ARTICLE 17
Last week we had a first. For the first time in history, the membership voted to reject a negotiated article that had been tentatively agreed upon between Labor and Management.
Before the article was negotiated, we knew it would be a hot-button issue. The intent was to come to terms that both Labor & Management could agree to, then leave it to our members to ultimately decide. "It's your contract, the membership votes to ratify." That had been repeated at every membership orientation I could remember.
Usually non-economic articles are somewhat benign. Typically something I would consider non-controversial. But this time it was different. This time it had the potential to impact promotional opportunities. And this time it was quite controversial.
For those that may not be entirely familiar, what was at stake was the minimum seniority requirements to be eligible to take a promotional test. Recently, the intention of the seniority was clarified so that the years in-rank had to be continuous, rather than allowing broken time to be combined, and the aggregate of that time would be used to determine eligibility.
What was proposed would have allowed for the adjusted date of employment to govern testing eligibility. In plain terms, if someone had 5 years on the job, left for 2 years, then had become re-employed for a year, the employee would have 6 years combined time due to their adjusted date of employment.
Advocates cited examples of leaving the job because of necessity, due to familial obligations. Opponents felt that if someone "got out of line," they didn't get to get back in the middle of the line, they needed to go to the back. There was a difference between the people that had "stuck it out," as opposed to those (in some references) who "went looking for greener pastures."
Who was right? In my opinion, both. It was dependent on one's perspective.
When someone goes to cast a ballot, it is my hope that the homework was done on the issues, and the ballot was cast based on the facts. It is not uncommon though for ballots to be cast based on emotion. In this instance we had both.
So what's next? Is there middle ground, between continuous and adjusted date of employment? I think so. It would require Labor and Management working together to find an alternative solution. And in the end, those that have strong opinions either way need to find their opposition, and sell it. It can't be left up to only emotion. It has to be sold on the facts.
