August 2, 2010
Supervisory Update: August 2, 2010
The month of July ended with numerous interesting events. Although, considering the nature of those events, interesting may not be the proper word.
Gov. Schwarzenegger tried to implement minimum wage for state employees and initially appeared to be successful, only to have the courts put the entire deal on hold once again. Which, of course, lead to the eventual re-implementation of furloughs for all but the six bargaining units that currently have tentative agreements pending.
Speaking of tentative agreements, the state expressed a desire to bring the largest badge unit (Unit Six) in with a deal of their own. As recently agreed to by the Board of Directors, CCPOA attempted to explore the possibility of doing just that.
The state didn’t take long to pass yet another Draconian proposal, while rejecting a CCPOA proposal that would have saved the state in excess of $150 million. The savings from the CCPOA proposal would have more than doubled the amount obtained from the other six bargaining units combined (approximately 34,000 members -- basically the same total membership of Unit Six).
The following excerpts from The Sacramento Bee State Worker blog says it all and then some. (Bold emphasis added):
“Negotiations never even got under way,” said DPA spokeswoman Lynelle Jolley.
CCPOA says it has been bargaining since July 13, according to this union press release. “CCPOA negotiators were informed by DPA officials that their proposal was “dead on arrival” and the governor has declined to entertain any further discussions with CCPOA,” the union's release says.
Jolley said that the two parties had “private talks” and that the union was proposing a return to terms of its old contract. “There was no way that was going to happen,” she said.
“Still, we're always ready to return to the bargaining table,” Jolley said.
Included on the side in the CCPOA proposal was the addition of SO6 members in the same pay differentials -- regarding Educational Incentive and Senior Peace Officer Pay -- as rank and file at the same percentages.
As you should be aware by now, CCPOA is in the process of re-tooling the Communications Division. The hiring of JeVaughn Baker as Press Secretary was, in my opinion, a great move. Baker is a highly motivated and intelligent individual. I know he is up to the task at hand. Being proactive with information is a much-needed change.
The employees of the Communications Division have their work cut out for them, competing with various informational sources, rumors, innuendos and, at times, straight out misinformation. In fact, last month a major news publication reported that in the year 2000, there were 20,000 blogs on the World Wide Web. That number has since soared to over 130 million blogs today.
On the subject of information, I received an email over the weekend that contained what I believe to be an exceptional idea. The member suggested we hold quarterly supervisory meetings. I think this idea has a lot of promise -- a roundtable forum to discuss supervisory issues both local and statewide; a think tank of information-sharing, if you will.
However, this idea will only work with member participation. So I ask you all, would you be willing to participate? I could set up an initial trial meeting at CCPOA headquarters (it seems the governor just freed-up a few Fridays for me). I would certainly appreciate any feedback from the members on this idea.
On the negotiations front, CCPOA has requested a notice from DPA to meet and confer over the implementation of the new use-of-force policy. As of this writing, we have not received a response to our request.
Keep checking the CCPOA website. As more information becomes available, I will post it here.
