Updates

July 19, 2010

1. Sabrina and Tee Local 5135 president and secretary attended AFT convention from July 7-11. Convention up dates:
   More than 3,000 delegates attended the 2010 AFT convention in Seattle and helped make the event a tremendous success. Attendees heard from several excellent speakers, including AFL-CIO president Richard Trumann, NAACP president Ben Jealous and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. They also debated and adopted new AFT resolutions, and re-elected the slate of AFT officers.

   The schedule in Seattle was very full. Read the daily summaries and watch video highlights of in-depth convention coverage of each day's proceedings. You can also read the AF T's "2008-2010 State of the Union" report, and can visit www.aft.org/convention for convention press releases, lists of award winners and more.

   Thank you for another great convention. See you in Detroit in 2012!

   In unity,
   AFT

2. June 30 2010: Public Employee Relations Commission Meeting by Locals HPAE 5135, 5094, 5089 and UMDNJ

   UCHC has agreed to provided a written response to HPAE locals 5135 negotiations by July 7, 2010. If UMDNJ fails to provide a response by July 7,2010. Ms Ferrara (Assistant to Director of Unfair Practices) will forward complaints to Director of Unfair Practices. No response has been received from UMDNJ as of the date of this update. The charges carry the weight of an indictment. As of July 8, 2010. It has been forwards to Director of Unfair Practices and an indictment( Unfair Labor Practices) has been charged in our locals behalf. A hearing will be scheduled the date to be announced.

   Charges raised by other HPAE locals 5094 and 5089 will commence negotiation for successor collective agreement by the end of July 2010. An update is to be forward by HPAE on the status all three negotiation by August 6, 2010 to Ms. Ferrara Assistant to the Director of Unfair Practices.

   To clarify the rumor that Psych RN's have received pay raises. The psych RN's are part of local 5089 contract. They has not received an pay increases. No HPAE local has received any pay increases. All HPAPE locals 5135, 5089, 5094 ended on June 30, 2010. Existing contracts are still enforceable. If further clarification is needed than please contact me at sbrownoliver@yahoo.com or brownosr@umdnj.edu or by phone cell 848 469-6588 or home 732 502-0048

3. CEU Opportunities RN and APN

   TB INTENSIVE WORKSHOP
   SEPTEMBER 14-16, 2010
   CNE/CME CERTIFIED ACTIVITY

   Course Location
   New Jersey Medical School Global Tuberculosis Institute
   225 Warren St. 1st Floor
   Newark, New Jersey
   Cost 75 by 8/31/10 20 ceu
   All employee are encourage to attend and you can use your tuition reimbursement for this event.
   all RN's have 3 conference days per union contract.

Contract Negotiations Update

May 27, 2010

Unfair Labor Practice Petition is in Circulation: All Union Representatives- Please take the initiative to print this petition and circulate it in your facility. Please make this available to all RNs on staff. Please forward all copies to Paul Friedman, HPAE at 201-262-1482.

May 19, 2010

A Message From Your Local 5135 Officers and Representatives
To Our RN & APN Colleagues

In the last two weeks, there have been several discussions with UMDNJ/UCHC regarding our contract. This is an update of where the negotiations stand at this point.

It is especially difficult to reach a contract agreement due to a new law, signed by Governor Christie on April 1, which requires ALL public and state employees to contribute 1.5% of BASE pay for health insurance premiums beginning May 22, 2010. (Read a summary of the legislation here) Since we should be following the HPAE Local 5089 contract with regards to all of our benefits including health care, and because that contract ends on June 30, 2010, consequently, there is no justification for UMDNJ to deduct this money from anyone’s salary prior to July 1, 2010. We can expect that starting in July, 1.5% of an employee’s base pay (i.e. excluding shift differentials, overtime pay, etc.) is going to be deducted in pre-tax dollars; this will minimize the overall impact. It is important to understand that this is not coming from HPAE or UCHC; this is state legislation.

UMDNJ/UCHC has not been negotiating in good faith

We previously filed an unfair practice charge against UMDNJ/UCHC in order to address this when UCHC initially stopped negotiating and walked away from the table in January. When they agreed to come back to the table and “negotiate in good faith” the complaint was placed on hold. The union officers and representatives are currently looking into re-establishing this complaint since it appears that UMDNJ/UCHC is not making a good-faith effort to settle the contract. Their position is that they have nothing to offer us.

Recently, the Local 5135 officers met with the UMDNJ/UCHC negotiation team in order to establish a contract and delay the inevitable deduction for our health benefits, without any success. All of the options that we presented to their Management negotiating team have been rejected, even though we were willing to make some concessions. UMDNJ/UCHC continues to reject any and all discussion in regard to salary and a pay scale for established nurses.

HPAE representatives and officers are aware that recently-hired nurses were brought in with a starting salary that may exceed or equal the pay of many nurses who have been employed with UMDNJ/UCHC from the beginning. This is one issue that the union is attempting to work out fairly.

While it has been a very long battle, your support is greatly appreciated. We are trying to negotiate fairly with the nurses in mind. Please stay informed, and continue to stay united while we push forward.

Your Facility 5135 Representatives/liaisons will be asking you to sign our Petition to the Public Employees Relations Commission (PERC) to issue a complaint against UMDNJ for failure to bargain in good faith with its Nurses.

Sincerely,

HPAE Local 5135 Negotiating Committee, Union Representatives and officers
Sabrina Brown-Oliver, APN, President
Teressa Clark,RN, Secretary-Treasurer

May 13, 2010

A conference call has been set up for Union Representatives and Union Officers only on Friday 05/14/10 8 pm. This meeting is to discuss the feed back from UMDNJ.

April 28, 2010

Informal Meeting
While negotiations have been cancelled for April 30th's meeting, we will be holding an informal meeting between UMD leadership and local leadership.

Save the Date
On Saturday, May 8, 2010 we will be hosting a leadership training with officers and grievance chairs. The goal of this day will be to provide training in handling grievances as well as to solidify the goals and governance of our local. It will be held at the East Windsor Holiday Inn. If you have any questions, contact Paul Friedman at pfriedman@hpae.org.

Negotiating Committee Meeting
The Negotiating Team will meet on April 29th, but only for Theresa Clark, Sabrina Brown Oliver, Denise Johnson. All other Negotiation team members don't need to attend.

AFT Conference
Don't forget about the AFT Conference July 7-11th in Seattle, Washington. Speak to your local officers for more information.

HPAE Nurses Give Testimony to the Assembly Appropriations Committee Concerning Effects of Proposed Pension Cuts

Futilely attempting to derail a bipartisan bill that would eliminate accidental and ordinary disability retirement for PERS employees, nurses and probation workers bashed the legislature and Democrats - then savaged Christie for - in their view - disrespecting their ranks in his budget speech. "I have been kicked, stabbed... I guy with a black belt wrote he was going to assassinate us," said Barbara Esser, a public employee nurse at Reynolds Hospital. "The double-dipping and other games have nothing to do with us, and I totally resent being characterized as a greedy, selfish public employee." Click here to read what nurses had to say

Update on Negotiations

Breaking News: As we went to press we received word that UMDNJ cancelled our December 14 negotiations. This is very disappointing because the plan was to discuss salary issues. We will be communicating with you about this latest development in the next few days.

I want to give a broad summary of where we are at in negotiations. Although it has taken a long time, especially for those of you have sat through numerous meetings, the amount of time we've taken is not unusual for first contracts.

There is now only one outstanding non-economic section we have not reached agreement on. That issue is embodied in Article 4 Section 4.06: Transfer & Promotions. The specific issue is what role "probation" will play in these circumstances.

All other proposals that have not been agreed to are mainly or exclusively economic in nature. First and foremost are salaries. Others open proposals are the various differentials, including educational differentials. There is still the issue of when and how we absorb the 1.5% pre-tax co-pay for health premiums. This is not just an issue for us, but all UMDNJ union-eligible employees (managers have been paying the 1.5% for over a year now).

At the last session on October 29th we signed-off on staff development programs, seniority and layoff procedures. We also came to agreement on letters that would create methods for employee feedback on management and leadership and a process to review overtime-exempt employees (APNs/NPs) assignments when there is a regular requirement of excessive hours to complete responsibilities.

We did not reach agreement on how and when the Union gets informed about staffing pattern changes.

We agreed to have our President and Secretary-Treasurer (Sabrina and Teresa) work with Magie Conrad and Denise Rahaman on coming back to the whole group with acceptable language.

We also failed to reach agreement on compensation in the event of a lock-down. We are asking for all hours, including sleep time while a Nurse is kept at a facility due to a lock down, to count for compensation. Management wants to exclude the time that a Nurse sleeps.

Negotiations will resume on Monday, December 14th at 9AM in New Brunswick .
HR will have its VP available in the building while we are negotiating. That is a sign that we are getting to "crunch time".

Any agreement must be ratified by the membership

MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT

My name is Sabrina R. Brown Oliver RN APN BC. I have been working in corrections for the past 3 years at Albert C. Wagner. I have been a part of the HPAE family for 11 years prior to becoming President of our Local 5135.

It gives me great pleasure to write my first column to you as president of HPAE Local 5135. These first months of being President have been both fun and challenging, and I want to share with you some information.

Local 5135 structure

Our Union's Secretary/ Treasurer is Ms Teresa ("Tee") Clark, RN. She is located at Mid State Correctional Facility.

Union liaisons have been temporarily designated for each UCHC facility during the formation of our Union. Petitions are now being circulated to determine who your facility's Union Representative will be. We strongly encourage participation from our members in this matter. Once a Petition with a majority of members signatures is submitted, the Representative will take on the responsibilities and obligations of the former Liaison position.

The by-laws of your union, Local 5135, calls for the elected officers to appoint Chairs of committees. Consequently, Teressa and I have appointed Grievance Chairs for each UCHC Region. They are: Denise Johnson APN (NSP) for the Northern Region, Benita Ware RN (ACW) for the Central Region and Roni Feldman APN (SWSP) for the Southern Region. Please forward any grievances to the appropriate Grievance Chairperson. They in turn will forward all grievances to Denise Johnson who has been designated Lead Grievance chair.

President - Sabrina Brown-Oliver
Secretary/Treasurer - Teressa Clark

HPAE Staff Rep - Paul Friedman - ext. 136
HPAE Support Staff - Tammy McCalla 201-262-5005 ext. 110