Photo Pixabay
It’s been a while since our last newsletter – we’ve got a bunch of updates: management spying on workers, bad faith bargaining, your COVID leave, a letter from your co-worker, and our Berkeley REI union siblings:
City Management’s Attempt to Spy on You Fizzles
A deeply disturbing, anti-worker City Management proposal surfaced late last week. It would have allowed management to use security cameras maintained by the Berkeley Police Department and Public Works across the City to spy on you at work and document your “misconduct.” Your co-workers organized and spoke out against the measure last night leading the Council to remove employees from the policy entirely.
The City already has cameras at the Transfer Station and certain other intersections. It is planning to install a range of new cameras at the Corporation Yard, the Marina, more intersections, and possibly other City buildings where you work. Managers across the country see worker surveillance as the latest and greatest innovation in capitalist oppression. Naturally the City is inspired by their buddies in the private sector where such tools are being developed and deployed.
In a comical ‘hot microphone’ moment during last night’s meeting, the Deputy City Manager, (who just received a 5% raise while our workers are set to get a paltry 1%), scoffed out loud at the idea that a labor union would object to surveillance of workers. City Management was so flustered that the Mayor had to intervene to restore order and mute their line. While comical, the episode was also sobering and spotlights the contempt City Management has for workers, and the urgency of building worker power.
The surveillance proposal as written clearly constituted a change in working conditions and discipline, and under labor law the City Manager needed to meet and confer with workers before bringing it to Council. Nevertheless, the City Manager rushed the proposal through the legislative process, and when caught, denied that it was aimed at workers.
Fortunately the Council listened and delayed the worker surveillance proposal indefinitely. Please speak out to your co-workers and your union if you encounter surveillance in the workplace!
Management Announces Plan to End All COVID Leave on June 30 in Bad Faith
On Monday your chapter officers received an email from the HR Director (see below) that the City Manager is unilaterally ending all COVID Leave on June 30. The email also includes a memorandum containing important information about changes in City COVID policy that was only shared with managers (not workers) back in February.
Are you OK with the City rescinding all COVID leave? What will you do if you catch COVID for the first time or yet again? What if you are a new employee without any accrued leave?
Good afternoon, all,
I writing [sic] to let you know that the City is extending COVID sick leave one final time through June 30, 2023, at which time it will fully sunset. Please recall that the extension only applies to employees who already have COVID leave balances in their illness banks, which they can use if they test positive for COVID in order to remain in paid status during their days of absence.
Attached please find the formal extension articulated in Section 5 of the COVID-19 Manager/Supervisor Response Packet. In case of any questions, kindly reach out to Employee Relations Manager Dawud Brewer at dbrewer@cityofberkeley.info.
Best,
Aram Kouyoumdjian | Director of Human Resources
This follows the City Manager’s unilateral decision in February (again without meeting and conferring) to suspend the policies of providing COVID leave to new employees during an ongoing pandemic, and requiring masks in City buildings.
Following objection by our Chapter to the City’s failure to follow labor law, City Management reluctantly held a single meet and confer on the impacts of the mask and vaccine mandate decision on March 24, and subsequently the union provided management with a list of proposals regarding COVID leave, telework, ventilation, and masks on April 7, 2023. Both the Employee Relations Manager and Deputy City Manager were in attendance. According to the Employee Relations Manager, this proposal has been sitting on the City Manager’s desk and it appears has not been shared with Council.
After your union sent two letters and spoke at the City Council about our bargaining proposals, the Deputy City Manager responded via email to the union: “[City Management] is completing [an] internal review this week. It should be finalized and sent back to your team shortly.” That was more than two weeks ago.
As you can see, City Management’s approach does not prioritize worker safety and health, continues to violate labor law, and arguably constitutes bad faith bargaining.
Read on to hear directly from a union member who got COVID and then had their COVID leave completely stripped from them. They were ultimately able to get it restored through solidarity and the union grievance process, but this is a preview of what is to come for all of us unless we organize.
Letter from a Union Member Stripped of their COVID Leave by Management, and Restored Through Solidarity
A letter from your co-worker:
I experienced some bumps when I went from working part-time to obtaining a full-time position with the City of Berkeley, but they turned out well thanks to solidarity and our union. I feel glad to share this process because it caused me to feel hopeful, as I hope it will for you. May hope breed greater hope.
After a few months of part-time employment with the City of Berkeley, I was glad to go full-time, especially coming out of the pandemic. That felt like a relief. However, just after that happened, I tested positive for COVID for the first time. “Jeez. So it goes,” I thought. After a week home sick from work, I had done all the necessary reporting to qualify for the COVID Leave I’d been told I still had in my bank. But then, the day I returned, I found out otherwise — there had been an administrative mistake, and it now appeared I had no COVID Leave at all. But why?
I was pretty upset, to say the least, especially given I had no accrued sick leave to speak of to pull from. I was a brand new full-time employee, so unless the leave from my bank when I was part-time carried over, what was left? So, I asked some questions with our union and the team in my own office, and had it not been for all of them, it’s not likely we would have gained the outcome that we did. Working together and remaining open through the grievance process, I took things back to HR through our new director, who was also open. We were able to arrange some productive meetings to explore what had happened, and because our HR department also remained open, they were willing to pursue what seemed right to do — what would be best for workers, all things considered.
Through our process, we discovered that part-time and temporary employees who obtained full-time or career positions were being treated as though they were severed from the City and re-hired in their transition. Because of that, their benefits accrued while part-time or temporary were not being carried over into their new bank as full-time or career. So this was actually a broader problem than if it were just happening to me with only COVID Leave. Because of that, I am grateful to report that in the end, our collaborative and united process resulted in the City of Berkeley HR ensuring that any benefits (including COVID Leave) accrued by part-time or temporary employees who subsequently obtain full-time or career positions with the City are now carried over into their new bank retroactively for any employees who were promoted back to one full calendar year. This is a big win for many.
Even so, I realize this is one small win in a whole field of others still hoped for. But it is one borne of true collaboration across departments through conversation and solidarity among workers — the stuff of true collegiality and mutual concern. It’s the quality of the process as much of the outcome that makes me hopeful for other processes still underway, as with the revocation of telework, masking, vaccine and related COVID-related issues that have sunset or remain precarious. But I have every hope that, in light of my own process with my colleagues, that the door will remain open with that array of issues, too. They are important and deserve attention — the same kind of patient attention my own questions got. So I write with hope that they will still gain what they deserve.
Update, Petition, and Invitation to 5/27 Rally @ Cedar Rose Park from our Union Siblings at the Berkeley REI Store (UFCW 5)
Your union siblings in United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 5 at REI organized a union last year. Below is their ask for solidarity from labor siblings, neighbors and community members. Please sign the petition and consider attending the rally on Saturday:
I am reaching out to you today about what’s been happening with the workers at REI in Berkeley.
Here is an overview of what has been going on:
Last fall workers at the Berkeley REI voted to unionize. Since then the company has:
- Fired workers who were active during the Organizing campaign
- Taken away “Summit Pay” (yearly bonus) from the two stores (at the time) that had Unionized, but issued the bonus to all other stores
- Have been practicing bad faith bargaining proposing more takeaways than improvements
We have since filed numerous unfair labor practice charges against the company for these actions, but as I am sure you are aware the NLRB is extremely understaffed, and having these charges resolved could take an extended amount of time. The intent of the sign on letter is to add pressure from the community and its elected officials, to push REI to bargain in good faith, and do right by their workers, something REI claims as one of their values.
Also, attached is a petition of support we have been circulating asking REI to bring back the Summit Pay Bonus they took away from the Unionized Berkeley location, it has reached over 1200 signatures. It also includes information on a Community event we are holding on 5/27/23 at 1pm. It will be held at Cedar Rose Park. The plan is to walk the sign on letter and hand deliver them to management after the event.
It would be an amazing sign of support for the workers at REI, if you could sign the petition and attend the event this Saturday