The UAPD Bargaining Team met with representatives from the State of California for the fifth time on Wednesday, July 11, 2008. The discussion focused on the following:
Non-Economic Proposals: Negotiations continue to focus largely on non-economic issues. Economic issues, such as salary increases and benefit improvements, are typically handled in the later part of bargaining. Please see previous bargaining updates for descriptions of the proposals that are currently under discussion. UAPD achieved a victory when the State TA’d our proposal to make rest periods an entitlement for doctors, rather than something that a doctor “may” receive.
Rollovers: Taking into account the multiple sections in each of its articles and side letters, our contract covers about 130 separate issues, not all of which need to be renegotiated in each round of bargaining. When both the Union and the Employer agree that a particular section of the contract requires no change, a tentative agreement is reached on the existing contract language. The UAPD team has been carefully reviewing the contract to see where we believe the current language is best left unchanged, and on Friday we TA’d eight articles that we are happy with in their current form. The State was ready to TA several additional articles, but UAPD declined to TA those where we intend to propose improvements.
Information Requests: At this stage of negotiations, much time at the table is spent requesting and receiving data. UAPD continues to press the State to provided needed information on the discipline of doctors, use of contractors, funding for departments, and other matters, which our team will use to formulate proposals during the course of this bargaining.
The next bargaining date is Wednesday, July 23. Look for an update following that meeting.