Congressional Research Employees Association

Beginning in January, 2009, the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) between CREA and the Library of Congress automatically renews itself every year, unless either party decides to reopen it. Section 3 of Article XLI allows either party to reopen the CBA every 6 months. On May 26, the CREA Board of Governors voted to reopen the CBA to address concerns that have been raised with current practice and/or contract language in the following articles-VII (Promotion), IX (Performance Appraisals), XX (Leave), XXV (Flexible work schedules), XXXI (Negotiated Grievance Procedures), XXXIV (Association Representational Activity).

On July 28, in accord with Article XLI, Section 3, the CREA bargaining team met with CRS management to announce its desire to reopen the contract and to exchange with management those articles that would be reopened. CRS management shared its issues regarding current practices and/or contract language with CREA and the following week provided CREA with a final list of articles it would reopen.

Only those articles that have been exchanged would be subject to negotiation at this time. The concerns expressed by CRS management may or may not actually be addressed in their initial proposals. Proposals, by either side, are considered as “starting points” and will be negotiated to address each sides’ concerns. If agreement cannot be reached, the final decision will be made by a neutral third party, the Federal Service Impasses Panel.

What follows is a brief synopsis of the more salient issues that were put forward by both CREA and CRS. Please contact your governors or the CREA office with any questions, comments, or concerns by noon, August 11.

Promotion

CREA would like all promotion criteria, and associated critical elements, to be as objective as possible and put into writing. CREA would also seek that the weighting of critical elements be flexible to reflect expectations of the work required in an employee’s area of interest over the year. CREA is also concerned that CRS improperly uses job classification factors as promotion criteria. CREA would like to reduce the subjectivity of criteria through better definitions and examples. CREA would like to establish a neutral appeal process, including making non-promotion grievable.

CRS would consider trying to establish an up-or-out policy. Such a policy would require employees to reach the highest level of their promotion ladder after a certain number of years. CRS would consider terminating employees who did not reach their highest grade within the allotted time, CRS would also like to require all employees applying for promotion to submit a memorandum demonstrating that they have worked at the next highest level, and to eliminate the current appeal process.

Performance Review

CREA would like Performance Improvement Plans associated with poor performance to be constructive with concrete examples of what must be accomplished and with the intent to help the employee address deficiencies. CREA would make the performance determination grievable.

CRS would like to eliminate the requirement to reconsider the first denial of within-grade within 20 weeks. CRS would prefer to re-evaluate the employee on a annual basis.

Leave

CREA would like to clarify what constitutes sufficient documentation for the Health Services Office to approve various levels of medical leave. CREA believes that the Health Services Office inappropriately requires Americans with Disabilities Act-level documentation for all medical leave requests. CREA would like to make contract language regarding paternity leave consistent with the Family Medical Leave Act.

Flexible Work Schedules

CREA would like to remove the Director’s restrictions regarding Episodic Off-site Work. This would in no way affect the recently negotiated Telework Agreement with CRS, which remains intact for 3 years (until March 2013). CREA would like to institute Credit Hours similar to what is available to the rest of the Library.

CRS would like to push the morning start time back, from 7:30 AM to 8:00 AM.

Negotiated Grievance Procedures

CREA would like to make denial of promotion and the narrative content and rating of a performance rating grievable.

Association Representational Activity

CREA would like to reduce the reporting detail CREA representatives have to provide when documenting their representational activities.

CRS would like to reduce the number of stewards. CRS has suggested establishing a single bank of official time that all stewards and officers would draw upon when conducting representational activity.

Rights of the Association

CRS would like to have stewards and officers draw upon the single bank of official time mentioned above for training as well.

Employee Rights

CRS would like to limit its obligation to inform employees of their Weingarten rights to that identified in statute (5 USC 7114(a)(3)). CRS would consider lowering the number of hours of official time granted employees to prepare a grievance and to prepare for arbitration.