Negotiation Session 9-20-02

General Provisions:

First four bullets approved as is. On Webpage posting, discussion took place. Ron stated that EPortal is no easy to go to for the employees (navigation).

Art replied that there is a meeting on that and they are meeting this week to approve some better software.

Copying discussion. If management has access to copiers than the union will also have access. The agency will provide copier support during preparation and negotiation session.

All agreed to remove some of the bullets from the proposal in the General Provisions section. Two items were parked for further discussion.

• Should further negotiations or third-party proceedings (such as assistance by the Federal Services Impasses Panel or mediation) be required, official/preparation time, travel and per diem will be paid by the agency for the Council representatives.
• Existing conditions of employment shall be maintained until completion and ratification of negotiations. There shall be no initiation of changes or bargaining outside of the negotiations of the Collective Bargaining Agreement.

Ratification discussion: Agency head review is a legal review and is by law. The ratification process is a requirement from the AFGE National Constitution. What we are doing in this body is considered amendments to the collective bargaining agreement per AFGE National General Council. How would an example of a reorganization in RM be considered an amendment? Management is trying to get an understanding of this process for this group. We have never had to do or work with this process.

Would it be possible to do something to address the I&I issues that are brought to this group. Do you have the ability to create a process to get meet this requirement?

Kelley is willing to go back and talk to AFGE National about the I&I issues. Is there no way to overcome this in the time we have left? It would be reasonable if ratification applied to the collective bargaining agreement but not on I&I issues.

Since we don’t have completed ground rules what do we have? Recommendation to keep what we have worked on this week with the knowledge that there are things that still need addressed.

Went back to parked items. Agreed to date of January 31, 03 with ability to extend. In accordance with the statute or collective bargaining agreement official time will be granted for third party proceedings.

Next session: Let the co-chairs take care of setting the dates. If we return only for the agenda items from this session, we will not need preparation time. If we have additional issues we will probably need to have some preparation time.

The Agency will probably go ahead and implement the Pay Guide for non-bargaining unit employees. Kelley will finish the proposal and get it to Darryl. The Union was fully prepared to negotiate to implementation when we came here this week. Darryl wants to know if we would be willing to do post-implementation bargaining.