August 25, 2009
Anibal Ramos, Director
Essex County Department of Citizen Services
18 Rector Street, Floor 9
Newark, NJ, 07102
Re: Step III Class Action Contractual Grievance
Telephone Call Log
Article I. Purpose
Article VII. Discipline
Article XXV. Non-Discrimination
Article XLIX. Safety of Staff
Dear Mr. Ramos:
CWA Local 1081 submits this Step III Contractual Grievance on behalf of our Family Service Worker members whom have been instructed by Director Nigro to maintain a Daily Telephone Call Log per his attached memorandum of August 19, 2009 written all staff and entitled “Telephone Call Log”:
- Our abovementioned adversely affected members are already struggling mightily to service a clientele whose numbers have increased more than thirty percent within the last twenty months while the total number of agency staff has increased a mere five percent within that same span of time. The County has already taken proactive measures to reassign staff in anticipation of UIB ending for 45,000 New Jersey residents at the end of this month. Although President Obama is talking about a possible thirteen-week extension for all those now receiving unemployment benefits scheduled to run out, our agency still faces inheriting between ten to fifteen percent of those 45,000, or between 4,500 and 6,750, as clients. They will probably become TANF recipients. In addition, in January 2010, the State will increase the income eligibility from 133% to 185% of poverty for those wanting FamilyCare health insurance coverage. This could result in 9,000 additional families statewide with Essex County inheriting a minimum of ten to fifteen percent of these additional cases.
- The County has failed to delineate the number of clients to whom their telephone voicemail messages were allegedly not returned by their respective FSW’s, thus providing the appearance that management is relying upon unsubstantiated hearsay and suppositions upon which to justify imposing this odious and onerous encumbrance upon our adversely affected members. For Mr. Nigro to assert to our Union, within his attached and unacceptable Step II Class Action Contractual Grievance denial response of August 21, 2009, that this CWA Local 1081 assertion is “quite inappropriate since management does not report to the union!” is at once histrionically hyperbolical, and hypocritical, and wantonly disregards the fact that “the number of clients to whom their telephone voicemail messages were allegedly not returned by their respective FSW’s” is a matter of public record and should be made privy to our Union and our managerially maligned members.
- The County has failed to produce, for the edification of CWA Local 1081 and our Union’s adversely affected members, the results of any scientific time study management might well have thought to have undertaken with which to justify the feasibility of the requirement of the completion of the Daily Telephone Call Log and resulting in what our Union is certain will be a substantial reduction of both the quality and quantity of services our adversely affected members will be able to afford their clients. For Mr. Nigro to also assert to our Union, within his attached and unacceptable Step II Class Action Contractual Grievance denial response of August 21, 2009, that this CWA Local 1081 assertion is “quite inappropriate since management does not report to the union!” represents his abdication of his executive obligation couched within his obfuscation of the justification of his compelling our Union’s members to maintain time consuming and counterproductive telephone call logs.
The resolution CWA Local 1081 respectfully reiterates to this grievance is for the above cited dictate regarding the completion of the Daily Telephone Call Log to be withdrawn at least until management has proved to our Union there exists sufficient numbers of clients to whom their telephone voicemail messages were allegedly not returned by their respective FSW’s, that a scientific time study has been undertaken with which to justify the feasibility of the requirement of the completion of the Daily Telephone Call Log and that there will not result a substantial reduction in both the quality and quantity of services our adversely affected members will be able to afford their clients.
Sincerely,
David H. Weiner, President
CWA Local 1081