“Since this is a new union in CSEA the negotiations may be longer, because there is so much work to be done,” he said. “You’ve got to craft every different aspect of that contract.”
CSEA workers petitioned the State Employment Relations Board in February 2012 to unionize approximately 55 employees. The county objected to the inclusion of about a third of the proposed membership, namely staff attorneys, legal liaisons and investigators.
“The Butler County CSEA believes that the bargaining unit proposed by the petitioner is not appropriate because it consists of professional and nonprofessional employees and includes managerial, supervisory and fiduciary employees,” Frost Brown Todd attorney Donald Crain wrote to SERB on the county’s behalf.
The SERB board sided with the employees and the union was established with a 43 to 9 vote in December 2012. Last week, the inaugural contract was tentatively approved by the union, so the ball is now in the commissioners’ court. The union president could not be reached for comment, and their attorney Jessup Gage said he could not comment on either the contract or why his clients wanted to unionize.
CSEA Executive Director Ray Pater said he had a different opinion about the necessity of a union, but he isn’t going to “chastise” his employees for unionizing.
“I care about the employees, I know the commissioners do,” he said. “The employees felt they needed, I guess, whatever extra protections, or whatever else they felt they needed in the contract. They wanted that, and that was their choice, and they decided to go for it.”
Meanwhile, the union contracts at Children Services and Job and Family Services — which both expired last summer — are headed for “fact finding,” which is another word for arbitration when negotiations have broken down. Kelly Suit, the union president at JFS, said on May 13, a fact-finding committee will look at the impasse the two sides have reached and determine which party has the most valid position.
Suit said, technically, she believes they could go on strike now — there is a no-strike clause in the expired contract — and they definitely could if the fact-finding process goes against them. However, she said only about a quarter of the JFS staff are dues-paying members, so it might not make sense.
“That doesn’t mean that after we get done with this, if things don’t go our way, that it’s not something that we wouldn’t consider or at least discuss,” Suit said. “The only thing with our union is our numbers are kind of low, so you have to be realistic on what kind of an outcome you would even get.”
Becky Palmer, the Children Services union chief, has negotiated five or six contracts with the county, and this is the first time they have reached the fact-finding stage. All union negotiations are confidential so she and Suit could not comment on what the sticking points are. Children Services’ fact-finding date is May 20.
Palmer said collective bargaining has produced some very good results for Children Services employees, such as flexible schedules and extra vacation days, but the most important protection they have negotiated involves the disciplinary process. Staff used to have to go out and hire their own attorney to fight a management finding, but the union has an attorney to handle cases with management.
“Where I see where the union is most important is regarding just cause and discipline. I’ve seen way too many times where they attempted to discipline people without just cause, without it being progressive,” Palmer said. “Civil service is still just cause, but it is still different. They have to go to Columbus, they have to fight it with an arbitrator up there, you have to get your own attorney. The union itself can address all the issues on behalf of the membership.”
Jim Davis, who has negotiated many of the 15 county union contracts over the past year, said 12 of 14 settled contracts include the lump sum raise payment of $500 the first year, $550 the second year and most have a clause to re-open on wages in the third year. The commissioners are working toward getting the entire county, union and non-union on a performance based raise model, but the contracts needed to be negotiated before they rolled out the new plan.
“We’re trying to achieve parity amongst the different bargaining units…,” he said. “We’d like to bring them into that, it’s our hope to do that. We have not been able to put that in place yet. I think that’s motivating the re-opener language in this last year. So when we can talk about that, we will.”
About the Author