DIVISION 399 ISSUES
5/28/08
Since our update of
May 1, 2008 regarding the lack of Security at the Glendale Facility, we have
continued to approach this issue at different levels to replace the appropriate
Security in place so that our members feel safe while they are at work.
Since the letter
went out to Senator Libous and Assembly Woman Donna Lupardo, SIF, OTDA and DOL
have put this on their State Wide Agency H&S Agendas. PEF has established a
local coalition with CSEA and all of the employees at OTDA, SIF, DOL and DMV are
all working with one goal in mind -
MAKE SURE OUR
GLENDALE EMPLOYEES FEEL SAFE AT WORK !!!!
I do know that OTDA,
DOL and SIF management have met to discuss this issue and I am told they are
moving forward. I personally will not rest until we have restored the
appropriate security at Glendale.
I want to thank the
1,200 plus employees for the "Security is a Priority"
Mobilization day that took place today, May 28, 2008. This is a reminder
to management that we will not stop until you all feel safe at work. Above is a
picture of the badge that you all wore today. You will make the difference
!!!!!
CONGRATULATIONS
!!!! AND THANK YOU !!!!!!
To see some
pictures from Glendale Mobilization Day, please click below:
Glendale
Mobilization Day - 5/29/08
As always, if you
have any comments or questions, please feel free to e-mail me at:
kdarminio@pef.org
or call me at 518-257-6983
I will continue
to keep you updated !!!!
5/1/08
Security At
Glendale
As everyone knows
security at Glendale has been minimized. The security on the 3rd floor was
removed in the rear entrance and the Security Guard in the Main Lobby was
removed on 2/1/08. Prior to 2/1/08, we have been working to maintain
security at the Glendale Facility. I have been working with DDD/OTDA and
DOL on several levels and we are approaching our 3rd month without appropriate
security in the Glendale Facility. It is time that we solicit additional
help in this situation. Please see the letter below to our Good Senator
Thomas Libous and our Good Assembly Woman Donna Lupardo.
I will keep you
apprised of any updates in this situation !!!! As always, if you have any
comments or questions, please let me know. Also, Please keep the
situations of compromise due to lack of security coming in.
Thank you,
Kathy
Letter
to Senator Libous and Assembly Women Donna Lupardo
2/28/08
The PEF Civil
Service Enforcement/Research Department has received the following tentative
classification standards:
Disability
Analyst 3, 4, 5
Disability Determinations Program Manager
To View the
standards, please click below:
Tentative
Classification Standards
Please review the
tentative classification standards and if you have any comments, please send
them to me and I will forward them all to PEF. E-Mail to: pef399@yahoo.com.
Please submit your comments prior to Thursday, March 20, 2008.
Thank you,
Kathy
8/24/07
As you know, a letter was sent to
OTDA Management on July 26, 2007 requesting an adjustment to work schedules for
the Grade 25's who are required to work on Saturdays.
OTDA management called this week to advise that if a Grade 25 is required to
work an additional full day on Saturday, they WILL BE allowed
to adjust their work schedule and take the following Monday off. If a
holiday falls on that Monday, they will be able to take the Tuesday off.
To see a copy of the letter and results of grievances file, please see below.
07/27/07
Issue
regarding Grade 25's Working Saturdays WITHOUT Compensation
As you know, Grade
25's have been required to work Saturday while OT is occurring with out
compensation or adjustment to their work schedules. Buffalo Grade 25's
filed a grievance and we have been awaiting the results of the Step 3 Decision
in order to proceed. We received the Step 3 Decision on July 26, 2007
while I was in Albany. The Grievance was denied. You can see a copy
of the Step 3 Grievance below:
Step
3 Decision
A letter was sent
to OTDA Management requesting an adjustment to work schedules for the Grade 25's
who are required to work on Saturdays.
Please see the letter below:
Memo
to OTDA - July 26,
2007
I will continue to
follow-up on this and keep you informed as we progress.
02/21/07
Accruals
Utilized During Excessive amount of
snow in 2007
We have requested
that accruals used in February 2007 during the excessive amounts of snow fall
across the state be restored. A memo was sent to Acting Commissioner
Hansell to request from
Civil Commissions a waiver of the time and attendance rules
to allow the employees that were unable to come to work to use EXA. Please
click below for a copy of the memo and also a copy of the Press Release for
Oswego County.
Memo
to Acting Commissioner Hansell
Press
Release re: State of Emergency in Oswego County.
12/15/06
Accrual
Restoration During Flood in June
I
have been informed by PEF that the Civil Service Commission has approved the
suspension of the Attendance Rules for employees with work locations in Broome
County for June 28 and June 29.
The
suspension of the attendance rules is for full day absences only.
Employees
in these locations will be notified that time charged for full day absences will
be restored.
This
is a result of joint efforts from PEF, Agencies and Legislature !!!!
Happy
Holidays to all !!!!
Kathy
Please
see memo below from Civil Service
Memo
from Civil Service 12/14/06
Thank
you memo
to Senator Libous 12/15/06
Thank
you Memo
to Assemblywoman Donnas Lupardo12/15/06
12/13/06
Accruals
Used During Flood Disaster
Senator Libous and
Assemblywoman Donna Lupardo have responded to the letters sent to them on
December 4, 2006 [you can view these letters below under 12/04/06].
They have both sent letters to Civil Service and GOER supporting the waiving of
the time and attendance rules. Civil Service is meeting tomorrow and this
issue is a part of their agenda.
Memo
from Senator Libous 12/12/06
Memo
from Assemblywoman Donnas Lupardo12/11/06
12/04/06
Accruals
Used During Flood Disaster
Since my letter of
October 27, 2006 [you can view this letter below under 10/28/06], I have
been informed by OTDA that they have requested that Civil Service waive the time
and attendance rules for our members. If Civil Service approves this, the
leave accruals used in June will be restored. It is my understanding that
Civil Service will be meeting on December 14th, 2006 and I have requested Senator
Libous and Assemblywoman Donna Lupardo to send a letter to Civil Service
requesting that they approve this request. I will continue to keep you
updated as this issue proceeds.
Memo
to Senator Libous 12/04/06
Memo
to Assemblywoman Donnas Lupardo12/04/06
10/28/06
Accruals
Used During Flood Disaster
We are continuing
to fight for the restoration of our members' accruals during the Flood Disaster. As
you know, on
June 30th [you can view this letter below under 6/30/06] I
issued a memo to DDD requesting that DDD/OTDA request from GOER a waiver of the
time and attendance rules. My
sources at GOER inform me, to date, that OTDA has
not made this request. A memo was
sent to Commissioner Doar on October 27, 2006 appealing for OTDA to make this
request.
Memo
to Commissioner Doar regarding accruals for flood disaster
Dated 10/27/06
08/21/06
PEF
Membership Flood Relief Fund
PEF has made
available $50,000 for flood relief payments of $500 to members with
$5,000 or more in documented losses related to the June 2006 flooding.
Grants will be acted upon and distributed as received.
The Deadline for the application submission is Decembers 31, 2006.
Please click on
the picture below to download the Flood Relief Application:
07/19/06 Follow
up Memo to Senator Libous Requesting the Restoration of Members accruals
Follow
Up Memo
to Senator Libous
07/15/06 Letter
from President Benson to GOER regarding accruals for Recent Flood Disaster
Please click below
for the letter President Benson wrote to GOER on 07/07/06
Letter
to GOER
06/30/06 Issues Regarding the Recent Flood Disaster
As of today, we have bottled water
at the Glendale facility because of the Boil Water Mandate in Endicott.
We would like to thank the management of DDD, Jonathan Rosen at PEF and
Senator Libous for expediting the arrival of the water.
In addition, all DDD
employees that were instructed to leave on Wednesday June 28th will NOT
be using their accruals for this time. I have sent a new memo requesting
EXA time for the individuals that were unable to get to work during this
time. To see the memo, please see below:
Memo
to DDD/OTDA regarding accruals for flood disaster
I did cc Senator
Libous on this memo and also sent him a separate e-mail requesting his
assistance on this matter. We will keep you updated on the progress of
this issue.
06/29/06
Issues Regarding the Recent Flood Disaster
We are aware and concerned for our
members that have been devastated by the recent flooding in our area.
05/31/06
As
you are aware, the SSA Final Rule on
the Administrative Review Process for Adjudicating Initial Disability Claims was
issued in late March. The DDD
Labor/Management Committee has reviewed the Rule and is concerned about
certain vague provisions regarding qualification standards, which may threaten
the job security of our members, particularly the DDD medical consultants.
We have raised these issues at Statewide Labor/Management, and
President Benson has written about our concerns to Commissioner Barnhart.
To see a copy of this letter, please click below:
We believe that the next step in
this process is to be proactive and educate the state congressional delegation
by asking for them to advocate with Commissioner Barnhart for reasonable
qualification standards that will allow our members to continue their
employment and function with New York State.
Since the specifics of the Rule are not yet set in stone, now is the
right time for us to have some influence.
You will be receiving a memo
in the mail by next week along with a letter personalized to your
Congressional Representative.
Your
participation in this effort is critical.
Legislators respond to their own constituents. Read
it, sign it, and write your address below your signature so each
Representative can identify you as their constituent.
The enclosed envelope is addressed to your Representative. For
more details and see the letter that will be sent to your home, please click
below:
Remember,
Together We Can Make A Difference !!!!
Thank you for your participation !!
05/07/06
We have been
requesting the presence of a nurse at the Glendale Facility in our Building
Health and Safety Meetings. OGS contact the Director of Nursing of
Employee Health Services regarding this issue. In June of 2005, Ms.
McSweeney replied to OGS regarding this issue. The letter is below:
Letter
to OGS
We requested that OGS
contact Ms. McSweeney regarding sharing the hours of the EHS Nurse at the State
office building. At our last Building H&S Meeting, OGS advised that
they had contacted Ms. McSweeney and advised that we needed to send a letter
regarding this issue. A copy of the letter is below:
Letter
to Ms. McSweeney -
05.06
05/07/06
A PESH complaint has
been filed with DDD/OTDA OTDA/DDD.
They are not complying with Part
801 - Recording and Reporting Public Employees’ Occupational Injuries and
Illnesses. They have not been able to produce accident reports to us in a
timely manner. To see a copy of this PESH complaint please click below:
OTDA DDD PESH complaint 4
06
04/04/06
As of Tuesday,
February 21st, the Security Guard was removed from the rear of Building 16 on
the 3rd floor. We do not believe that this is in the best interest of the
health and safety of our members. This will be an agenda item on our Local
Health and Safety Meeting scheduled for Wednesday, March 1st and also an agenda
item on OTDA H&S Meeting scheduled for Wednesday, March 8, 2006 in Albany.
I have also sent a
memo to Albany regarding this issue.
Please click on the photo to read the memo:
Memo
re: removal of Security
Building
Health and Safety Minutes 02-07-06
We received a memo
from Keith Reichelt on March 7, 2006 in response to me memo dated 02/0706
regarding the removal of the Security Guard on February 21, 2006. To see
this memo, please click below:
Memo
Response from Keith Reichelt re:removal of Security
On that same day,
Keith Reichelt sent a memo to all OTDA employees regarding Safety To and From
The Work Place. Please click below to see this memo:
Memo
to all OTDA Employees re: Safety To and From the Work Place
I have responded to
Keith Reichelt's response to our memo in regards to reinstating the guard in the
rear of our Building. To see this memo, please click below:
Response
to Keith Reichelt re: removal of Security
dated
04/04/06
If you have any questions, please
let us know. We will continue to pursue this in any avenue that is
necessary to preserve the Health and Safety of our members.
02/21/06
As
an ongoing effort to keep our members informed, we would like to provide you
with an update with ongoing Division 399 issues.
We
would like to start off by saying that in every avenue that we pursue these
issues, we apprise everyone that we are proud of the job that our members
perform for the disabled community of NYS.
As you know, there has been an ongoing
issue regarding the removal of our tables. Management cited to our
members and Senator Libous that this was because of a safety issue. Now
this is after we had PESH Compliance performed at our facility and this was
NOT a concern. We have demanded a Building Code that we are violating
from State Management. We were
informed by DDD/OTDA that this code is 1004.2.1.2. One of our members
had this researched at the Local Fire Department and there is NO
such code. We also sent this code to our Experts - Jonathan Rosen
[Director of Health and Safety] at PEF and he confirmed that there is no such
Building Code. Acting Deputy Commissioner's real reason is -" I
want to create uniformity in the offices, I want the offices to be more
professional, etc”. We have also been chastised that our letter
to Senator Libous was in vain and that they do not care if we write to him as
he cannot or will not involve himself in "THEIR”
business. We would like you to know that this avenue continues
to be pursued.
We
have not had a State DDD LM meeting since October 2005 as Management unilaterally
continues to change the date and it is now going towards March. Our
State Labor Rep, Ed Ray, has issued a letter to Commissioner Doar and we are
waiting for the Commissioner’s response.
You can find this letter on your web site at:
They
have also changed the termination time of the 4DWW/CWW schedules; which PEF
considers a threat to this process and a violation of the State
Labor/Management agreement.
We are also continuing to battle the fact that our Grade 25 Managers across
the state have been mandated to work extra Saturdays without an agreed day
off, which violates State Time and Attendance Rules. It is a known fact
that other agencies across the state; use Article 32
- Workday/Work week and this
would accommodate an alternate pass day if management was of a mind to do so.
Plus many of our institutions/hospitals work on that structure, as does
our Child Abuse Hotline in OCFS. There's
plenty of precedence for alternate schedules especially when they are NOT
an emergency
and are planned for well in advance.
We also are dealing with the elimination of
security- due to a budget crisis.
You can view the NYS DDD Budget for 2005-2007 on your web site at:
http://www.pef399.org/labor.htm;
which shows 5.7% increase which
equals $10.2 million. You will also find an interpretation of this
budget that I had requested from PEF Research.
These issues are actively
being pursued on many avenues and we will keep you informed as we progress.
As
always, if you have any concerns or questions, please let us know.
01/09/06
On December 30, 2005, the Department
of Civil Service announced a number of major changes relating to the
administration of the Promotion Test Battery (PTB). There are two policy changes
that are most significant to PEF members.
1) Department of Civil Service is retroactively reducing the amount of time PTB
scores can be banked from ten to four years.
2) Department of Civil Service will be alternating the holding of PTB exams
every other year rather than holding both annually.
Please click here to
see the memo from President Roger Benson:
Memo
Regarding Major Promotion Test Battery Changes
Below is the
letter to Civil Service Commissioner Daniel Wall requesting that he reconsider
these changes and agree to a meeting to discuss PEF's concerns.
Please click below for:
Letter
From President Benson to Civil Service Commissioner Daniel Wall
Please Click below for:
Memo
from Tom Cetrino - PEF's Civil Service
DCS
General Information Bulletin
What can WE DO
?????
Contact Department of
Civil Service directly at 518-457-2487 or 1-877-697-5627 to voice your concerns.
Updated
Memo from President Benson regarding Civil Service Telephone Number dated 01/12/06
11/01/05
Today I received a
copy of the letter that Gloria Toal - Acting Deputy Commissioner wrote to
Senator Libous in response to the senator's Letter to Gloria Toal requesting her
rationale for the removal of tables. The copy of the letter was sent to me
from Senator Libous's office.
Please see below for
the previous letters that were sent.
To see a copy of the
letter that Ms. Toal sent to Senator Libous, please click below:
Letter
to Senator Libous from Ms. Toal
10/18/05
I just wanted to provide an update
regarding our response regarding the Removal of Tables in the Units.
Since our last e-mail update of September 9, 2005, the letter
written to Senator Libous was sent and the petitions that were signed by
the members were hand carried to Senator Libous's office with the Region 5 PAC
Chair and also our Regional Coordinator - Mary Twitchell.
Since this visit, a letter was
received from Senator Libous today, that was sent to Acting Deputy
Commissioner Gloria Toal.
To see a copy of the
letter that was sent to Gloria Toal from Senator Libous, please click below:
Here you will also find the
original letter that was sent to Senator Libous. We will continue to
follow up on this issue and provide you with updates.
To see a copy of the letter
that was sent to Senator Libous, please click below:
Letter
to Senator Libous
09/09/05
We would
like to provide an update regarding the status of the removal of the tables
from our units. This was a direct order from Acting Deputy Commissioner
- Gloria Toal. I personally met with Mark, John Arena and also with
Gloria Toal. Attempts to negotiate with Gloria Toal were
unsuccessful. Her reasons were - Health and Safety Issues, It is not
professional and she wants all of the processing centers to be uniform.
On August 4th, a PESH inspection
was performed at out facility. Our units were in compliance. The
PESH report will be sent out as a separate e-mail and posted on the web site
for your information.
At this point, we have decided to
request the assistance of our legislators in this matter. I have written
a letter to Senator Libous with a cc to Roger Benson - PEF President, Mary
Twitchell - Region 5 Coordinator and our assemble members - Mr. Clifford Crouch
and Donna Lopardo. These letters were sent out today. I have
attached a copy of this letter for your review.
We must mobilize as
a Division - We can make a difference !!!!!
Please print this letter and sign your name and address and send to Senator
Libous. Also, click below and copy and past this letter or your own
letter and e-mail it to Senator Libous and your Assemblymember.
We will have petitions that will
be circulated starting on Monday for you to sign that we will also forward to
our legislators.
We have also requested an
emergency Health and Safety Meeting with management regarding our concerns
over the "Break Room" as there are definite Health and Safety Issues
using this small room for a "Lunch Room" for over 300 employees.
We will continue to keep you
updated.
