June 11, 2009
Bruce Nigro, Director
Essex County Division of Welfare
18 Rector Street, Floor 9
Newark, NJ, 07102
Re: Step II Class Action Contractual Grievance
Vacation Schedules Allowance Enduring Diminution
Article I. Purpose
Article VII. Discipline
Article IX. Vacations
Article XXV. Non-Discrimination
Dear Mr. Nigro:
CWA Local 1081 submits this Step II Class Action Contractual Grievance, on behalf of all of our adversely affected and potentially adversely affected members employed by the Essex County Division of Welfare, to protest the County’s continuing to deny the same percentage of our members allowed to concurrently take vacation last year to do so this year based upon the content of your attached memorandum of January 28, 2009, entitled “Vacation Schedules”:
- Past practice has allowed a minimum of 33% of our members of the same title to take vacation at the same time.
- For management to alter this policy to only 25% has proved highly unreasonable and has created extreme hardship for many of our members.
3. With the hiring of a large number of Family Service Workers since the beginning of this year, particularly as of relatively recent, the agency by your own admission has now approximately a total number of 800 employees and is close to achieving your stated administratively determined goal of a total number of 818 employees.
4. While the administration unfortunately decided that this year’s budget for the Essex County Division of Welfare should not include hiring additional (or sufficient) numbers of Clerks, that does not obscure the fact that overall agency staffing levels are nearing managerially determined fulfillment and thus the purported need to restrict the number of employees taking vacation at the same desired time (based upon our contractual tenets regarding seniority, of course) no longer exists.
As the resolution to this grievance, CWA Local 1081 respectfully reiterates the following:
1. The County shall allow 33% of CWA Local 1081’s members in any title to schedule vacations.
We seek a hearing, in this regard.
Sincerely,
David H. Weiner, President
CWA Local 1081