Region 1 Bargaining Update
March 21, 2018
Today’s session started with a demonstration of the Automated Advanced Scheduler program designed by Novatime. The Administration anticipates using this system to compile and fill all available interpreter assignments for A floaters, C, and F employees.
Despite insisting this is one of the most important issues for the Court, management was not able to provide anything specific to interpreters, but instead provided a PowerPoint presentation titled: Judicial Assistant Assignment Demo, which deals with the assignment process for court clerks; this same program will soon be rolled out for court reporters.
It is difficult to extrapolate how this software will work for interpreters, since both judicial assistants and court reporters are assigned on a one-to-one basis. Furthermore, their issues are fundamentally different from ours as neither judicial assistants nor court reporters have intermittent employees in their unit.
The presentation only focused on the coordinator’s role in the management and utilization of this program; it included nothing about interpreter accessibility to select their assignments. All this leads your bargaining team to believe that management really has not contemplated the needs of and the impacts on interpreter employees, particularly the F status.
Your bargaining team presented a package proposal in which the Union accepted changes to Article 15 – New Employees and withdrew our proposals to language modifications to Article 8 – Discipline and Discharge and Article 31 – Office Space and Supplies in exchange for management accepting paying for three days of bargaining committee caucus time (Article 37 – Stewards). True to form, the Court rejected the package proposal and these remain as outstanding issues to be negotiated.
We would like to give a special shout out to our members María Ruíz (A) and Carolina Izquierdo (F) for their generous support today.
Our next bargaining session will be held next Wednesday, March 28, 2018 at10:00 am, Room 522, at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse. We encourage members to support bargaining by attending the next session; get your RTO’s in early! We’ll see you there.
In solidarity…
Your Region 1 Bargaining Team
CFI Local 39000, CWA-TNG
Pedro Ramírez-Navas
Daniel Kaufman
Doris Vick
Michael Ferreira
Robert Guerrero
Caren Sencer, Spokesperson |
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CFI Election – NOTICE URGENT
March 9, 2018
Dear Members,
We have heard from some members who lost or never got their ballots. The requests (after verifying the addresses) have been sent on to Ballotpoint to issue the new ballots.
Ballotpoint had a delay in the printed ballots due to the Mid-West storms. In order to be sure that every member has the opportunity to vote – The Election Committee, after consultation with the CWA General Counsel, has decided to delay the counting of the ballots.
Members will have until 5pm on Thursday March 15 to request a replacement ballot. You must email your request, with your address (and your name) where you want the ballot sent to:
[email protected]
Ballots will now be counted at the Santa Fe Springs Office on Thursday March 29th at 10am.
Ballots must be mailed to the Post Office Box and be there on Thursday March 29th when the Election Committee collects the mail for counting.
If you still have your ballot – get it in the mail, please. Don’t wait for the last minute.
If you open your ballot envelope and discover that you are missing one of the envelopes or the ballot, let us know right away: [email protected]
If you never got your ballot – let us know right away…..don’t wait for the last minute.
Please.
Sincerely,
Carrie Biggs-Adams
Temporary Administrator |
CFI Local Update
March 2, 2018
Dear Members of CFI,
Most members have now received their ballots. If you have not gotten yours in your Saturday mail, please email us with your address, and note if you have moved in the last year. Send your email to: [email protected]
If you have a different address than the one in the database, the check of the US Postal Service that was done by Ballotpoint’s mailing house on the addresses that we provided should have picked up a new address and the ballot was mailed to your current address of record.
How to Cast Your Ballot
Please be sure to mark your ballot – do not write on it or mark other than the “bubble” in black ink as per these instructions. These are machine scanned to be counted.
Put your marked ballot in the secret ballot envelope. Seal that envelope – no marks on the outside.
Put the sealed secret ballot in the large return envelope. Please put your return address on the outside envelope, this is so that if there is a problem with the US Mail it will come back to you and you can re-mail it to the Post Office Box.
The barcode on the outside of the return envelope will be used to confirm that it is from a registered voter in the database that was sent from the Local to Ballotpoint. This is how a duplicate ballot will be identified so that no member gets two ballots in the case of a requested replacement/lost ballot.
New Members
The Local always accepts new members, with an application and dues checkoff forms for those employed by the courts, those must be sent to the Southern California office for processing. Freelance members may join by applying on the website and payment of the $50 annual fee.
These classifications of members may vote in the election. But after Monday March 5th we will not be able to get ballots mailed out in time for members to return them by mail to be in the Post Office box before the pickup for counting on March 15th.
If you have friends who want to join, please have them email us immediately and we will get applications out to them (via email) if they work at the courts. Freelance members may join on the website.
Obviously, we will be happy to have people join, but after the first part next week, joining in order to vote in this election won’t be possible.
Conclusion
We hope for a 100% return, please mail you ballot right away so that there is time for it to get back to the Post Office before the counting date. Ballots not in the post office box on Wednesday March 15 at 10am when the Election Committee (with a representative of Ballotpoint) picks up the mail – will not be counted. Counting is not based upon postmark. Ballot must be returned by mail – it cannot be hand carried to the office – and be there by the morning of March 15th.
Sincerely,
Carrie Biggs-Adams
Temporary Administrator |
Region 1 Bargaining Update
February 28, 2018
Your Bargaining Team met with Region 1 today at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse. Special thanks goes out to Lorena Pike (Full-time, Santa Maria), Hernan Vargas (A), Ana Plasencia (A), and Sandra Rodriguez (A) for showing your support by observing the negotiation process in action.
This update is going to be brief, which unfortunately mirrors today’s bargaining session. Not only did the Court’s spokesman Joe Wiley and the rest of the Court’s team not arrive until 11:30 am, but Court Counsel Ivette Peña was not present during any part of the session. The minimal content of the two paltry proposals that the Administration offered us today would suggest that there was not a real intention to work through a full session, perhaps owing to the absence of Court Counsel.
Despite asserting that interpreter assignments are one of their top priorities, the Court notified us that the new computerized interpreter assignment system may not be implemented until July of this year, at the earliest. We requested time to preview this system and the Court agreed to present “screenshots” of the new software system at our next session.
The only other two topics of note were:
- A discussion of cross-assignments during which the Court asked a series of questions and presented different possible scenarios as to whether or not an interpreter would be paid or given equivalent work in the event of a missed/cancelled cross-assignment.
- A lengthy exchange about the half-time coordinator position in Santa Barbara (CFI unit member Lorena Pike). Although this coordinator is paid for four hours a day as an interpreter, and the other four hours as a coordinator, her coordinating duties often extend well beyond the four hours allotted for this purpose. We are hoping to get her additional compensation for the double duty she performs.
CFI members demonstrated to the administration that we are united and willing to fight for a fair contract by holding a noontime rally in front of Stanley Mosk Civil Courthouse. We thank all those members who participated and made your voices heard!
The next bargaining session will be held on March 21st, 2018, 10:00 am, at the CWA District 9 Office, 12215 Telegraph Road, Suite 210, Santa Fe Springs, California 90670. We are expecting the next session to be of particular interest, as the Court will be sharing more detailed information about the new computerized assignment system. To those of you for whom this is a crucial issue, your team encourages you to attend and support. Get your Requests for Time Off into the office today!
In solidarity,
Your Region 1 Bargaining Team
Pedro Ramirez-Navas
Doris Vick
Robert Guerrero
Daniel Kaufman
Michael Ferreira
Caren Sencer, Spokesperson |
Region 1 Bargaining Update
February 21, 2018, Santa Fe Springs, District 9 Office
Your Region 1 Bargaining Team met with Court Administration today at the CFI Santa Fe Springs location. Thank you Ramona Rodriguez (F), Maria Ruiz (A) and Alicia Grubic (A) for showing your support by observing the negotiation process in action.
Our apologies for this update coming out a couple days later than it normally does, and for those of you who asked, “No update?,” it’s heartening to know there are interpreters who keep themselves in the know regarding the progress of our contract negotiations. It is important to remember that each one of you is an essential part in securing and upholding a contract which is favorable to interpreters.
It has become apparent that management does not discuss bargaining issues until the day of the meeting; their bargaining team spent over two hours caucusing before they met with our team.
There was some positive movement, albeit small. Management withdrew their proposal on Article 17 that dealt with the way seniority is calculated when an employee moves from full-time (“A”) to as-needed (“F”) and then back again to full-time. They had proposed to change the language in the description, although not the method.
They accepted the chart that we proposed that would illustrate the employee designations used in each county: Los Angeles: “A”, “C” and “F” status; Santa Barbara: regular full-time; regular part-time and “Extra Help”; and San Luis Obispo: regular full-time; regular part-time and “As-Needed”.
Management was also willing to have a discussion about Article 19 which deals with Cross Assignments. Until now, they had not done that, but would just reject our counter proposals with little or no discussion.
Court Administration rejected our last wage proposal and modified their last salary proposal. This modification dealt with the timing of the increase not the amounts. They proposed 2% after the ratification of the contract, 2% July 2019 and 2% July 2020. No retroactive, no signing bonus, no COLA (Cost of Living Adjustment). Our team was understandably upset. Caren Sencer our attorney spoke up and told them we were disheartened and found it difficult to move forward when we know there is no movement in other areas. Their attorney (Joe Wiley) responded that they were "not suggesting that there would be no more movement right now". He said that in bargaining he always prefers to first deal with as many of the easier issues as he can, and to leave the harder issues until last. The issues he considers "hard" are Art. 21, Salary, and Art. 18, Assignments.
The fact that he admitted that that was not their last offer was encouraging. However, after we caucused, we agreed that we could not move forward with the "easier" issues because some of those are contingent on the wage issue. If they are willing to concede on some of the things we are asking for (COLA, retroactive pay, etc.), we may be willing to withdraw our proposals on some of the "easier" issues and leave them for the next contract negotiations. One example of these is our request for a yearly sum of money ($750.00) to cover the cost of our CIMCE credits and California certification.
The next Bargaining session is scheduled for Wednesday, February 28th at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse (Room 522). Remember to fill out your RTOs to ensure your participation in this session. We are also planning a noontime rally in front of the Courthouse (Grand Street entrance), and strongly encourage those nearby to attend. Let's show the Administration that we are united and willing to fight for a fair contract!
In solidarity…
Your Region 1 Bargaining Team
CFI Local 39000, CWA-TNG
Pedro Ramírez-Navas
Daniel Kaufman
Doris Vick
Michael Ferreira
Robert Guerrero
Caren Sencer, Spokesperson
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