Back to Tidbits   Local 12 Weekly Update The names identified are Local 12 Representatives who volunteer to represent you, Local 12 Bargaining Unit employees, in these issues. They are the foundation of this Union! Want to get involved? Please contact the Union Office, 476-4334.   Bargaining A New Way of Doing Business: Last week I sent the membership three issues of notification asking for your input. This got me to thinking…. Under the old contract, we would have clarifying discussions with the employer in order to ascertain whether or not an issue was something we would be interested in bargaining. Why tie up resources (theirs and ours) if there was no need. Right? These discussions were, in theory, a great idea. However, sometimes reps would actually engage in bargaining during a fact-finding discussion, which would in turn lead to its own set of problems. And the scheduling of discussions was a nightmare. Instead of conserving resources, we were expending twice what we might have if all we did was bargain every notice! The new contract eliminated the clarifying discussion in favor of regular meetings between reps and their department management. The thinking was that in most instances, management will discuss with our reps ideas, plans, and directions before these issues evolve to the notice stage. This gives the union plenty of time to decide the need to bargain. Best of all, in some cases, the need to bargain may not be necessary if, in their regular meetings, reps are part of the pre-planning process, and are able to provide input from the employee perspective all along. This new way of doing business is more collaborative and will likely be more efficient; however, there are many issues affecting employees that won’t get discussed in department meetings, but will come to us as a notice. I’m thinking the best way to handle these issues is to continue to forward notices to the membership in order for you to provide input and proposals – a sort of giant rep system, if you will. The feedback I received from the three notices I sent last week was great stuff. From this feedback I was able to fashion the proposals as attachments to our electronic request to bargain. One of the issues I sent out, that of the movement of the Building 460 smoke shack, did not make the 10-day bargaining request deadline. I had asked for feedback by the close of business on Friday, and received only one e-mail regarding the smoke shack movement with some excellent feedback a few days after this. I knew we were late, but the feedback was so good, I submitted it for bargaining anyway. And the employer, although unwilling to bargain past the deadline, is still considering the suggestion. When I send these notices out, if you’ve got some good stuff, keep your eye on the date I include as a deadline for your response. Other Changes in Award Money Distribution Coming: Contributed by Bob Wilson  Local 12 recently participated in the monthly meeting of the Labor Management Partnership Council. At this meeting it was announced that a revised distribution of award money is being put into place and as a result performance appraisal ratings will become more significant. The Employer has decided to take the pot of money that was allocated for “End of Year” awards in which everyone participated to one degree or another, and split it in half. Half of the pot will be used for the special awards (e.g. Sustained Superior Achievement, Special Act, etc.), and the other half will be used to fund awards based on performance appraisals. There has been additional funding added to the pot, but no dollar amounts were released. There will be no across the board “End of Year” award this year. What does this mean to you? It means that you should collect any supporting evidence demonstrating how you have excelled in meeting the conditions of your performance appraisal. It would be advantageous to bring this information to the attention of your supervisor at the time that you have your annual performance rating so that you get the fullest consideration for any award money that your department has available.  You should review the Shipyard instruction on the Performance Appraisal Program. This instruction can be found at https://syinfo.psns.navy.mil/misc/P12430(5).pdf. Refresh your understanding of your performance standard and review the elements in it. Ask yourself how you have met each one, and make yourself a list of what your successes were so that you are prepared to discuss your annual rating with documentation and facts. Not everyone is going to get a money award this year. Those with the highest performance appraisal ratings and those that are assessed as being top performers will get the monetary awards. The shipyard is reviewing each department’s award plan. This is to assure consistency in the award process prior to the department receiving the budget funding. The performance appraisal process should be completed by June 30, 2005. If you do not hear from your supervisor in a reasonable amount of time regarding your rating, you should consider asking about it. Local 12 has not been officially notified of this change in policy, and consequently has not been provided the details of how this is going to actually be implemented. As additional information becomes available, information updates will be passed along. Local 12 Office Staff : Bob Steinmetz, President 479-2463 Elaine Wrightson, Office Manager 476-4334 Katy McKinney, Chief Rep 476-4862 Have a travel question or issue? Contact Travel POC’s: Bob Wilson, or Justin Bedford Have an Employee Services suggestion? Contact ESC POC, Wes Weston Back to Tidbits