CWA 1180 - HRA Watch

HRA Watch

AJOS Update: Legal battles continue, members hold fast
August 2002

In the welfare centers, most Local 1180 members continue to steadfastly refuse to take the Associate Job Opportunity Specialist (AJOS) title, despite enormous management pressure. Of those that have taken the position, many are disillusioned by the reality, and some have asked for their old jobs back.

Behind the scenes, the union is continuing to work hard on the issue on multiple legal fronts. The union has continued efforts to win its case that the new AJOS title is a violation of the Local 1180 contract. An improper practices charge was filed last year at the Office of Collective Bargaining (OCB). The union also went to court to get an injunction to prevent the title from being implemented while the OCB case was pending. After the union won an initial temporary restraining order, the city filed for a stay of that order and just continued to implement the new titles. The union then filed a contempt of court motion because of the city's refusal to obey the restraining order. The judge in the case ducked the politically sensitive issue of ruling on the contempt motion by deciding against the union on the injunction itself, thus rendering the contempt motion moot. That ended the court battle, but the improper practices charge at OCB is still pending.

Meanwhile, the union also filed an improper practices charge on the merit pay scheme that HRA came up with last year to try to lure workers into the ill-designed new title. The union argued, among other things, that the merit pay scheme violated the 1180 contact, which lays out specific criteria on how merit pay can be decided. District Council 37 filed a similar improper practices charge against the city about merit pay for the JOS title, and in July won that case. That is a good omen for 1180, which expects a decision on this matter sometime early this fall. (12/02 UPDATE: Local 1180 has won its improper practices charge on the merit pay issue. OCB ruled that the scheme was a violation of the 1180 contract, because it was a unilateral change in a mandatory subject of bargaining.)

At the same time, the union has also been involved in hearings at OCB to determine who will represent AJOS and Administrative JOS workers if the city ultimately prevails in implementing these new titles. Local 1180 members may recall that one of the union's early objections to the JOS idea was that it left the question of which union(s) would represent the JOS titles undecided. Local 1180 filed petitions to represent both the AJOS title and the Administrative JOS title, and hearings on these petitions began in May and continued throughout the summer. They are expected to last several more months, after which OCB will make a decision. That decision could assign representation to one of the petitioning unions (Local 371 has also filed to represent the AJOS workers) or order an election among the workers to decide the matter.

In a meeting with new HRA Commissioner Verna Eggleston in late June, Local 1180 officers raised the union's objections to the JOS titles. The only response they received was that their concerns were "noted." The union believes that the resistance on the ground by 1180 members continues to be the key to defeating the JOS idea. Only that way will our concerns be more than "noted."

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