7/10 Weekly Emaol
Hi all,
I have a couple updates and then a writeup about how UB time is used on a weekly basis.
July Member Meeting: Our next meeting will be July 17th (next week), 12-1PM at the Tempe Transportation Center’s Don Cassano Room. You can rsvp here until 5PM today. Please note that due to above changes in union business usage, we believe we will need rsvps one week in advance. Based on member feedback, the board is also discussing mixing up some of our meeting food - this meeting may just be pre-packaged snacks/drinks like nuts, beef sticks, fruit snacks, granola bars, chips and so on that you can enjoy at the meetings and/or take with you afterwards. This probably won’t be a consistent thing - we’re just trying something new to accommodate more people with allergies and reduce food waste.
Employee Development: I sent out the interview packet last week and am happy to see the immediate responses. I want to reiterate that this is meant to be a living document - if we receive requests about specific things people would like to know more about, we’re more than happy to make adjustments and release even more comprehensive documents. We can also look into making graphics or a video if there are certain aspects that seem confusing - our goal is to make this information accessible and we understand sometimes multiple forms of communication are needed. .
If you want to take some immediate career development steps, Employee Development is hosting an Interview Preparation class on Wednesday, July 30th. If you can’t attend that (or the class fills up), you can also request one-on-one interview coaching. If you have trouble registering for the course or accessing the coaching guide, you can reach out to Heather Armstrong, the Training Coordinator for the Employee Development team.
I have attached a recent email from Employee Development about upcoming classes - some might help with your career progression, some might just help in your current work. Please remember that City employees are entitled to 10 hours of professional development each year and any classes taken during work hours still count as you working - you will be paid out at your same normal rate. Supervisors may be able to prevent you from attending classes if it will cause staffing issues in your area but they need to reasonably accommodate your requests - if you experience pushback several times in a row, UEA is here to help.
Segal: Segal appeals are still ongoing. We received a lot of feedback to our Segal survey and are doing our best to work through every comment - even if you haven’t received a direct message, it’s very possible we’re working on your issue grouped together with several similar problems. I have been pleasantly surprised by the support I have received from supervisors and managers across the City - most are more than happy to support us in our attempts to get their staff better pay. I also have been very happy by how much legwork some of the directors have done to rapidly address concerns we bring to their attention - while they’re not able to do everything, I definitely see their desire to help.
With that all said, UAEA has hit a lot of roadblocks. We have had fewer successes than we would like and understand now that many of our concerns with methodology or implementation may need to be addressed in our next contract negotiations. That itself may not even achieve the results we want, but we’re going to keep fighting for these concerns until we’ve exhausted every possible avenue of approach. After we resolve some final conversations/appeals with HR, our next step will be meeting with Rosa to make some direct appeals about changing certain things. I can’t guarantee any results there but the UAEA team will do our best to make the case for these changes - if the goal of the study was to improve employee morale and resolve internal equity concerns, we think we can make a solid argument that additional steps are needed. I’ll provide more information to individuals with Segal concerns as I receive it.
I’ve received a few questions in recent weeks that have asked how I spend my time on a weekly basis. It’s a fair question and I promised transparency during the bylaws vote, so here’s a quick explanation. Please note first that this is specific to the work I do - every other member of the UAEA board also has weekly responsibilities and I don’t want to diminish their contributions to the organization. That said, I am the only full-time release member of the board, so I handle a lot more tasks on a weekly basis. Second, this is an attempt to average out my weekly work and is not a perfect representation of every week - there are some weeks where I spend 3 days on an interview panel, for instance. Finally, please also note Article 5, Section 2 of our Bylaws goes into some more detail about what the President role entails - I may have missed one or two things in this writeup.
Resolutions and Discipline. I spend approximately 25% of my time each week working on member concerns and helping with disciplinary cases. The UAEA Board is usually handling between 3 and 7 disciplinary cases at any one time - these involve us meeting with members, following up with supervisors if we need more information/an extension, researching the specific problem or how similar issues have been addressed in the past. helping members draft a response to their Part One, providing editing and proofreading, and then following up to make sure the case is submitted on time. Multiple members of the UAEA Board usually review each discipline and offer insight and perspective on the best approaches for each case. Besides actual discipline, a lot of my time is dealing with other member concerns (“resolutions”) ranging from concerns about whether the MOU is being followed in their area to disagreements with their supervisors to even just people trying to figure out how to access specific benefits. Many of these concerns are not easily addressed and it frequently takes weeks to resolve (ie, certain internal processes frequently take several weeks, certain things may have to wait until certain events occur (such as pre-scheduled meetings with management), certain important stakeholders might be on vacation, certain requests require engaging with multiple levels of an administrative chain, etc). Segal appeals are a good example of that - 84 people have so far responded to our survey about market study concerns and I’m still working through the list trying to address specific issues in a variety of workgroups. While this type of work averages out to about 25% of my work week, it can be as low as 10% and as high as 50% at times, especially if I’m spending time working on one large project like a writeup for a termination appeal.
Correspondence: About 20% of my time each week is spent corresponding with members and non-members about our organization. I consider this separate from the prior category - this section is specifically about the emails, text messages, phone calls, and in-person conversations I have, while the former section was the research and project management I do after I’m alerted to an issue. We have about 300 people in our organization right now and I’ve directly corresponded with about 35% over the past 3 months in addition to whatever emails I send to everyone in our group. Conversations might be people alerting me to a possible problem that could escalate, people asking about new or existing policies, people asking for assistance, people providing feedback if I had specific requests for information about a workgroup or a type of policy practice, etc. This also includes correspondence with non-members, such as non-dues-paying members and supervisors or managers. I speak with supervisors and managers frequently both to stay on top of internal workgroup changes and ask about member concerns - this provides a more frequent path to resolving problems than waiting until our monthly or bi-monthly Labor Management meetings. I also get a few emails a week from non-members which I do my best to answer in a vague but authoritative manner - while I don’t want to provide assistance to people who are not members of our organization, I also don’t want to come across as stand-offish. My normal replies allude very vaguely to relevant policies and make it clear that the UAEA Board could assist in a more comprehensive manner if they were to become a member. This type of work varies considerably based on the time of year - around major holidays it may be as little as 5% of my work week and around major events like the release of Segal information it may be as high as 40% of my time.
Writing/Development: About 20% of my time each week is spent writing, specifically non-disciplinary documents. This can include my weekly emails, content for our newsletter, surveys, new policy proposals, mou preparation material, new website content, secret projects like the interview prep packet I sent out last week, and so on. This time includes research and fact-checking. There’s also a lot of time spent revising and editing - I know my emails can be a bit verbose, but trust me, they frequently start out even longer and wordier. I think writing and producing content is a very important part of my job for a few reasons - our organization has historically not been the best at communication, I think we can attract more members if we’re seen as the authority on city processes and procedures, and I think frequent conversations about the importance/benefits of unions helps build a stronger organization (if you disagree, feel free to fill out the survey I sent out last week). I can spend between 10% and 30% of my time each week doing writing - during weeks I spend 30% I’m usually prepping a few weeks out in anticipation of other things taking up my time.
Recurring Meetings: About 15% of my time each week is spent in meetings. This includes board meetings, labor management meetings, six-side partnership meetings, investment/healthcare account meetings, director meetings, City Manager meetings, City Council meetings, meetings with our attorney, and so on. Prep for these meetings is included in the total - I try to both have a thorough agenda and take detailed notes so the union can follow up in subsequent meetings and not lose track of an issue. Information I glean from these meetings can be used while I help people with resolutions or turned into content for emails I send to members. This type of work can vary between 5% and 25% of my work week.
Interview Panels: About 10% of my time each week is spent in interview panels. This can vary significantly - I have some periods where I go a month without being on a panel and I have some periods where I sit on 5 days of interviews in a single pay period. Other members of the Board (and some of our volunteers!) also help with interviews - we try to be on as many as possible to ensure the process is fair, to identify possible errors our members are making, and guarantee that external hires coming in are highly qualified and ready to help people currently working in a role. It’s also really beneficial for board members to hear about what various workgroups do in their daily work - it makes it a lot easier for us to help address problems if we have a comprehensive understanding of what your work environment and responsibilities are like. This type of work can vary between 0% and 60% of my workweek.
Facilitation and Legwork: About 5% of my time each week is legwork. I spend that time purchasing and picking up items like gift cards, office supplies, food for meetings, drinks, and ice, then bringing them to where they need to go (interoffice mail, our union office, the meetings, etc). This also includes the setup and takedown of meetings - member meetings scheduled for an hour, for instance, usually take 2-2.5 hours total between ordering and picking up food, setting up the space (including the virtual meeting), hosting the meeting, and then cleaning up the space to make it look as good as when we arrived. This category also includes banking. Some of this time is also member correspondence - I usually chat with 5-15 members about specific issues at each of our member meetings. .
Internal Documentation: Finally, the last 5% of my time is usually spent managing internal documentation. UAEA wants our messages to only go to members - that requires maintaining a member list. UAEA wants to stay on top of issues - that requires reviewing case files and scheduling reminders every few weeks. UAEA’s Board wants to get a better idea of who is engaging with the union and through which mediums - for the past 3 months I’ve been notating every member interaction down. This section also includes checking in with the team on project status and coordinating the activities of specific union groups (like the Elections Committee). This type of work and facilitation requires about the same amount of time each week.
I hope this explanation helps answer how I use the UB time each week. I know it’s not always visible, but the UAEA team is always working on something, whether it’s assisting with disciplinaries, planning future events, or researching future negotiation topics. I also think the reality of organizational leadership is that much of the work needed to run an organization is just boring behind-the scenes stuff - while I enjoy the time I spend directly addressing issues with management or supervisors, there’s a huge amount of preparation needed to make all of that happen. I’ve seen a direct connection between the time we spend working on an issue and the eventual outcome - while we don’t win every battle, we tend to have a lot better success when we come fully prepared.
Thanks for a great week, everyone!