AFSCME Labor Management MSH

July 15, 2021 1230PM

Administration Building

Attendance: Adam Castle, Ryan Cates, Annie Jakacki, Kurt Crosby, Jake Schoenecker, Marvin Sullivan, Scott Melby, Becky Robinson, Roxanne Portner, Michelle Chalin, Alli Kuhlman, Denise Considine

Reflection/Celebration: Becky-The response on Monday was amazing. Everyone supported each other. I appreciate all the participation as well. Scott-No positive COVID since May 25th. Roxanne-We had 28 additional staff participate in vaccines also.

Standing Agenda Items:

1. Osha Information: Handouts from Alli.
2. 2.      Overtime Information: Handouts from Alli. Jodi is going to try to change overtime information to a monthly basis instead of end of pay period if that works. Cates-yes.
3. 3.      Budgeted Position Review: Becky-Waiting to see what gets allocated to us after budget is resolved. Scott-Every vacant position, we are filling at this time. Denise-They are being posted to be filled but we are having trouble filling the positions. Becky-There were 11 passing candidates last time. There are 6 or 7 this time. Roxanne-Last fiscal year, we had 7 LPNs resign and have only hired 3. We have retained those as of today.

Old Business

Management

1. 1.      Chairs: Scott-I was looking to do follow up and I would like some names. Cates-Cates gave information related to the statements.
2. 2.      Kurt-Angela Dugan did a great job responding.

AFSCME

1. 1.      COVID Issues: Cates-Only issue is masks. Roxanne-In DCT meetings, they are looking at guidance from CDC. Looking at outside visits. We cannot require people to show vaccination records. So, we are looking at this at every meeting. Marvin-can you make it an option to show? Roxanne-we are looking into that. Scott-it could become an issue for someone. In the meantime, we will continue wearing them. Denise-This is a DCT direction we have to be consistent across DCT. Roxanne-59 percent of staff across of forensics have been vaccinated. This doesn’t include the new hires. We had the clinics and the forms where you could share your information. These are counted. It’s a good number. Across the state is close to 70 percent.
2. 2.      Grove Re-organization and New Unit Openings: Becky-waiting on certificate of completion. Physical plant is doing work right now. Scott-there is a pipe in aspen that needs to be replaced. They are digging into the building. Becky-We are continuing to plan for patient movements. Staff should have communication with their supervisors as far as referrals go. They have a list that is changed on the management site for where people are going. Tring to figure out where people land. Looking at unit definitions are part of the job description. We are looking at how they fit. As stuff comes up, we will look at this again.
3. 3.      Not Backfilling Units: Cates-Continue to hear complaints. Marvin-there are also MAPE units doing overtime on the units. Not enough extras to cover other needs. Scott-our intent to cover everything, sometimes we can’t. There are times we call units and they say they are good. Sometimes others don’t think they are good, and you may hear that. I haven’t heard about MAPE lately. Marvin-it has been happening a lot lately. Its great for inversing but we need to cover the gap. Kurt-or if we get Bas and social workers to cover. Scott-Becky will follow up on it.
4. 4.      Grove A Vacation Slots: Cates-looking at increasing vacation? Roxanne-yes, we are. I will get back with Jodi and grove leaders. There are recommendations for increase.
5. 5.      Hazard Pay: Cates-money allocated by legislature for essential employees. Becky-I haven’t heard anything. Denise-I haven’t heard either. Not sure who makes that decision, but it isn’t us. Annie-Process for that is legislature is putting together a committee. September is the deadline. Committee was selected Monday. They need to provide legislature 3 plans on how to distribute the money. That money is most likely going to front line workers with highest risk. Grocery, long term care. Those people at high risk but didn’t have covid or worked without pay. Risk was high and didn’t have protection. We won’t have information until they start meeting. 250 million is just for this committee for no covid relief or leave. Roughly 900 million that legislature will figure out what to deal with in next years budget also.
6. 6.      LPN OT on NOCS Grove B and C: Cates-Only allowed to take inverses but not voluntary overtime. Roxanne-Its tricky between the unions. Its easier to say the RN OT is offered to RNs. They can mutual with an RN as long as we have enough RNs to cover. Marvin-so are they getting the bonus? The RN does. Denise-Like any other shift. Management has the right to determine what job class does the overtime. If management is calling them asking, then they get it. Not mutually switching or voluntarily. Marvin-if we declare as it needs an RN but allowing an LPN, it takes away the bonus. Denise-If I offer to LPN and no one takes it, then its mandated to me but I find someone to take it, you aren’t mandated, its voluntary. Marvin-But you aren’t allowing them to sign up for it. Cates-If someone picks up an inverse or takes it form someone else, its voluntary. But not eligible for bonus. Denise-But in contract it says if assigned by management. I will follow up with others to see what they say as well and get back to you. Kurt-To be fiscally responsible, you would give the LPPN the bonus instead for the RN wage. Roxanne-they have a different contract so that makes it difficult. Cates- MNA wants it both ways for RNs and LPNs are treated as less than. Roxanne-Its extremely challenging to balance this. We have a lot of trouble hiring LPNs right now also. Marvin-why not offer to LPNs at point of inverse? We do it with other classifications if they can do the job. Roxanne-I will look at it more.
7. 7.      FVN 1 Staff with Orange Level Patients: Cates-They are increasing. Becky-Keep me posted and we can talk through it. With that one case, it was more because they were returned to the facility.
8. 8.      Service Delivery Planning Project Rewriting PDs?: Becky-Nothing outside of what is already a part of the SCL job. We haven’t gotten very far as what differences there would be. We started going through policies first and as we go through, we ask to consider who takes the lead and standardize it.
9. 9.      Lead Leveling Process: Denise-There is a meeting this afternoon to discuss the questions of the interview. Heidi is working hard on it right now for scoring. Once those are developed, we will get back together with labor to discuss the process. We have the lead list open now as well. Cates-prior to finalization? Denise-yes. Scott-who will be asking the questions? Cates-moose lake, msop st peter, and fmhp. Denise-The plan is a supervisor from each of the 3 business areas as a team. They participate at all locations. Might have 4 or 5 that can participate as a panel but only 3 at a time.
10. 10.  Hospital Coverage With 1 Staff: Cates-We think there should be 2 staff if patient isn’t immobile or comatose. Scott-we worked on that policy as a group. Are we following that? Cates-I haven’t heard of anyone being talked to but there is kickback from the hospital. Scott-Let one of us know if that happens and we can liaison.
11. 11.  Workgroup with Carri Archer and MSOP: Looking at staff matching when we get a lot of staff coming into our hiring pool. They are asked between msop and forensics but to better suit them, is anyone willing to become part of that group? Kurt-I am. Becky-anything you can think of now? Preferential treatment, etc. tamarak, willow, and forestview north you might have strengths more appropriate. They might have better negotiation abilities, etc. Becky-When we have flexibility, it feels like a missed opportunity to see what fits best. Kurt-It is good to have options.

New Business

Management-None

AFSCME

1. 1.      COVID Leave Ending-Staff with Symptoms: Cates-If they don’t have accruals, etc. Denise-Do whatever they would do if they are sick with anything else. Staff needs accruals to cover it. Contact leave management, FMLA, etc. Cates-If someone has a sore throat or they are congested, they think its allergies and come to work. Sign on the door says they can’t come into work. Denise-If you are sick, you shouldn’t come to work. Cates-Not in a pandemic, you would come in with a sore throat. Scott-people need to talk with their supervisor if they know they have used the accruals. We can deal with a case by case basis. Cates-what if they have to quarantine for two weeks? Denise-contact leave management and apply for fmla. I’m not trying to be insensitive; it is a medical situation that we need to manage. I am not going to blanket say to come to work if you have covid. If you are sick, consult physician and make whatever decision you need to make. Becky-This is a narrow group. Marvin-we do have new staff that don’t have accruals. There is a case where the staff could have it and is being told not to call in sick by staff because she is new. Becky-Please talk to your supervisor. Scott-These instances have nuances. If they don’t have accruals, there are many reasons for that, and many are legitimate. Denise-when we say talk to your supervisor, it’s not If you should come to work or not. If you use etl, discuss that with your supervisor. Jake-on the leave line, are covid questions in there? Scott-We have been trying to take that off the leave line for 3 weeks now.
2. 2.      Inversing with pre-approved sick leave the next day: Cates-Person had preapproved sick but was least senior. Scott-whole shift? Cates-yes. Marvin-but if you have preapproved from 6 to 8 but if its from 1 to 2 you can. Scott-The ODs are following what is on atlas. We will see what we can do.
3. 3.      Event Summaries only 7 days-30 or 60 days: Scott-Retention is 30 days. The summary is intended for communication between staff. At 30 days it becomes old and is dumped. Its intended for us to see what has happened the last couple of days. Look for incident reports and avatar for better information anyway. This isn’t official.
4. 4.      Recruiting/Retainment Incentives: Denise-We have been offering those out for LPN, HSSS. I don’t know about retention but recruitment and referral bonus. Recruitment looking at case by case depending on the position. We will continue to monitor that. Scott-If you are referring someone, tell them at interview you want the form to fill out to say who referred them. We need that signature to move it forward.
5. 5.      OT Bonuses for FSS/FSSL’s: Denise-that is contractual and is not part of the contract and we haven’t negotiated. That. It can be an MOU as well. Becky-I was asked about bonuses also for those who haven’t exhausted all of their leave also. Cates-OT bonuses are always good. Scott-OT bonus is time and a half. What is in your head as a bonus? Cates-anything extra is a bonus other than time and a half. Annie-LPN and HST has voluntary shift bonus. We have others in DHS that have opened it to other classes. Becky-Do you have a sense based on if it continues to be the same staff or has it diversified the people taking it. some will result in burnout. Annie-MSOCs is biggest program that has that. Depends on site and staff. With or without the bonus, those staff will do it anyway. The bonus wont change that. It helps people be more willing to pick it up. Denise-we know the benefits of those. Its not contractual right now but we can have the discussion some time. This isn’t the place. Annie-It was brought up to start the discussion.
6. 6.      Failure to provide extra staff following critical incidents: Cates-staff from bartlett said when patient came back, they were told they would have an extra staff but did not. Becky-I will follow up on that. Marvin-There is a lot of frustration with how many people were standing around and lack of help from supervisors and management. Then felt left out of the conversation afterwards. Becky-I encourage people to add those issues into our review. As a manager, sometimes I feel torn about responding. It was demoralizing that we didn’t come down. Marvin-They felt the people dealing with the incident was now responsible for cleaning up while seeing others standing around. Kurt-Sometimes people come into the situation without ever even knowing what to do because they have never seen anything like it as well. Jake-Maybe the lead needs to be empowered to make the decisions. Becky-So, not to leave those staff experiencing trauma to continue to clean up the situation…Scott-People can go home to clean up and be on paid status for these things. Scott-I come to incidents when requested. You guys know how to deal with these things. I was told to come meet the police and OSI. I dealt with some evidence and that is what I did. It’s a difficult situation. Marvin-some were thankful, and others thought you were there criticizing. Scott-That is not what I am doing in that situation. I was there for the police and support during the situation. We are all in this together when this goes on. Kurt-If we figure out a way that we are consistent with who shows up. Roxanne-This is part of the structure of ICS. The A Team Lead gives direction. Marvin-yeah but it was so large. Scott-There was a request for a lot of help. Marvin-There should have been someone giving direction.
7. 7.      Merry go round of rules and policies: Cates-Pornography, video games, caffeine, etc. Becky-Yes, they are changing again. People felt comfortable to provide feedback and this is the direction that I hope is an improvement. The only update about caffein is they reformatted the limits. Jake-it was 4 and 2. Becky-It isn’t going away. Highlights were to take what is provided and take into account the grove model to be more descriptive. I don’t think there are significant changes. Working for consistency on level A care and how they are applied. Some units do their own thing right now. Kurt-When a patient goes from grove to grove, the rules are different and that causes confusion and incidents.  Becky-With standardizing the groves, I hope it will clarify a lot of these issues. Its destabilizing for the patients right now. Allowing food to come in from visits is also an issue. let us know of others. Gaming systems are difficult. There was an attempt to manage them by deactivating Wi-Fi. We discovered that is difficult, so we have decided not to get any more in. Grandfathering in with many heading to discharge and that didn’t happen, and they ended up on the unit. There will be none with internet access, but we can stay with Grove B, C, D. If they go up to the hill, they will be sent out for B,C,D. The ones on the units will stay, along with the ones you can get from Walkenhorst. Normalized access to media in the community. There is no funding to purchase or review pornography, so that will not be allowed. Print pornography is still allowed but it must be on property inventory. We have operated well on people knowing what we can have. You can still forward it to media review when it comes to the paper stuff. Scott-Every policy has a policy chair. Anyone can share feedback to it. Each policy is reviewed every year. Its not only these policies that change. You can talk with the policy chairs. Becky-if anyone is interested in the policy, let me know.
8. 8.      Shifts changing communication: Cates-Management talking with members about the changes. Becky-They typically initiate it. Often times when I do rounds, staff have ideas. I like to talk about these and brainstorm. I try to bring it back to labor about preferences. I am feeling staff don’t feel represented and come to management to feel heard. How can we help staff feel they are? Cates-We always hear that. People blame Labor for their shifts getting changed, their friends getting unjustly fired and for their vacation days being reduced. These things that aren’t our fault are they. Becky-I hear there is a lot of less senior staff in the work force and those more senior get preferences when it comes to language. Vacation, days off, weekends. They have attempted to think of ways to balance that and aren’t heard. How can we help offer reassurance of that? Every time I round, it gets brought up 10 out of 15 units. More often its seniority and more senior staff represent them. Cates-They can talk to us and they can put forward proposals. They can learn the process if they talk to us. We have to enforce the contract. Becky-This is my experience. Becky-There is no plan to go to 6/2 or 7/3. Scott-I hear the same thing where they ask these questions. I respond that this has been discussed and we work with the local union. I am not going to say I am not going to talk about that. I hear repeatedly that I am on a 6/2 rotation because I worked in MSOP. Cates-There have been staff saying it is coming from you about a shift change. Becky-I am not going around saying we are changing shifts. Marvin-The conversation is good, but we are all getting different information from staff. Scott-I have people asking about 10 and 12 hour shifts. We have a workforce that is interested in something different. There are the haves and the have nots in our system. We wouldn’t move forward without partnering with you guys.
9. 9.      Vacation on Days off-what is the process: Cates-If I have December 15 off and I request vacation for my day off, will it be approved? Roxanne-I will check in with Jodi. Marvin-those get removed at a later time. People are getting added to the vacation list but its on their day off. Jodi-Since it no longer counts towards the allotment, you can no longer include that day in your request. You will have to request around your days off.
10. 10.  Vacation granting outside of contract: Cates-People were granted outside of guidelines; how do we fix it. Jodi-It was human error. I processed these and then realized it too late. It won’t happen again. I will leave them on there. People granted outside of contract have seniority anyway but if someone were more senior to request and doesn’t get it, we will revisit it. Kurt-A staff member did a swap this weekend but AOD told person that her shift would stay until 10 when the mutual was to 930. EOD said it was an error and it was a business need. Scott-The expectation is we work our scheduled shift. There may be anomalies and errors. Whether it was an error or not, that staff is responsible for it. Denise-If there is a business need, staff can be forced to stay if you are not on a double. Kurt-Staff trying to call scheduling and can’t leave a message. Jodi-The voicemail doesn’t work on shared numbers. Send an email. The voicemail is out of my control. Kurt-What day do you process vacation? Jodi-It has always been Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. When you rescind, that process isn’t over, we actually have to process it first. You can call us to hurry up the process as well.
11. 11.  We cannot see history of rescinded vacation: Cates-Can only see from today forward. Can we access it to see anything in the past? Jodi-It should be under inbox under rescinded vacation. I can run a report but there won’t be anything you can look up in the past. Cates-I requested it once before.

Add Ons:

1. 1.      Investigations: Staff being asked questions repeatedly after declining. Cates-Person being interviewed said they didn’t want to answer any more questions, but supervisors continued asking. They shouldn’t be doing that and end the interview. Denise-Its ok to ask for a caucus but also ok for investigator to ask questions and if staff doesn’t want to answer, they don’t have to. Cates-They should be given time to consider. Denise-The investigators also have an obligation to ask the questions. Staff are answering voluntarily. Investigators have to complete it. Employee has the right to refuse and we have the right to ask. Cates-The supervisors went to stewards outside of officers who isn’t comfortable. If I was in there, I would caucus. Kurt-Can something be added so if this happens, the supervisors inform them of caucus? Denise-for us to tell our supervisors that, I can’t commit to that, but we can do our best to inform them.
2. 2.      LPN Overtime: Grove A to B and C inversing. Cates-Is it being done by seniority or inverse? Roxanne-Offered in the work area and by seniority. Cates-if a wanted b an c. would b and c get it first? Roxanne-I believe so, but I will follow up. Cates-Groves should be offered first then at point of inverse based on seniority. Roxanne-That is how I understand it.

Meeting Adjourned at 228pm