June 2020 Forensics Meet and Confer

AFSCME/Forensics Labor Management Meeting

June 18, 2020 1230PM

Administration Building

 

Attendance: Adam Castle, Ryan Cates, Alex Flores, Emilio Florez, Kurt Crosby, Annie Jukacki, Scott Melby, Marvin Sullivan, Lisa Vanderveen, Denise Considine, Alli Kuhlman, Carol Olsen, Michelle Chalin, Roxanne Portner

 

Reflection/Celebration: Carol-We have not had any positive Covid cases with patients. I appreciate everything staff is doing to stay safe. Roxanne-People have been really positive about all of the overtime lately. Alli-There have been a lot of positive interactions with staff and HR.

Standing Agenda Items:

  1. Osha Information-Handouts
  2. 2.      Overtime Information-Handouts

Old Business

Management

 AFSCME

  1. 1.      New Unit Water Shutoff: Carol-In the old phases there is shutoffs on both sides. On outside it is keyed area. Message from staff is that they didn’t like that when putting someone into seclusion. They wanted it easy to shutoff from outside. We can over it up or key it. Cates-Staff on unit say they want it keyed. Carol-ok. Scott-consider having safety team do an evaluation? So, we don’t change it and have another complaint? Carol-yes, I think that’s a good idea.
  2. 2.      Inconsistency Filling Staff Positions: Scott-When I checked into this…There are times we don’t need to fill a spot, we won’t. There are times we are contracting due to covid. Maybe we don’t have rovers do the post. If we get into last minute situation, we may not fill them. Cates-we have people that sign up and don’t get it but others are inversed. Scott-so when we want it, it’s filled but when we don’t want to, people want it? Cates-yes, inconsistent. Scott-we are trying to be consistent; we did have times when we didn’t fill due to inversing. If it comes up again, let us know. Has it happened since last month? Cates-I don’t know. Sometimes it happens according to who is in the AODS pool
  3. 3.      Hazard Pay: Cates-any luck getting members hazard pay? Denise-no, nothing new with that, thank you.
  4. 4.      Cluster Usage on Hickory: Cates-staff not allowed in cluster. They used to take duty breaks up there and watch the unit. They were taken away and told to use the street. Lisa-I’m not familiar with having done that up there. Randy talked about having conversation before they moved. Using it as storage for RT and computers and documentation. Randy and chad in Frasier unit will use for that purpose. Not wanting it as break area. Randy hadn’t heard it being an issue. it was well communicated. Cates-staff don’t feel comfortable coming to supervisors. Lisa-I get that. That is the intention for that area. Cates-FSSS allowed for charting too? Lisa-I don’t see why not but I want to check on that.

New Business

Management

  1. 1.      Stewards for Investigation Purposes: Denise-Difficulty at nursing home and having stewards available in timely manner. I know they are having concerns recently. Wanted to bring it here to be aware. We need to have these as soon as possible. Cates-I agree but part of it is we can’t keep stewards in that area. They feel targeted. If they talk union, they get complaints. They have to come from other areas so then you have to adjust to our schedules as well. They want a steward that day. It’s not reasonable with vacation and days off. We ask for grievance responses if 4 days and that is difficult. Marvin-I made it clear that my days off are Monday/Tuesday and the only time I got emails for investigations were those days. Denise-If you are a steward in the area, you are the only one? Marvin-no, but they would only send it to me. Emilio-I need to know these investigations are going on. I have gone to supervisors and asked to schedule it on my schedule and that hasn’t been done. To say we aren’t working is incorrect. Denise-no one said that, we said there were issues. Emilio-Issues that we aren’t attending? We are defending that. Carol-It feels to me that when we wan ta steward, send a message to all? Sounds like they are sending individually. Cates-we will get a list to HR and supervisors of our stewards. Denise-we can do that. Emilio-we have had a supervisor go into a building and waited for me to leave to have a new steward and I didn’t tell them anything and did the investigation. That should have never happened. This is why I am asking to be put on all investigations at FMHP. A lot of things need to be fixed. Carol-maybe it’s an interest-based problem-solving topic. Emilio-I got an email where the steward was supposedly aggressive in the investigation. I was present when 2 seasoned supervisors were bullying a staff to admit fault. They were countering everything with “are you sure.” I know what they are trying to do. I had issue with your employee asking supervisor say “will you know what happens?” the supervisor said we will and let Emilio know as well. For your supervisor to tell an employee that, it was already out of line. It was a cover up of policy and how it was written. Cates-Investigation is fact finding only. When they say loudermill is required, its justifying what they already know what they are going to do. That is the issue we have. Emilio-I don’t feel I was out of line with what was going on. I said thank you and walked away. I was sick to my stomach; I couldn’t believe this happened. I am glad this came up. My name was thrown out and I have to defend myself so you can hear both sides. Roxanne-when they brought up loudermill, was that an explanation? Emilio-employer asks “when you find out, will you let me know what the process is?” The supervisor said yes and it usually involves a loudermill. Cates-The fact that this supervisor said this about Emilio, this is the same one that avoided him before. We have issues with this same one. We are allowed to have input as long as its professional. Emilio-I will remain professional but I feel we are one answer away from being a mandated reporter. I don’t want to be forced to do that. Carol-I’m glad you brought that forward. Denise-we could have more discussion on this but not this setting. I appreciate your passion for what you do. There is work to be done with supervisors as well. We will follow up on that. Emilio-when we work with management, we try to help out. however, it backfired because they thought I was trying to tell them how to do their job when I was actually trying to help. I am here to work together but we can’t if we are playing games. Denise-I appreciate it and I know you are trying to represent your member and they are trying to get answers to their questions. Emilio-when you use law enforcement tactics against our staff, it is a red flag. We don’t do that to our patients. Carol-can we get better? Absolutely. This conversation has to take place. I appreciate what you have said. Emilio-I actually thought the interview went well. We need to move forward. We are in this together.
  2. 2.      Grove E Units: Lisa-We have started conversation of separating out grove e units. Like FMHP is. Pine and north separate unit. Bid to those units instead of grove E. we will need to have a decision day for staff to bid on unit they are interested in. just wanted the group to be aware of it. Cates-Just for pine and north campus? Lisa-just the two units decision day. Carol-SCL already have a specific location? Lisa-yes. Carol-lpn bids to grove so it’s just SC, right? Roxanne-yes. Denise-it might not be an in-person decision day. May be just an email that goes out and we award according to seniority. We will discuss with you guys about what that will look like.
  3. 3.      Add on: Roxanne-looking at forest view south staff into the positions. We would like to move forward July 22nd to move the people into the bid positions. Jodi will reach out to them. Marvin-open Forestview south? Roxane-we are evaluating that. We haven’t had to use quarantine. We are in planning phase. As we continue, we will have a timeline. Jodi is worried about cramping the staff so we want to get them to their days off. Marvin-rumors and concerns when this happens. Plans to open, covid, a plan b? Scott-just want people into their days off right now so we can give vacation again too. Evaluating what we need to do.

AFSCME

  1. 1.      Inversing for COVID Screening Tent: Cates-answered yesterday. No one will be inversed to the tent? Scott-That is correct.
  2. 2.      Defined Work Area Clarification: Cates-requested for defined work area. FSSS Leads and residential one work area? Allie-difficult to put together. UP and transport separated because they help forensic services wide. Vacation comes out of SS. They would fall under Forensic health pool. Marvin-Transport comes from 22 spots in forensics residential vacation? Alli-they don’t have their own. Marvin-they do. Scott-I believe Marvin is correct. We have had trouble with that in the past and didn’t want to negatively affect another area with transport team. Marvin-if decided as own work area and allowed to pick up ot. What about inversing? Scott-should be the same. If eligible, you are eligible. Inversible. We may run into struggles with the shift times. Marvin-they were given documents that said they are never inversible. Scott-I will follow up but if you are able to pick up ot then you are able to be inversed. Transport team is its own vacation pool of one staff.
  3. 3.      Nursing Being Assigned Outside of Work Area? Cates-if separated into groves, it makes problems for nurses floating. Contractually they cannot be floated. Roxanne-ok, I will look into that.
  4. 4.      AODS Pol Following Interest Based Problem Solving Agreement on Coverage: Cates-we said coverage was supposed to be like inversing with seniority roster. There was a situation when a senior lead wasn’t forced to cover but the less senior was told to cover. The more senior called the Aods pool to tell them and the aods pool said they do it how they want. Scoot-they use the float report. There is a setting that needs to be fixed. One person? Cates-because they were a lead and the aods said they want to keep a lead there. Scott-there are times we look at what we have and the situation would benefit that way. We follow the float report. If we have a lot of sick calls, sometimes we want to make sure we don’t have all least senior staff. Cates-so you don’t follow the interest-based problem-solving agreement. Scoot-we mostly do but it depends on the situation too. Our intent is to use the float report. We run a list. If we made an assessment to ensure safety, I would support that. Cates-units supposed to be covering had all coverage staff so they didn’t have a lead either. Scott-I stand by what I said. We will ensure safety.
  5. 5.      COVID Issues: Marvin-PPE counting started as nursing duty and is now a counselor duty. How Didi that happen? Supervisors coming by to check also. Why can’t they do it? Lisa-Evolved with covid. The felling was that it fit well with sharps count. Jay Steffl involved also. Felt like a good fit. It wasn’t assigned to nurses, implemented as sharps process. Cates-if given to nursing then MNA got upset then you said “ok we will let AFSCME do it”. Marvin-its not just me feeling it. seeing supervisors checking throughout the shift so they feel they are being watched for the PPE. PPE is important but I have focus elsewhere with all of the issues lately. Lisa-it did shift to making sure there was a seal and a full kit. I am not aware of any complaints from MNA. Cates-complaints form MNA in one of our meetings. Scott-PPE and spill kits want to be counted in case we need it. dispersed PPE and had extra in nursing areas. They were counting that and we didn’t need that counted. That is the context I have. We were told spill kits had things removed. Roxanne-isn’t there a tape on spill kits. Scott-yes, you just have to look at the tub. Marvin-we aren’t counting the masks, we have a ton. Tub isn’t being touched but I have to check it. supervisors doing exactly what I am doing. Why do we check it over and over again? Scott-I don’t know why supervisors are double checking. We are in a pandemic. We hear the masks are soiled and difficult to find a new one. Spill kits are there just in case. Sometimes security is redundant. I don’t think people are looking to make sure.
  6. 6.      Masks: Cates-we were told one or two per week. They break all of the time. We should get one per day. If you can’t give us those, we don’t feel we should have to wear them. Scott-I understand they break. We need to watch our burn rate. We have supply on demand to get 2 to staff per week. We have a process in place. Cates-basically saying you don’t have enough in place to replace appropriately. Using for multiple days. Scott-I told you the supply supports 2 per week. If it doesn’t work, we have process to get extra. These are hard to acquire across the county. Marvin-Marshall was under the impression we were getting new one every day. Roxanne-we talked about it. we need to be good with our masks. If soiled, etc. we would provide a new mask. We still need to be good stewards with our masks. I don’t know what Marshall said but this has been our direction all along. They are doing this across the county due to supply and demand. Emilio-across the county there is a shortage. Issue with these is we aren’t doing everything we can if we have a storage of them and not supplying one every day. We aren’t using all of our resources. I don’t feel this is a way to prevent the spread. Roxanne-I don’t see the direction changing. Cates-we disagree.

Add On:

  1. 1.      Are cameras being used to monitor mask usage and rounds? Scott-not using monitor to monitor staff rounds. I am asking when they are up to see if staff are using masks. Cates-we were told monitors would be used to monitor staff. They said we would be notified and we are not. Denise-it is merely a way of bringing up a camera to see how many are using masks and compliance. Cates-we are the only group constantly monitored with them, no one else on the other side of the table. Denise-I get the concern. It is only a brief moment in time. No only AFSCME staff, its across the program. Not used to reprimand or anything else. Cates-Line staff are monitored. Other people don’t have cameras on them in offices, etc.
  2. 2.      Staff injuries taken off event summaries. Roxanne-still noted. Staff injured in incident but nothing specific due to confidentiality. We cannot have staff names. Just said you can say a staff was injured and that is it. Emilio-have we been violating that in the past then? Roxanne-something that was brought to our attention and we changed it.
  3. 3.      Bid movement days. Staff bid off and new staff in place got the weekend. Then told there was not going to be another bid day. It’s always done this way. Every two months when there is a bid. Why the change without movement day? Denise-we will have to look into that one. Cates-request a calendar for a bid movement day for every 2 months. Can I get one of those? Alli-we will send it in writing. Marvin- I was told you had conversations about this and decided to do it. Denise-we will have to look into it. Ryan, send something to Jodi. She is on vacation so it might take a while to get a response. Denise-we will not just let it sit, we need time to contact her and find out what she did and why. Marvin-I raised the flag to her weeks ago and was told there would be conversation with you and that didn’t happen. You guys didn’t even know about it and now we have to wait more time again. Scott-I challenge that, we don’t have a retention issue. if this was on the agenda, I could have looked into it. its important to the staff and I want to get it worked out also. Reacting to covid pandemic, I need to be able to prepare. Marvin-I was under the impression from Jodi that this was going to be brought back to you and that didn’t happen. Kurt-how was this not relayed?

 

Meeting Adjourned at 135pm