TEE UP FOR THE THIRD ANNUAL CITY OF ORLAND GOLF TOURNAMENT TO SUPPORT RECREATION AND THE LIBRARY.

Monday, April 02, 2012

Article by Christine Perry:

UPEC Golf Team supports “TEE UP FOR THE THIRD ANNUAL CITY OF ORLAND GOLF TOURNAMENT” TO SUPPORT RECREATION AND THE LIBRARY”.

Using their own resources and personal time, UPEC Local 792 Staff Team:  Chris Darker, Mike Lyon, Steve Allen and Christine Perry traveled to Willows on Sunday, April 1st to support the fund raising event for new library books at the Orland Fee Library and also help purchase equipment for the Recreation Department.  It was a day of fun and challenge. The UPEC team stayed focused and was able to win Second Place in the Tournament.  This year Orland projected they were able to accrue almost $6,000 toward their fund raising from the event.  This is the third year for UPEC’s participation in this worthy community event.

UPEC to Host FPPC Reporting Training

Friday, March 30, 2012

REDDING - UPEC Local 792 and the Redding Joint Political Action Coordinating Committee will sponsor FPPC Reporting Requirements Training on Tuesday, April 10, 2012 from 4:00 pm to 7:00 pm.at the UPEC Headquarters 1800 Park Marina Drive. The training will cover the laws and forms of the State Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) for Political Action Treasurers and Campaign Managers. There is no cost to UPEC members or members of participating JPACC sponsoring unions. Members interested in running for local office or participating in political campaigns are encouraged to attend. Reservations must be received in advance,

Federal Employee Unions are Calling on Lawmakers to Oppose Ryan Budget

WASHINGTON D,C, - UPEC Local 792 Business Manager Chris Darker and UPEC Executive Board member Paul Honn joined several LiUNA’s Federal Employees and other unions on Capitol Hill this week calling on legislators to oppose cuts in Federal Employee wages. UPEC represents Federal Employees in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Veterans Cemetery District and Presidio Trust in San Francisco. The House on Wednesday began debate on the fiscal 2013 budget and passed legislation Thursday that includes $368 billion in cuts to the federal workforce during the next decade. The Budget Committee last week approved a measure offered by Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan that would extend the federal pay freeze through 2015, reduce the size of the government workforce by 10 percent and increase employee contributions to their retirement plans. In addition to the Republican proposal, lawmakers on Wednesday and Thursday will be debating six other budget measures, including one from Democrats and President Obama’s fiscal 2013 plan.

“It is simply unacceptable for the House Republican budget resolution to, yet again, unfairly single out the federal workforce for a vastly disproportionate share of budget reductions,” said a March 27 letter from the Federal-Postal Coalition which our Union, LIUNA, is a member.  This group includes various groups representing the interests of federal employees and managers.

The House GOP’s $3.5 trillion budget plan is similar to their 2012 proposal, which also called for an increase in the amount federal employees contribute changes to their pensions, a smaller government workforce and an extension of the two-year pay freeze on civilian employees. In addition, the current Republican measure would relieve the Defense Department from significant budget cuts resulting from sequestration, which takes effect starting in 2013. The House Democratic budget plan would cancel the governmentwide automatic spending cuts and replace them with targeted spending reductions and tax increases.

The Democratic budget proposal does not include any provisions that would affect the pay or benefits of federal employees.

PERB Finds City of Milpitas Guilty of Interference in Employee Rights Case

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

A Public Employment Relations Board Judge, after hearing argument from UPEC Senior Labor Representative Dave Ritchie and contrasting views by the City of Milpitas, has declared that the City of Milpitas violated employee rights protected by the Meyers Milias Brown Act in connection with its’ treatment of past ProTECH President Nancy Mendizabal.

In the decision, issued February 20th, 2012 and which became final on March 20th, Judge Donn Ginoza explained, “Mendizabal, the union’s president, had been directly and deeply involved in the discussion regarding layoffs and had been the individual responsible within the union organization for those functions.” When City Human Resources Director Carmen Valdez refused to release seniority list information to Mendizabal, Mendizabal (justifiably) began to press her demands for timely production of the information needed to assist her members.

Valdez used Mendizabal’s demands for information as justification to file a complaint, upon which Milpitas City Manager Tom Williams acted, banishing Mendizabal from the workplace without proper justification.  Judge Ginoza found that the timing of this, in the middle of a major layoff involving numerous ProTECH employees “had a chilling effect on Mendizabal’s ability to represent ProTECH members.” “Valdez’s refusal to deal with Mendizabal on layoffs, when she was receiving complaints about inaccurate or non-existent layoff rights and refusal to allow Mendizabal to represent employees in layoff proceedings would have engendered strong feelings in any union president worth her salt.”, he continued.

In addition, testimony from City Manager Tom Williams was not persuasive.  Williams testified the he did not recall Mendizabal requesting and him denying her request to attend a union meeting scheduled onsite the day that he forced her out on leave.  Judge Ginoza found that such a request had been made, and that because of the sensitivity of the issue and the important judgement call required by the question, it is doubtful that Williams would indeed be unable to recall the request.  “Williams offered clearly the harshest and most negative description of Mendizabal, and it reflected bias.”, Ginoza wrote.  In addition, Ginoza came to conclude that “Williams was less than convincing when asserting that the economic concessions were ‘rejected by all the unions’ and stating the City ‘worked very diligently with all the unions to cut its costs’....”.

Earlier this spring, Williams, after seeking and obtaining financial concessions from union employee groups, turned around and claimed a salary increase for himself as well as certain other job protections from Milpitas City Council. He then again immediately thereafter issued additional claims of financial distress on the part of the City seeking even more concessions from line staff under threat of more layoffs.  UPEC will be investigating whether Williams’ now-established bias against employees has contributed to further violations of the MMBA and / or other violations that must be corrected.

Shasta County Employee Termination Overturned After Hearing

An arbitrator has ruled, after a January 2012 hearing in a case between UPEC and Shasta County over the termination of a Shasta County employee, that Shasta County failed to show that there was just cause in issuing the termination. As a result, the arbitrator ruled in favor of UPEC - the discharge was reversed, discipline was significantly reduced and the employee was ordered reinstated and made whole for all lost rights and benefits and for all lost income (less any mitigation in UI benefits or interim earnings from other work).

Sr. Labor Representative, Dave Ritchie, argued at hearing and in post-hearing briefs that there were sufficient mitigating circumstances in the case such that the decision of the Department Head to terminate the employee was unreasonably and excessively punitive, and was not sufficiently proportionate to the alleged violations to support termination even if some discipline was warranted.

Arbitrator John Wormuth, wrote: “An essential element of just cause is that discipline be proportional to the offense and to reflect its’ gravity....Just cause further requires discipline that is imposed draw its essence from the provable and sustainable facts of the transgression.” The Arbitrator ruled that (in this case) “The penalty of discharge far exceeds what is reasonably necessary to correct the Grievant’s behavior.”

The employee in question has been ordered immediately reinstated to his former position.

California Judicial Council Halts Court Case Management System

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Sacramento - Capping years of sometimes bitter controversy inside and outside the judicial system, the state Judicial Council voted Tuesday to halt deployment of what was to be a computerized case management system linking every California court in paperless operation.

The California Case Management System (CCMS) was the brainchild of former Chief Justice Ron George and more than a half-billion dollars has been spent so far, mostly on private consultants and vendors. But it’s come under increasingly sharp criticism by some judges, through the Alliance of California Judges, in the Legislature and by the state auditor.

The auditor had questioned how the money had been spent and an Assembly budget subcommittee voted recently to cut off funds for CMSS deployment.

The Alliance of California Judges, which said that the money had been squandered on an unworkable system while courts were being forced to close the doors due to sharp cuts in state court funds, was the big winner in Tuesday’s action.

Preliminary applications of the system have been tested, but a full and presumably final version was scheduled to be deployed soon in 11 counties, beginning with San Luis Obispo, but that would have added another $119.6 million to the cost over two years, the council was told.

A consultant told the council that over the long run, CCMS would save money as it reduced the need for more court personnel, but it also drew criticism from court workers and their unions, who said that jobs are being cut now as courts pare back their operations.

The Judicial Council, composed of trial and appellate judges and representatives of other judicial and legal groups and headed by Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, was given three options. One was going ahead with deployment, the second pausing for a year and the third termination.

Members, meeting in San Francisco, debated them fiercely before finally agreeing to terminate but agreed to continue studying ways of using technology in court management, adapting what’s already been acquired during CCMS development.

The reason, obvious from the hours-long discussion, is the state’s uncertain fiscal situation. “We’re in a lot of trouble for two or three more years,” Alan Carlson, the Sonoma County court administrator, told his fellow council members.

The courts have been cut by $653 million in recent years and Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget continues reductions and threatens another $125 million cut if his tax plan is rejected by voters.

“I believe that 10 years ago, a case management system was a farsighted vision, but a statewide connected system is just not feasible in the current climate and in the foreseeable future,” Yolo County Judge David Rosenberg, a member of the council, declared. “It’s just too expensive.”

Fresno County Judge Kent Hamlin told the council that “the initial vision of a case management system...that would be operated in all courts and link them in real time is a failure. That vision needs to be abandoned.”

But Jon Streeter, representing the State Bar, countered that “Those of us who have practiced in other states know that we are falling behind. California will become, if this system is suspended or abandoned, one of the states that brings up the rear in terms of automation nationwide. We should not be in that position. We should be leading.”

Rosenberg moved for a complete shutdown that would allow individual courts to implement their own technology systems. However, his motion was defeated in favor of one by Santa Barbara Judge James Herman that stops deployment to the 11 counties, while urging judicial managers to explore uses of existing technology and authorizing up to $8.7 million to move in that direction.

Sacramento Bee 03-28-2012

Read more here: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2012/03/california-udicial-council-halts-controversial-court-case-management-system.html#storylink=cpy