Assigning Staff. The proposed reforms would end bargaining over several subjects where union contracts prioritize employees’ interests instead of agencies’ interests and operational efficiency. Ending bargaining over these issues would mean that all employees would have the same protections as nonexclusively represented employees (NEREs). The streamlining would replace around 1,000 pages of procedures with around 50 and save significant staff time spent bargaining over the issues and implementing various different contractual variations. * Transfers—Over 200 pages of varied contractual provisions can provide preference based on seniority. Instead of agencies being able to assign the best staff to meet operational needs, employees get to sign up for positions in locations that they want and agencies must instead fill vacancies based on one of numerous seniority-based provisions. Procedures require agencies to add and drop names from transfer lists based on shift, location, and refusals. These require significant staff time to maintain and result in grievances. Interdepartmental transfer lists can further require agencies to hire employees of other agencies who may be a poor fit, but have seniority rights. Under the NERE rule, agencies can select employees based on operational needs. Agencies could reinstitute transfer lists or other mechanisms by agency work rule, but discretion would return to agencies to design the systems that they feel best meet their needs. Employees could file grievances if transfers were discriminatory, retaliatory, or arbitrary. + Bumping—Over 300 pages across 50 primary and secondary agreements create complicated bumping processes with forms allowing employees to select different work locations, counties, and job types that they would be interested in. Many unions have séveral-page forms that agencies must individually track and review to ensure appropriate implementation after a layoff. The most complicated contractual process has 39 steps and offers over ten quadrillion (10,000,000,000,000,000) possible bumping- right combinations to the 81 members covered by it. Bumping systems count seniority hours differently, which requires individual review by HR staff of all potentially affected employment histories to implement. Creating bump chains can take weeks of staff time and result in notifications to many employees about potential bumps that never occur. A 2012 layoff of around 200 LARA employees took well over 1,000 hours of HR staff time to calculate the bump chain and prepare notices. There were further disruptions that are difficult to measure when hundreds of employees were bumped and new occupants had to lear the tasks and work of new positions. The dozens of systems are hard to administer and can create more displacements than the streamlined. NERE system when layoffs occur. Under the NERE rule, administration would be simplified while still protecting employees from pretextual position abolitions. Agencies could tailor rules by agency layoff plans, as is now done in the majority ofPage? departments for NEREs, subject to oversight by the state personnel director. Employees could file grievances if the bumping procedures were not followed. Recall—Over 100 pages of contractual provisions create varied and complicated recall processes with differing notice provisions, durations, and exceptions. If an employee is laid off and unable to bump into a position, they move to a layoff list from which employees must recall employees instead of holding competitive selection processes. A potential reform proposed is ending statewide bumping lists, which require agencies to hire not just their own laid off employees, but also those displaced by other agencies when vacancies occur. As with interdepartmental transfer lists, agencies can be prevented from selecting candidates with the most relevant skills and experience because a displaced employee from another agency has recall rights. Under the NERE rule, administration would be simpler under a uniform set of rules. Employees could slill file grievances if not offered recall to positions or placed on lists appropriately, but it would be under the commission's grievance process. Overtime—Almost 200 pages of provisions limit how agencies can schedule employees for overtime by requiring precisely equal opportunities. In the past, one union contract saw over 650 grievances in three years on overtime equalization. While processes have been streamlined, they still require significant staff time focused on not just finding workers, but also documenting perfect compliance with all equalization procedures. Minor mistakes can lead to arbitration awards of monetary damages, including the paying wages for hours not actually worked. A few awards of over $100,000 have arisen in recent years, including some where employees were paid time-and-a-half for time worked by others who an arbitrator found were not entitled to be offered overtime, even though the contract stated that everyone is placed on the overtime roster. Under the NERE rule, overtime still must be assigned “as equally as practical among employees who normally perform the assigned duties.” The most recent grievance decision on overtime equalization found in the commission’s DSTARS database is from 2000. The NERE rule does not require that each round of new offers begins based on seniority, which is the source of grievances and recordkeeping burdens. Employees could file grievances if overtime was not offered equitably or if chances were denied for discriminatory, retaliatory, or arbitrary reasons. Grievances would be filed in the commission's grievance process. Shifts—The employer has agreed to several limitations on its ability to determine the length of and assignment to shifts. This has hampered potential efficiencies, particularly at 24/7 facilities. Under the NERE rule, agencies retain the ability to assign staff withI. Ml. Iv. Page 3 fewer limitations. Agencies could reinstitute contractual policies by agency work rule, but discretion would return to agencies. Employer-paid union leave— All unions receive paid leave banks to allow union officials to.either serve full-time for the union or serve part-time when needed for bargaining, union meetings, and other union matters. The employer subsidizes these paid union leaves, which equate to over 33 full-time positions and an annual subsidy of around $2.75 million plus insurance costs for some employees. Under the proposed rule, each union would receive a leave bank to allow one representative's full-time absence to represent the union. ‘Unions can also reimburse the state for additional union leave, ifneeded. Unions’ comments noted the proposal’s failure to address ad hoc administrative leaves for grievance representation and attendance at defined labor-relations meetings. As circulated, the proposal would treat NEREs and their labor organizations, which have both a leave bank and limited authorized administrative leave, more favorably. Changes were made to allow regulations to address this issue for represented employees Dues Deduction—All unions currently negotiate over processes to provide for employee authorization of dues deductions. This leads to time spent negotiating over the content of dues cards, the need to track these cards, different notice requirements to unions when deauthorization occurs, etc. The proposal would give authority to the state personnel director to create the exclusive procedure for this and remove this from bargaining. While the rule does not name specific technical solutions, the obvious replacement would be MI HR employee self-service, which would allow for processing any changes effective the next pay period and allow electronic recordkeeping and immediate email notifications of any changes. Compensation—While compensation generally remains subject to bargaining, the proposed rules would reserve specifically identified topics as prohibited subjects for the commission to determine for all employees. The rules currently reserve copyright and patent royalties. The proposal would add two merit-pay programs as prohibited subjects of bargaining. The proposal would not impact several existing premiums for unions for things such as hazard pay, prison premiums, and height premiums. + A new critical-position premium—Agencies can have difficulty rewarding some outstanding key employees under the current pay system. Agencies sometimes assign unnecessary supervisory duties to justify reclassifications to increase pay. A pilot program allowing a discretionary critical-position bonus for a limited number of identified key personnel in an agency would allow additional flexibility to reward key staff within the existing pay system. Unions could adopt similar pilots during currentPages contracts, but the commission would reexamine the concept's efficacy and potential thereafter. The pilot would apply to under 300 employees statewide. «Performance pay—Unions have historically advocated pay based strictly on seniority. Adding performance pay as a prohibited subject will provide the commission flexibility to address the issue in the future. Rules of general applicability—The commission's rules used to include this failsafe measure that allowed the commission to immediately enact rules applying to all classified employees. It provided a method to address serious situations (e.g., budgetary pressures during financial crises or staff assignment to respond to natural or other disasters) if waiting up to three years for contracts to expire was infeasible or unwi never exercised this authority to unilaterally amend agreements during their term, but reserved the right until rescinding the rule in 2007. Reinstituting the option for emergency use would offer additional flexibility and safeguards. If staff assignment were prohibited, that justification for the rule would be eliminated, although there would remain the question of the rule to address budget crises. During the 1980s, MSEA refused to pause a previously approved cost-of-living increase during a budget crisis, which led to the layoff a few thousand employees and the disruption of services. Had rules of general applicability existed then, the commission instead of unions could have decided whether to curtail government services to allow the more senior MSEA members to enjoy their raises. In response to concerns raised during the public comment period, revisions have been made to limit these rules to amendments to the compensation plan after a declaration of budgetary emergency by the governor. .. The commission