General Membership Meeting Notes September

President –

Run down of current hiring – 100 new applicants after August 1st with the Personal History Questionnaire being used (helps eliminate people earlier that were washing out in backgrounds, frees up backgrounds to focus on better candidates. Still running into a few issues with Background investigations not prioritizing higher scoring candidates, but hopefully will get some fixes.

Funding for background investigators got secured (the plan was to cut 2).

MOT issue is a big problem, and the Union is taking the position that it is not the responsibility of the E-Board to remove member benefits to make up for administration not hiring or not doing their responsibilities. We continue to try to apply pressure to admin to staff more bodies, and we are exploring options on how to push that further before we lose membership benefits.

Fluid exposures are rising at MCDC. Foodport boxes have been procured and there is a current plan in place to add them to all the cells in 4E, 4F, and some cells in 4D and 8B/C. Staff do need to make sure they are following management plans related to inmates in their area because a few fluid exposures were the aided by a violated management plan.

After the last in-custody death, we have advocated and gotten approval for flashlights to be ordered and issued to staff. This provides an additional tool for G shift to make sure checks are being done to the best of their ability without risking opening doors for covered lights or other issues that come up. Hopefully they will be issued over the next few months.

Election safety is a priority of the board, and we have been in contact with admin to have a plan in place for possible riots after/during the election in November. A contract has been secured with TriMet to provide busses for staff, and they are currently scouting locations for staff to meet/park that is secure to facilitate shift changes. Admin will give more details as it gets closer.

Trying to secure more funding for Corrections, reaching out to community leaders and local government candidates to advocate for them to advocate for us. Some policy rules make it impossible to give them tours of the jails until they are elected, but maintaining contact and trying to convince them our job is important. Some are responsive, some are not.

Executive

22 current IAU’s , 20 west side, 2 east side.

1 active grievance with training unit

1 demand to bargain over selection of instructors

Investigating A/OIC pay issues on the west side that is different from east side. This is indicative of a bigger problem with the different sides of the river having a different audit of pay. Attempted to resolve informally. Next step is a grievance.

Having trouble getting volunteers for being Stewards. A questionnaire sent out to prospective stewards netted 1 on time response. 2 other responses came from someone on vacation and another from a person that didn’t know he was eligible to apply and was still interested in trying. The stewards we do have are receiving training in September. This is through our new attorneys and is a condensed but thorough.

In contact with 8 vendors for the Membership Appreciation Meal. G shift meal is where the issue seems to be, and trying to work with this.

East Vice

Some issues from MCIJ – Dorm 18 is having a door change so that staff can see inside the cell. Doors in 15 dogrun are being changed to larger windowed doors so that staff can view inmates on suicide watch.

Staff assault a few weeks ago, with charges pressed, but it is difficult to get traction with the DA’s office. Another avenue is to find out if the person is in for a parole/probation violation. Grevstad will be adding contact information for the state parole board that can help get us in contact with the assigned PO for the inmate. They can sanction the inmate as well. Also, staff need to make sure to fill out the Staff Assault Checklist.

Information Officer

Proposed Constitution Vote in 2 weeks. Each article will be its own vote.

West VP 

Reopener negotiations for retiree rehire continue.

Several new IAU investigations have been issued to members. Several interviews have been conducted. If you receive an IAU Notice of complaint, please don’t hesitate to reach out to any eboard member. We will ensure that the representative assigned to your case gets in touch with you.

We continue to review policies to ensure that they do not have issues or concerns that would constitute significant changes or issues that should prompt a demand to bargain. Each policy is reviewed by the board and our lawyers to ensure that any concerns are brought forward and issues addressed.

Here are the policies since last GMM:

June Policy Reviews:

105.00 – Policy and Procedure: Requested that our policies also comply with federal law also.

130.00 – Memorandum & Memorandum Template: No concerns with proposed policy.

310.00 – Appropriate Action Required: No concerns with proposed policy

325.00 – Professional Conduct: No concerns with proposed policy

1105.00 – Peer Support Team: No concerns with proposed policy

1205.00 – Use of Social Media: No concerns with proposed policy

1230.00 – Transmittal of Fax: No concerns with proposed policy

1305.00 – Uniforms and Professional Attire: No concerns with proposed policy

1345.00 – Weapons Administration: No concerns with proposed policy

July Policy Reviews:

105.00 – Policy and procedure (2nd Union review): They addressed our concerns and reworded policy to reference that our policies will comply with all laws.

210.00 – Contracts for Public Safety Services: No concerns with proposed policy.

215.00 – Inmate Accounting System: We requested to clarify/correct language in the policy that contradicts other language in the policy.  Prior point in policy says “Cash account cannot have a negative balance.”  Point in question references when a cash account has a negative balance.  Should say both ways.  Same request for clarification raised on two other points within the same policy.  There were no concerns for any negative impacts to the membership.

235.00 – Pilot project.  No updates or changes to current policy proposed.  No concerns with proposed policy.

240.00 – Awards:  Awards (Added wording that if members do not include the minimum information needed to process the nomination, it may be returned for completion.) No concerns with the proposed policy.

335.00 – Supervisor Duties and Conflicting, improper, unlawful orders: Minor grammatical changes that do not represent substantive changes.  No concerns with the proposed policy.

345.00 – Tobacco Use: Grammatical changes that do not represent substantive changes.  No concerns with the proposed policy.

430.00 – Authorized Use of County Resources, including information technology systems: No concerns with the proposed policy.

1600.00 – Corrections Grand Jury:  Minor edits that do not represent substantive changes to policy.  No concerns with the proposed policy.

August Policy Reviews:

125.00 – Post Orders: No concerns with proposed policies

215.00 – Inmate Accounting System: No concerns with proposed policy

230.00 – Planning and Research Unit – No concerns with proposed policy

815.00 – Arrest, Conviction of member; Notification Required: The county removed concerning language that we had brought up during initial review and had asserted a DTB over.  They reverted to the old language as we agreed upon during initial DTB meeting over the issue.  No concerns remain.

1005.00 – Absence from Work / Absent without permission (AWOP): No concerns

1015.00 – Sick Leave; Reporting and Recording: County adopted language suggested by both MCCDA and DSA in 2.2 (Where we asserted that no medical diagnostic information is required as a part of medical verification, and that any cost associated for providing medical verification will be paid by the county.). County is requesting one more meeting to ensure all are on the same page.

1050.00 – Protected Leave: Procedure section 5 (proposed) states “A member shall be required to use all accrued sick leave, vacation leave, Holidays, and compensatory time prior to using unpaid leave.  We question whether this is accurate under PLO because is a member is not supplementing PLO with their own paid leave (Topping up) the member is technically in an unpaid status with Multnomah County.  MCCDA would like to submit the qualifier “Except as allowed under PLO” either at the beginning or end of the sentence to resolve this matter.

Treasurer

Total now is $920,954.11. Gained just under 37,000 this quarter. Continue to go in the right direction.

Legal fees of 15,105 for the quarter.

Gained almost 60k in CD investments since July of 2022. Still locked into 4-5% CDs for the next couple of years.