Dragon Info What a Difference a Committee Can Make
|
Norma Raes by Richard Bermack To say that Alta Regional Center used to be hostile to the union would be an understatement. Discussing union activities at work was risky. It reached the point that when a worker being disciplined requested a union steward, the steward was told to leave the building and was put on unpaid leave. When union field rep Valerie McCan-Murrell arrived, management threatened to have her arrested. The matter went all the way to arbitration. Now all that has changed. There is a labor-management committee that functions well, the center is running smoothly, worker morale is up, and the clients are getting better services. Former chapter president Mattie Parfitt recalls the bitter struggle and how everyone came together at the end.
When Parfitt began her term as chapter president, she had no idea what she was getting into. Just after she was elected, the executive director called her into his office and informed her that the center was having financial difficulties and workers were going to have to take unpaid furlough days. She had no idea how to respond. Losing work days would have been a hardship for the workers and would mean fewer services for their clients. There was not a lot of trust between management and the workers at the time, so after giving it some thought, Parfitt decided to make a bold move. She called up the California Department of Developmental Disabilities Services to find out what was going on. She asked to speak to the director, and to her amazement, Deputy Director Paul Carleton immediately called her back. “Here I was, just a file clerk, one of the lowest employees at Alta, and I’m talking with the deputy director of the department,” she says. When she explained that she was an employee at Alta and the union president and explained their situation, Carleton offered to meet with the employees to explain what was going on. Parfitt learned that the state had placed Alta under probation because the organization was running out of operational funds due to fiscal mismanagement. Carleton faxed Parfitt a copy of the letter the state had sent to the Alta board with the state’s proposals to solve the agency’s fiscal crisis. None of the suggestions included furloughs for the working staff. “Why should we suffer because of their mismanagement?” Parfitt asked. The union took the position that the executive management should take furlough days, as they were the ones that caused the problem. Parfitt posted the letter from the state explaining that Alta was under probation and the terms of the probation. The situation rapidly declined, and workers were leaving the agency in droves. Thirteen people left in one month, according to Parfitt. “We stood our ground,” Parfitt says. “DDS came though with some funds, but by June the staff was so upset with the executive management that the staff drafted a letter to the president of the board stating that they had no confidence in management and were unable to provide services because of the high rate of attrition. The letter was signed by 150 workers out of approximately 270. Even supervisors signed it. The letter was sent to the president of the board. The staff hoped that the letter would solve the problem. Instead they got a very condescending letter back from the president of the board in which he expressed total confidence in the management team.” The workers felt so disrespected that they turned to the union. They held demonstrations and showed their strength. The board members were eventually won over. A new chief financial officer was hired. He had worked previously at Harbor Regional Center, also represented by Local 535. He understood that a union could be an asset, and he knew how to work in a collaborative way. The new management called a town hall meeting to solicit the workers’ suggestions and began to forge a new relationship. The union asked for five things and received them. These included monthly staff meetings where a financial report was presented and they could ask questions, a weekly email report on the current status of the DDS investigation, a monthly breakdown of the budget, accessible Alta board meetings open to workers and consumers, and a labor-management committee. The board even went so far as to change the time of their meetings to make it easier for workers to attend. “Having achieved all that, when my year was up I was happy to turn the reins over to Barbara Lopez, the new president,” Parfitt states with a smile.
|
||||||||||||||||
