Be flexible and understanding but follow the law and contracts.
Instructions to Department and Division Heads:
From: Mayor
Sent: Monday, February 14, 2011 4:04 PM
To: Dept Division Heads
Cc: MY GROUP
Subject: Paid leave requests in the wake of state proposed changes to collective bargainingDepartment/Division Heads:
I am sure that you are all aware of the concerns many employees have about the state budget bill, and changes made to collective bargaining and employee benefits. The Mayor’s Office and City HR have received a number of questions about the ability of employees to utilize work time or accrued leave time to campaign against the changes being made. I would like to encourage you to be flexible in approving paid leave requests during this time of uncertainty, also please be understanding of increased discussion of this issue amongst employees and their union representatives. However, please keep in mind that collective bargaining agreements and City Ordinances do not permit work time or City resources to be used for campaign purposes.
If you have any questions specific to this issue, feel free to contact Labor Relations, Greg Leifer or Erin Stenson.
Sincerely,
Dave Cieslewicz
Mayor’s comments directly to city employees:
I realize many of you want to attend the rallies that will be held this week at the State Capitol to oppose these changes. I have asked department and division heads to be flexible with employee requests to use approved paid leave this week. That said, I need your cooperation to also ensure that we are
working to meet the needs of the City and not violating ordinances prohibiting the use of City time or equipment for campaign activities. Employees should not be using City resources to copy campaign materials, or campaigning while on City time. We are encouraging department/division heads to exercise flexibility, however it must be done in accordance with the law and collective bargaining agreements.
Again, the Mayor talks about, (or drives?) . . . the wedge.
In my mind, employees should have roughly the same wage increase and benefit package regardless of whether they drive a police car or a snow plow, or whether they answer phones or supervise people for a living. Governor Walker’s bill would force us to end that practice. Under his misguided proposal, we would have at least three classes of employees: protective service employees, general represented employees and non-represented employees – each with potentially a different wage and benefit package at least in the short term. I will work with representatives of represented and non-represented employees to treat them equally to the extent allowed by the new proposal, but I regret that we may be forced to discontinue our practices of equality.
Call me cynical, but I think this is the Mayor’s way to be able to say to the unions not impacted in the future, that he can’t give them what they want because the others don’t have it.
