Mr.
President
Public Employees Federation,
AFL-CIO
Dear Mr. Brynien:
This
letter continues and confirms the understandings of the parties reached during the negotiation of Article
17, Out of Title Work, and
Article 34, Grievance Procedure, in the 1999-2003 2007-2011 State/PEF Agreement.
The parties agreed that during
the life of this Agreement, we will jointly study and discuss the
administration of the Article 17 and the Article 34 grievance processes. This endeavor will be designed to identify
areas where delays exist that may be expedited either through development and
implementation of more efficient administrative procedures during the life of
this Agreement, or through possible changes to contract language during the
next round of negotiations.
Areas to be addressed shall include, but are not necessarily limited to:
1. Tracking the amount of time agencies take to process grievances, in particular, the time to issue Article 17 Step Two decisions;
2.
Developing an updated grievance forms for use in the Article 17 and
Article 34 grievance processes; and,
3. Identifying administrative efficiencies in the grievance processes.
The
parties have further agreed that, beginning one month after ratification, the
parties will begin using the revised Article 17 grievance from and the Director
of Classification and Compensation will make reasonable efforts to give
priority to the assignment and review of grievances which have been sustained
at Step 2 and advanced directly to the Director of Classification and
Compensation for review.
Please confirm that this letter accurately sets forth our understandings on this subject by countersigning below.
Sincerely,
John Currier
Deputy Director for Contract Negotiation and Administration
Governor’s Office of Employee Relations
Countersigned for PEF:
President