Employee Participation Meetings Open Communication About Work Challenges October 2, 2011

Clockwise from top left: Local 34 Art Gallery members John Balash, Zsofia Jilling, Christinia Czap and Tom Phillips organized the EPM in their department.

Over the summer, more than 200 Local 34 members in 47 different central campus departments—from African-American Studies to Physics to the Shared Services Center–held Employee Participation Meetings with management. “We must speak up,” says Tom Phillips, Local 34 Committee member in the Yale Art Gallery, where almost every C&T signed on to a letter to the Director requesting a series of EPMs.  “We started all our meetings by stating that we (Local 34 members) are working hard to do the best job we can, but when policy, budgets or managers force us to compromise the quality of work we do, then we must speak up.”

Local 34 Central Area Committee members Linda Hase, Mary Jane Stevens, Ann DeLauro, Joanna Gorman, Heather Lewis, and Jackie Bradley.

In response to three years of budget cuts and a series of reorganizations, hundreds of C&Ts took advantage of a useful but underused article in our Local 34 Contract (Article IX 1(b)) which gives the employees the right to call an EPM and then present ideas and discuss solutions on how to improve services. In many academic departments, explains Ann DeLauro, the Registrar in the Italian Department, the EPMs “have opened doors of communication between support staff and faculty and led to discussions about our departments’ autonomy and future ability to run as efficiently as they should without compromising the quality of work.”

For each EPM, the Local 34 employees in the departments created agendas that addressed real issues facing C&Ts: career path, shifting of work to students and other employees, decisions regarding restructuring, new positions, workload, and job descriptions, and understaffing from attrition and layoffs. Moreover, they offered real solutions, as Marcy Kaufman, Registrar of the History Department, heard in the EPMs she attended. “We have been able to engage with our Chairs, coworkers, and members of the administration,” Marcy said, “providing them with much-needed perspective from the point of view of the employees who actually do the work.”

Already these meetings are paying off: several staff who had taken on additional higher level work are getting Y payments and upgrades to E Level, Local 34 Committee members attend a regular Shared Services Steering Committee meeting to discuss ongoing reorganizations in the academic departments, and management in departments from 344 Winchester to Chapel Street are making commitments to improve training and to keep up communication.

If you would like to plan an Employee Participation Meeting in your department, please contact your Local 34 Steward or Organizer.

Research Survey Program finds rewards, challenges in labs September 15, 2011

Since June, Local 34 organizers and committee members have interviewed over 600 researchers in labs and projects across the Medical School. The interviews have included about 300 Local 34 research assistants in the Medical School (75% of the total), and a similar number of non-union researchers who work closely with our members, including M&Ps, postdocs, graduate students and faculty.

Research assistants do widely varying work, from bench work in labs to visiting medical facilities and patients around the state who are participating in, or are interested in joining, Yale-based studies. In the interviews, research assistants expressed a great deal of pride in the work they do to expand the boundaries of scientific knowledge and to help improve peoples’ health and well-being.  But the interviews highlighted a number of common difficulties, including the instability of grant-based work, the obstacles and lack of transparency around opportunities to grow and advance, and isolation.

Research assistants Naa Sackey, Maurice Williams and Suzette Benitez participated in the Research Survey Program. They work at the Community Alliance for Research and Engagement (CARE) on projects in the community and schools that address the three primary risk factors for chronic illness: exercise, diet and tobacco use.

Over the coming months, we will be culling interviews and continuing dialogue with research assistants to develop proposals to present to the University as part of the Research Operations Project agreement that is part of our current contract.  This agreement allows for joint Union-management projects “to build opportunities for professional development and advancement for research staff, and to address the unique pressures of the research enterprise and its funding environment,” among other things.  We will also work to continue the conversation that the interviews opened up with the non-union research workers who work alongside Local 34 members.

May Membership Meeting Focuses on Summer Plans May 18, 2011

On Wednesday May 11, Local 34 held its second membership meeting in 2011 and offered union members an opportunity to discuss the union’s summer organizing programs.

To open the meeting, several Local 34 members spoke about current activities in their departments and areas:

Tom Philips, Senior Materials Assistant in the Yale Art Galleries, reported on the increased number of members who are participating in Local 34’s Stewards Training Program and announced the next full training session on Saturday June 18.

Trish Gordon, Research Assistant in the Genetics Department, described an initiative to talk to research assistants about their career paths and their scientific research.

Steve Fortes, Senior Loan Specialist in Student Financial Services, spoke about his decision to volunteer to knock on doors and encourage voter participation in upcoming local elections.

After the presentations, members from departments across the campus—from Science Park to the Medical School to West Campus—sat in small groups, discussed issues in their own workplaces and gave feedback on the union’s proposed programs.