8/14 Weekly Email
Hi all,
I have a few updates and reminders this week.
Emails: I want to make sure that members are able to see all of the emails UAEA sends, as well as all of the opportunities that the City sends mass notifications about. I don’t expect that every member reads every email but I at least want them to have the opportunity to do so - given some conversations I’ve had with members in the last few weeks I’m concerned there may be some structural reasons people aren’t checking their inbox consistently. Some of my concerns include there being too few computers available for large teams to share (in places like Solid Waste, Water, Fleet, etc), there being not enough time scheduled during people’s shifts for them to sit down to check emails, or even there being comments from management discouraging people from taking computer time. I could be completely off-base but wanted to provide our members an opportunity for feedback - if you think there are any reasons you or people in your area don’t have the consistent ability to check email, please fill out the attached survey. We will address any concerns in upcoming Labor Management meetings.
August Member Meeting: Our next member meeting will be at the JGM Water Plant on Thursday, August 21st, from 12-1PM. You can rsvp here until today, August 14th, at 5PM. Please remember that we now need rsvps 1 week in advance to give people union business time for our meetings.
Please note that the parking for the JGM Plant is a little hard to find if you haven’t been there before. Please reference the attached photo or the instructions on our Events Page if you need directions.
Employee of the Quarter: Our next round of Employee of the Quarter closes on September 1st (finalists will be announced in our October newsletter). If you would like to be considered (or would like to nominate a peer), please fill out the application (it takes 5 minutes) before the end of day on September 1st. If you would like a refresher on program rules, check out this blog post. One thing that’s important to the Executive Team is making sure we recognize employees from as many departments as possible - we have not seen a lot of applicants from Water, Strategic Management, Financial Services, the Park Ranger team, the non-sworn side of PD, Courts, Sustainability, and a few other areas. While it’s not the only consideration, you have a better chance of recognition if your nomination is for someone in an area we haven’t acknowledged yet.
Board Member Highlight. Citywide Representative Olivia Calderon will be performing at the Mesa Arts Center on Saturday, September 13th, as part of the Latinas Divinas concert series. For those who weren’t aware, Olivia is an accomplished singer and performer who has represented the Tempe Police Department a number of times at local events. You can find more information about Latinas Divinas here.
UAEA would love the opportunity to spotlight the accomplishments of our members more frequently than our Employee of the Quarter. If you or your peers are doing interesting things in the community, feel free to pass it along - I might shout you out in one of these emails or spotlight you on our Hall of Fame page.
Segal: UAEA is continuing to try and address some concerns raised during the Segal study. Vice President Brittainy Nelson and I met with City Manager Rosa Inchausti this week to discuss details of our remaining cases and see if she was interested in making any changes. Rosa acknowledged the majority of our concerns but said she felt many of them are things that should be resolved in the next study in 2 years - given that, a big focus of our upcoming MOU negotiations will involve establishing new standards for future market studies. As a reminder, UAEA was involved briefly in the Segal pre-planning but did not play a role in shaping the methodology - our hope is we can get some contractual protections in the future that allow us to provide feedback about the study and the proposed outcomes throughout the process.
With that in mind, please don’t think this means we are giving up on trying to make additional changes. The UAEA board knows that one of the biggest places we can make an impact on member’s lives is pay and we are having ongoing conversations with department directors and HR about subtle adjustments that could be made to improve equity and some of the study outcomes. We also are directly working on 3 main actions which we think will help us address some of our concerns - while we won’t get immediate results, the outcomes should help us achieve even stronger pay protections and guarantees long term.
Our current actions are as follows:
Waiting on a public records request. We filed a public records request and are looking for background information, methodology, and a lot of additional data from the Segal team. This will help us better understand how certain study decisions were made, answer some questions members have had throughout the process, and potentially give us grounds for additional disputes. That said, Public Records requests can take quite a while to process - the last one I filed took about 7 months from start to finish and that was an even simpler request than what we just asked for.
Compiling information on Segal study concerns and generating proposed best practices for our MOU negotiations. Our main focuses right now are increasing the number of pay ranges (to put people even closer to market matches and give departments greater flexibility when adjusting pay for specific positions), bringing back a formal appeal process, bringing back some flex positions, automatically putting people at the top of their range after a certain number of years with the City (to account for longterm employees who have worked in a number of different roles), and getting employees more data about how the study was done and what their role was compared to from the start. More requests will probably come up as we go back through all of the Segal cases we have handled - if there’s something else you want us to look into, you can submit more through our MOU suggestion form.
Continuing to work with certain departments to try and get roles reclassified. For some changes we don’t need to wait until the next market study - there may be an opportunity to reclassify certain roles (and potentially get pay bumps for those positions). This is not an easy process but the release of the final job descriptions will help - if the job description for your role does not fundamentally match your daily job duties, that may be an indication that a reclassification may be needed.
I want to wrap up this section by saying I think the Segal study was an important step forward for the City and UAEA. While the board has a number of concerns about the grading of different positions, the methodology used for employee range placement, the structural changes that have occurred in different workgroups, and a dozen other things, the changes made by the study has fixed some longterm pay concerns and created a new foundation upon which we can propose all manner of pay incentives and programs that we could not have done before. UAEA has raised concerns for years about pay compression and senior employees making the same amount as people with far less experience - this structure is not perfect but it maintains a gap between employees based on experience and knowledge which can be further tweaked down the line. UAEA has raised concerns repeatedly about how many long term employees have been stuck in the middle of their ranges - this structure, while not perfect, keeps employees moving up in pay even as the market adjusts their pay band. UAEA has asked for years to see a better incentive for employees to earn degrees or take additional training - this structure makes it incredibly easy for the City to adjust someone’s range or grade placement if they achieve certain milestones. I know these changes may not seem like a consolation for people who didn’t see the outcomes they wanted, but they reflect progress on a number of fronts towards improving the pay equity of our organization - we plan to build on this initial milestone and continue refining the system for years to come.
Share the Ride: Valley Metro’s Share the Ride app has just been updated, making it easier to use. If you do any 5 “clean” commutes throughout the month I suggest you record them - you’re now eligible for the Tempe monthly drawing, the Valley Metro drawing, and now some new discounts. Keep in mind that “clean” commutes include carpooling with peers, taking the bus, streetcar, Orbit, or lightrail, walking or biking to work, or commuting in an electric vehicle. After checking the website I can confirm there are a variety of discounts that cover a huge range of services, ranging from restaurants to movie theaters to landscaping work to appliance repair. Check out a few below.
Perks include:
Discounts at Tempe restaurants like Delhi Plaza, 414 Pizza, Garcia’s Mexican Restaurant, Mijana Lebanese, D-Lite Food, Squarz Bakery, the Vine Tavern, and others. Additional discounts at many other Valley restaurants.
Significant discounts on dental work at a variety of Valley dentists
Significant discounts on massages or spa treatments at a variety of Valley spas
10-30% off tickets at multiple Valley movie theaters
Significant discounts on family packages at Valley entertainment centers like ChuckECheese, Legoland Discovery, the Phoenix Zoo, and Makuta’s Island
Significant discounts on auto services and repairs (windshield replacement, oil changes, tire rotations, etc) at a variety of Valley mechanics.
I’m sure most people are aware, but every regular, temporary, or seasonal employee is eligible for a free Platinum Valley Metro pass. The pass can be used both for your commute and your personal travel - you could even use it exclusively for personal trips if you so desired. One big benefit of having the pass is using it for events in downtown Tempe or Phoenix - rather than struggling to find parking or paying exorbitant rates you can park at a lightrail stop somewhere down the line for free and take the lightrail in. I know I’ve saved $20/hour or more on parking in downtown Phoenix when I’ve attended a few events in the last few years - those savings can really add up.