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!