and then implementation - we do not have binding arbitration.
The Challenges of Negotiating Changes in Classification Specifications in Alameda County Denise Fetty, Personnel Analyst In Alameda County, I have experienced many challenges when creating new classifications, or making changes to existing classifications. The first challenge deals with the issues and parameters of the Union involved. The second challenge deals with the issues that the Department, or Agency involved has. The third and most important challenge deals with the meet and confer process with the Union and reaching agreement. The Unions parameters are always important to consider when making changes to class specifications. This would include changes in wages, hours, working conditions, and changes in the duties and responsibilities assigned to the classification. For the most part, any time you make changes to any of the above items, the Unions will always want to meet. In Alameda County, I have found that if you work closely with the Unions and Department or Agency Personnel Staff, from the beginning of the process, the meet and confer sessions run smoothly although not necessarily do we always reach agreement. At the CALPELRA Academy III, we had a negotiations simulation in which we were to meet and confer with the Union on; the restructuring of four positions into two, and the wages, benefits, and differentials for the new restructured classifications. This brought to mind a similar situation in Alameda County in which an the Social Services Agency wished to restructure classes into two separate classifications with three levels in each of the two class series. These classifications were and still are located in the Employment section of the Agency. I studied all of the positions and found that in fact, they were all performing similar duties and had the same levels of responsibility, however, the pay for each of the classes was substantially different. I brought this to the attention of the Agency (who agreed with my analysis) and we began to work on creating draft specifications to accurately describe what duties and responsibilities were assigned to the positions. Unfortunately, the specifications were never routed to the Union because when we (Agency Personnel and County Personnel) calculated what the cost of reallocating the positions would be and gave it to the Director, the study was put on hold. To this day, they have not moved forward with the implementation of the new classifications. I think that the lesson I learned in this situation is to have all of the individuals involved at the beginning of
the process of the creation of, or revision of new/existing class specifications so that there are no surprises in the end. As I stated before, involving the Union at the start of the process makes the meet and confer session(s) run more smoothly, as well as involving the Department and/or Agency (to at least explain the process and the Negotiating Change Page 2 potential cost) saves a lot of time if the determination is made that it would not be cost-effective or beneficial to the employees to implement the changes. Another challenging situation that was brought to mind was with another class series in the Social Services Agency. The Social Services Agency personnel and myself embarked on making changes to the duties and responsibilities of the existing Eligibility Technician I, II and III class specifications. We spent hours drafting the changes and notified the Union in plenty of time to meet and confer before we placed it on the Civil Service Agenda for implementation. The Union representative involved used delay tactics over a period of three months (See attached letters). She would show up late and ask to caucus or not show up at all. At other meetings, she would bring a different employees than those from the original meeting and that we would have to spend hours getting the individual(s) on the "same page" and "up to speed". Finally, when we did go forward with the changes to the Civil Service Commission without an agreement, they ordered us to meeting again and work out our differences. In the meantime, I had written a letter to her boss to explain her behavior (see attachment 1) in each of the meetings, and she was soon thereafter separated from her employment. The Social Services Agency and myself then re-routed the revisions to the new union representative who wished to meet and confer on the revisions. After several meetings, it was clear that we were not going to reach agreement. The two problems that arose were a) the Agency had several vacancies that they needed to fill immediately and b) the Union did not like our proposed language on the revised draft specs. The Social Services Agency, County Personnel, and the Union then agreed to mutually withdraw from the process and continue with the existing specs to enable the exams to be opened. At the same time it was agreed that, at some future date, the Union would be involved with making revisions to the class specifications. This eventually did occur (with the Union being involved from the beginning) and the changes made to the language and duties and responsibilities assigned to the position were made. The lesson that I learned from this experience was that perhaps if we (the Agency and myself) had involved this particular Union representative from the beginning of the process, before we made any changes to the existing class
specifications, things might have gone better as we would have had their input and parameters prior to meet and confer. The second challenge involved in making changes to existing class specs or creating new class specs are the issues that the Department or Agency has which may or may not agree with the Unions' issues. This would include: a) where the positions are located b) what duties and responsibilities are assigned to the positions c) who supervises the positions d) changes in duties and Negotiating Change Page 3 responsibilities and e) the salary assigned to, or requested for the position. When looking at making changes to existing class specifications, one must look at where the positions are located within the Agency, the organizational structure of the Agency/Department and whether or not it would affect other classifications in other Agencies. For example, upgrading a Secretary I to a Secretary II, who reports to a Division Director who already has a Secretary II reporting to him/her, and no other Division Director in the Agency has two Secretary II's, setting a costly precedence. After determining where the position is located you have to review the classification questionnaire, interview the incumbent(s) and supervisor(s) to determine what duties and responsibilities are assigned to the position, look at the organizational structure, and study the class history files. If the determination is made to upgrade the position, it is upgraded in the system and the incumbent is notified. If the determination is made that there is no current existing classification to reallocate the position to, then a classification and compensation study must be done. A classification and compensation study consists of a) a survey of other jurisdictions to identify comparable classifications b) obtaining class specifications of the comparable classifications and their salary information. It also involves studying other individuals in similar classifications. After obtaining all of this information draft specs are created and routed to the Union. If the union does not wish to meet and confer, the specification is placed on the Civil Service Agenda for approval. Once the class specification has been approved, the salary is then routed to the union in the form of a salary recommendation. The entire process can be quite time consuming, however, very beneficial in presenting "your case" to the union, Department or Civil Service Commission in "buying in" on your new classification and salary. The salary recommendation includes: the key classification; salary survey findings; internal relationships; organizational charts; number of affected
positions and the annual cost of allocating the positions. This is also routed to the union subject to the meet and confer process. In a recent classification study that I conducted, and a most challenging one at that, the incumbent (along with her attorney) claimed that she was performing duties and responsibilities at the same level as a "higher level" classification in the same Department. Not only did the supervisor agree, (as he was assigning the same level of work to all of the individuals in the two different classifications) but all of the other individuals working in the higher-level classification also agreed. This classification study then ran into a problem...all of the upper-level managers from both Agencies disagreed, and were shocked to find out that there was no differences in the assignment of the Negotiating Change Page 4 work to the two different levels of job classifications. In addition, the positions were all being transferred into another Agency who was not prepared to incur the additional cost of reallocating the incumbent to the higherlevel ($10,000 annually). Furthermore, the Agency now has two other individuals at the lower-level being assigned the higher-level work. I conducted a salary and classification survey and the final determination was that the one individual who had filed for a reclassification, before the transfer, was granted an upgrade. The other two individuals, I understand are currently filling out the classification questionnaires to determine if their positions should be upgraded to the higher-level as well. As I stated before, it is quite helpful to have the Agency/Department involved in the beginning the process so that it moves along a lot faster. Unfortunately, the above scenario went on for several months as the different levels of managers were all on "different pages" and they really were unaware of what was actually happening at the first line supervisorial level. It has been further determined that the current stance of the Agency is to continue using these two classifications interchangeably. The last and final challenge of a classification study and recommendation is the meet and confer process. Once the process to create a new classification and/or revise a class specification is complete, a recommendation is made, and it is routed to the Union with a deadline to respond for meet and confer. If the Union does respond, a meeting is set up to discuss the issues. As with the simulation at the Academy, discussions, disagreements, agreements, settlements and/or impasse can occur. Over the last several years that I have been creating classifications, or making changes to existing classifications, I have only had a few occasions with Union
representatives where I have not been successful in coming to an agreement. In order to be successful at the meet and confer process, the following should occur. First, the Unions must be provided with sufficient notice of an action before the implementation date to allow for meaningful negotiations prior to implementation. This includes the notification that the class specification is going to the Civil Service Commission as well as the notification to the union that the salary recommendation is going to the Board of Supervisors. Second, all parties involved should have a genuine desire to reach agreement. This includes meeting promptly at either parties' request, not using delay tactics, not making "deals", and remembering that only the Agency's governing body can make binding agreement on the Agency's behalf. The third and final item for a successful meet and confer, is to have a good rapport with the Agency/Department Heads and their Human Resource Departmental Personnel as well as good rapport with the Union representative(s) involved. This enables open and honest communication and offers less chance of negative negotiations. Negotiating changes to existing classifications or creating Negotiating Change Page 5 new classifications in Alameda County has been a challenge. It involves dealing with the issues of the Union, the issues of the Agency or Department involved and the issues of the affected employees. It also is very challenging when the meet and confer process involves Union representatives who do not like change or refuse to believe that there is a need for change. Further, they do not believe that there is a budget crisis and that we have to do more work with less staff and less money. I also feel that although negotiating changes to existing classifications or creating new classifications and conducting salary surveys can be challenging, it can also be a lot of fun. The more often one negotiates at the table with the union the better one can negotiate during the meet and confer process. Although I have not actually participated in contract negotiations, I feel confident that my past experience with the creation of new classification specifications, revisions of existing classifications, salary surveys, the meet and confer process and the simulation at the CALPELRA Academy III, will make me successful when I do.
Attachments Denise E. Fetty 100-14th Street, Oakland, CA 94612 (510) 272-6468