All,
I am acting FACREP again while Amy is out so I wanted to provide an update on what I have been working on this week.
MOUs
The MOU negotiating team that consists of myself, FACREP-elect Josh Curtis, and Kevin Brothers met with Cristalle today to set some ground rules and expectations for MOU negotiations. Her team will consist of her, Stan Conrad, and Jared Perkins. We have future meetings scheduled and hope to begin making progress quickly. Linked below is a quick survey about bid windows, OT assignment in conjunction with AL, and a spot to include your thoughts for 2026 MOUs. Thank you to those that attended the local meeting and gave input on the 2026 MOUs. If you were unable to attend, please let us know if you have any thoughts or ideas for the upcoming MOUs.
Grievances
We filed 2 grievances regarding messed up pay that took WAY too long to fix. Those pay issues have finally been resolved though. Please keep us posted on any pay issues, DOI is strug-uh-lin.
As you may recall from my last update, at Step 2 (facility level) we had the grievance regarding the painting of the pickleball court. Surprise surprise, that one was NOT sorted out at the facility level and we will be elevating it to PAR (Pre Arbitration Review). It did not make the cutoff for the August PAR though so it will have to wait until the 4th quarter PAR that has yet to be scheduled. Our regional LR Lead (Rick Tornabell from D01) will continue to work this at his level prior to that time in hopes of resolving it before PAR. He has conversations with an agency position called the “ETR” which stands for Executive Technical Representative. They work with the Agency LER (Labor Employee Relations) people to determine if they can settle a case prior to having to go to PAR with it. All cases go through this process prior to PAR, even the ones we are planning to argue at the PAR on 8/20 are still being worked and could be settled prior to the actual meeting.
No update on the previously mentioned ones that are on the PAR docket - OT Skip (Fatigue Violation), OM not liking certain words used in their presence, and agency inability to reply to a grievance fully.
EA
Ok so EA is a real hot button issue around the NAS right now and we are no different. I am currently working 2 separate issues involving EA. One is for voting EA. The Agency denied an employee voting EA recently and has yet to provide a valid reason, in my opinion. My concern is that they think that because the EO that spawned the MOU has been repealed, the MOU is no longer valid. That is not the case. The MOU is tied to the Slate Book and I am not sure if you have heard but the Slate Book is in effect for the foreseeable future.
The other EA issue, and the more frustrating one IMO, is one where employees were held over and the holdover necessitated a shift change the following day. I am of the opinion that barring some sort of extreme circumstance, the time that the employee was required to stay extra the following day should be EA. To me, that is the bare minimum we should be doing to get people’s schedules back on track after causing a massive disruption with only a few hours notice. I don’t even think there is a solid staffing argument to deny the EA, if the schedule was published a certain way, then the agency was fine with it being that way, and the EA should be given for that time window because the agency wasn’t expecting them to be here then anyway! It is not the fault of the employee that the area is drastically short staffed and we should not be paying the price for it at every turn when we don’t have to be. It’s basic human decency and the right thing to do. I will continue to try to make that argument and keep you all posted.
Recreational Areas
I am in preliminary discussions with Cristalle for us to have a sit down with the tech ops folks. The purpose of this will be to try to determine areas that we could use for outside activities. Perhaps even a pickleball court? This is in the early phases of discussing but I hope to be able to give more information soon.
Chairmageddon
A request has been made for us to stop stealing chairs from places outside the control room. Mostly because there are rules around what kind of chairs are allowed to be used in the control room (has to be super fart resistant or something). In addition to that, Al Franklin should soon begin working with each area rep to identify broken chairs and mark them for death or fixing. The more chairs we can identify as broken, the more chairs we are likely to get approval to buy. The facility currently has approval to buy only 5 new chairs. I am assuming that’s about 7 million dollars. Supercharge ATC chairs?
Rain Drainage Repair
There is something going to be happening soon regarding the gutters or something and it somehow impacts the inside? Honestly I don’t get it but expect certain areas to be roped off an unusable while they work on that. You can expect more info in TEAM. Sadly, this will include portions of the ready room for a few weeks and is unavoidable.
Hit me up if you need anything,
Drew
503.593.8178