SUGGESTIONS WANTED

The Union is preparing for negotiations on the new Contract which governs all SSA Bargaining Unit Members. If you are not Management, a Public Affairs Specialist, or an Administrative Aide, you are a member of the Bargaining Unit.

We sent out an email the week of July 28th asking for comments about issues and items you'd like so see addressed by the Union in the new contract.

Some suggestions received, not in any particular order, are below:

"
One of my biggest concerns is related to the fact that we are hiring family members and relatives over other qualified applicants. We are also interviewing people without a vacancy announcement and the giving applications only to the applicants pre-selected. I think that upper management (Regional and Area Directors) should be made aware that employees are noticing this practices at the field office level, and it is causing a stressful and hostile environment among those who do not have any kind of "relatives" in higher management levels. It is my belief that such practice is discriminatory and violates the current contract. (many people know this, but nobody is doing any thing about it.) I also believe that there should be stipulations in the contract that regulate the process of selecting employees for promotions. For example, selecting officers should be mandated to justify any selection that is not the top candidate on the list. There should be a quality assurance independent council with authority to approve or overturn selections after a complete review of each new hire and promotion to protect employees against this discriminatory practice. (Friendship and family should not be a factor in selecting a new hire and current employees for promotion, and this practice should be subjected to disciplinary action because not only it is discriminatory, it is a conflict of interest.)

"Will like to see in writing somewhere in the contract that a prospect employee should not be denied employment because current spouse is working for the same SSA office that spouse is applying for. I am not saying that it happen to me, just a concern. Spouse applied twice for a TSR position in the same office I work, both times was denied the job and she was qualified as a 6-7-8."

"10 hour 4 day workweeks due to the cost of gas and commuting"

"Education incentives or reimbursement of expense;
Spanish lessons to improve language skills to better assist claimants and alleviate translator expense and also broaden employee skills;
These are just a few suggestions that I hope can be approved to be more of an asset to the agency as a whole."

What are your suggestions? Comments, posts, suggestions and debate welcome!

BLOG IS DEAD? NO, BLOG LIVES!

So, what's been happening lately? Too many things to post here at one time. Which is why the Local 4056 Blog has been withering on the vine. There have been changes on the Executive Board of the Local, there have been cuts in the Official Time Local Representatives get to work on Union business, there have been retirements, transfers, all of the things that can make maintaining a regularly updated Blog difficult.

Let's try one more time. Or more than one more time. I will attempt in good faith to update this page at least weekly. Herein, I will share with you what is affecting your fellow Local 4056 members. I won't use names, I'll disguise any content that may put a person at risk or under suspicion, but if someone contacts me with something that could be of interest to others, I'll post it here.

Let's start with the bats in St. Augustine. The Office there has been home to a bat colony, which meant that the workers had to be relocated to several nearby offices. Of course, nearby is a relative term, for one worker nearby was a 45 minute drive. The worker questioned management and the office aide about being compensated mileage for the commute but got less than a definitive answer. Yes, mileage is payable when you are stationed at an office other than your usual office. It's calculated by using your home office as the starting point of the trip, and what is payable is the distance from there to the alternate temporary location. For example, if you drive 10miles each way to get to work and the temporary duty station is 45 miles from your home, you would subtract 10 from 45, and voucher the Agency for 35 miles daily.

What else has been going on? There's been a nasty smell in the Kissimme Office (insert your own joke here)but that problem was short lived, and has been solved.

Also, the Manager of the Kissimmee office has been reassigned to Winter Haven, from whence she came. Kissimmee's AFGE Representative, the tireless and diligent Jose Jiminez had a huge part in recent changes made in that office that should affect the work environment and morale for all employees. Congratulations to Jose!

There are many hot-seats in the Tampa TSC but last Thursday all seats turned into hot seats because of a problem with the office air conditioning. That problem was resolved without bloodshed.

Orlando has had a recent rash of new hiring, and the CRTs are now in class. There were a total of 5 SSI CRs hired in Orlando (and 3 for Longwood), 2 Title II CRs and 3SRs hired since April.

Not to cast aspersions on any of the new hires, but more than a half, significantly more, are blood relatives of current or former managers and their spouses, or relatives of bargaining unit employees, or both. We truly have the best of both worlds here. Perhaps making a strategic change of one's last name will help one's chances for promotion around these parts.