Well, there’s nothing like a controvsial topic to begin the new year, but according to the Gregorian calendar, the decade is not over until 12/31/10. Nevertheless, I wish you all a very safe, happy and healthy new year. We are crossing our fingers and hoping to have completed bargaining on a new contract by then and submitting it to the membership for ratification.
Primary Election
As lawyers who appear before judges for a living, we know the importance of choosing good judges in our elections. But whom we choose to be County Board President, Commissioner or Governor can be just as important. Although I wont tell you who to vote for in those races, I will tell you that it is vitally important for each one of you to be an informed voter. And the burden and obligation to find out which candidate is best is placed squarely upon your shoulders.
To help you with that burden, the League of Women Voters, the Better Government Association and ABC Channel 7 will be airing 6 debates, one which already occurred but can be viewed online, to help you make these decisions.
Because even lawyers who are well informed do not always know the backgrounds and qualifications of all the judicial candidates on the ballot, the Chicago Bar Associaton and the Chicago Council of Lawyers have made their evaluations of candidates avialble to voters on the world wide web. You, your friends and relatives may want to review these two reports before casting your votes. Early voting begins January 11th.
Pizza and Pop with the Executive Board
The Local’s Executive Board decided late last year to have meetings at most of our work sites in order to gain an understanding of any issues that concern the membership. Executive at Large, Bruce Mosbacher, will be arranging the schedule of meetings. Feel free to contact him at board@cookcountypd.org to help organize the meeting at your site because Bruce and the board may not be as familiar as you are with the best places and times to have our meetings. We want to begin meetings after the February Primary election and hope to have them concluded by the middle of March.
Job Audit Grievance Granted
In a prior posting, I asked, on behalf of the local, for members to send me a letter or memo indicating that you were working out of classification (for e.g., doing Grade 3 work but getting only Grade 2 pay). Nearly 25 members sent me information outlining the work that they were doing and requested that the union ask that they be audited.
The local sent a letter to management, pursuant to Section 19.1 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, requesting audits of each member that sent me a letter and the County eventually conducted job audits of each of those members. The County auditors found fourteen of those members to be working above their pay grade.
After extensive discussion among the Executive Board members of past practice and the promotion procedure under the contract, the Board decided to pursue a grievance on behalf of those members identified by the County as working above classification. In December of 2009, Executive at Large Joe Gump and I met with management, had a hearing, and were pleased to have the grievance granted. As a result of our success on the grievance, these members will be upgraded consistent with the audits within the next few weeks.
In Solidarity,
K. S. Galhotra
President
