TO: Alan Kaufman, CWA Representative
FROM: David H. Weiner, President, CWA Local 1081
DATE: February 13, 2015
SUBJECT: Request for Arbitration
Premature Increase of Health Insurance Co-Payments
- The notification deadline is approximately March 26, 2015.
- CWA Local 1081 submits this request for arbitration on behalf of all of our Union's members to protest the County of Essex having prematurely increased our members’ respective health insurance co-payments which are prescribed by Public Law 2011, Chapter 78.
- Our adversely affected members' respective seniority dates are not applicable to this matter.
- The facts are well contained within the attached Step II and Step III Class Action contractual grievances our Union filed with management, to which the County responded to only Step II and did no negatively.
- The relevant contractual provisions are referenced within the abovementioned attached grievances.
- The Local’s recommendation is that the National CWA expeditiously approves this request and file for arbitration in order to compel the County of Essex to abide by the tenets of the contract in the cited regard. It is our Local’s belief that we are positively positioned to prevail in arbitration upon our adversely affected members' behalf.
January 23, 2015
Anibal Ramos, Director
Essex County Department of Citizen Services
18 Rector Street, Floor 9
Newark, NJ, 07102
Re: Step III Class Action Contractual Grievance
Premature Increase of Health Insurance Co-Payments
Public Law 2011, Chapter 78
Article I. Purpose
Article VII. Discipline
Article XX. Health Insurance Coverage
Article XXV. Non-Discrimination
Dear Mr. Ramos:
CWA Local 1081 submits this Step III Class Action Contractual Grievance on behalf of all of our Union’s members to protest the County of Essex having prematurely increased our members’ respective health insurance co-payments which are prescribed by Public Law 2011, Chapter 78.
Division of Welfare Director Sharon Butler’s attached Step II Class Action Contractual Grievance denial response of January 16, 2015 is unacceptable to CWA Local 1081 and to our Union’s adversely affected members.
According to the County’s salary schedule, our members’ first pay period within Year 2015 covers the dates from December 13, 2014 through December 26, 2014 which were paid on January 2, 2015. Because the aforementioned working days are from Year 2014, our members were not supposed to pay the requisite increased health insurance co-payments until the second pay period of Year 2015.
In response to concerns articulated by Essex County Deputy County Administrator/Director of the Office of Human Resources Alan Abramowitz to our Union in this regard, there are twenty-six pays (not twenty-five pays as Mr. Abramowitz asserted) in Year 2016. The reason that there are twenty-seven pays this year is because a total of 365/366 days per year is not evenly divisible by the number fourteen (two weeks). An extra day gets shifted into one payroll cycle every 11 years or so, creating a so-called "pay-period leap year." This is the only time that we do not have twenty-six pays in one year. There is never a time that there will be twenty-five pays in one year.
The resolution CWA Local 1081 respectfully re-demands to this grievance consists of the County of Essex expeditiously reimbursing all of our Union’s members the monetary difference between the increased health insurance co-payments they were charged within their paychecks of January 2, 2015 and what they had been charged in Year 2014.
We seek a hearing in this regard.
Sincerely,
David H. Weiner, President
CWA Local 1081