The website was last updated on October 20th. Today is December
20th. Why has nothing been posted in two months?
We had kept up the site for a while, but had no real indications that people were using it. We'd often post information on the site and hear complaint after complaint that information's not available. Thanks for your feedback letting us know that there is at least one reader. I take it from your interest that you'd be willing to assume a volunteer role in the union as a “content czar?” We need someone to provide regular content to the technical team.
Has nothing happened worth posting?
It has been slower since negotiating wrapped up.
(I know that you all are working really hard and a lot of stuff has
happened, so that's definitely not the case.)
Actually, things that have been going on have centered on two areas: LMC and representation. The LMC issues have been focused on resolving issues revolving around health insurance, and we don't yet have a final picture. Without a final picture, I've been waiting to get information to people because I didn't want people to mis-interpret a partial set of data. Representation issues have a privacy element to them. As such, we only give summary information.
On a
similar (but more important) note, I just received a copy of the manger's
meeting minutes from my manager. Evidently there was a Labor Management
Committee meeting regarding health insurance on December 9th, 11 days ago.
Actually, we had meetings on December 10th and December 16th. Final decisions were not reached on dental and/or vision, but major medical is pretty much locked down. Until I could paint a complete insurance picture, I figured it was best not to be publishing the partial results.
At the December 18th manager's meeting the managers were informed
by Cindi Chibis that because of the new contract we will have another short
year for insurance, with the HMO year starting in March rather than January.
Thus, any union member caught in the bridge will be liable for any bills for
procedures done between January and March that they assumed would be covered by
the $500/$1000 library contribution for 2009. (E.g., in this purely
hypothetical situation, if a union member on the family plan had already used
up their $1000 last year and needed to have a $900 procedure, so they scheduled
it for January so it would be covered under the library's 2009 contribution, it
would now no longer be covered until March. This unexpected $900 bill could be
really devasting. I thankfully don't have such a situation, but I can easily
see other union members having it.) This is a really screwed up development and
will potentially have a very negative financial effect on some of our union
members, especially those living paycheck to paycheck who have been waiting
months to have procedures done and will now have these unexpected bills. Hopefully
it won't effect a lot of people, and hopefully that hypothetical $900 bill is
just hypothetical.
It looks to me like you're confusing a couple issues. First, we will have a shortened plan year, but it won't cause any holes in coverage. I'll explain more later. There is a potential threat to our biggest utilizers in that they'll burn through their January 1 HRA contribution and their FSA won't reset until March 1. In this case, the union member would have to use their own money to cover the bridge, and their FSA could not help them. This is an artifact of the way things have been set up at DML for years. The short plan year is something that we're doing to try to remedy the situation. On March 1, a 10-month plan year will be instituted. This will make the next plan year start on January 1, 2010, which will bring the FSA and HRA in sync, thus reducing the possibility that people get stuck in the gap, and eliminating a primary source of confusion. So the shortened plan year will reduce complexity and make the program easier to use and more effective.
However, given that our union president is on the committee and was
at the meeting, why have we still not been informed by the union about this
recent development that affects us all?
The LMC has not resolved next year's complete insurance picture. And even when we do resolve things in LMC, decisions are not final until Tim Kambitsch makes them final. Since this year's changes do not induce dangerous situations, there's no need to warn people. We were waiting until we could put up a complete picture for everyone.
Why did we have to hear it from the administration, through the
manager's meeting minutes, more than 10 days after it happened?
The administration has decided to publish information before they have a complete picture. This was not the route we chose.
When are we going to officially find out about this development,
sometime in January, when the newsletter comes out, after some people may have
already been screwed by it?
As I have indicated, nobody will be “screwed” by recommendations made in LMC. The LMC's decisions this year will result in lower cost for members and reduced complexity through the shortened plan year, which will serve to synchronize FSA and HRA. We are currently considering what to do with the dental and vision benefits, which are now unresolved, but will be at least similar to what we have now.
Basically,
I'm a bit upset by the lack of communication on important matters and think
that I, and my fellow union members, deserve to be notified as soon as possible
about things like this.
Surely. But I think you also deserve to hear final decisions, not rumor and innuendo that will cause needless, inaccurate, and counterproductive speculation. Hence, we have not yet published insurance information.
We shouldn't be hearing about it first from the administration!
I think that who gets the “scoop” is not important. What is important is that accurate information is made available. For this reason, we have decided to wait. Clearly, we need to put out some information, given that people are making improper inferences based on the administration's release of incomplete data. For this reason, I've made my answers to your inquiry public to all members.
Where is the change and the better communication that we were
promised when we voted out SEIU?
For starters, the fact that you know there will be a January newsletter is a huge step up. SEIU didn't allow us funding to publish a newsletter. The DMLSA e-mail system has been used over and over again to notify staff of important events, when they come up. We hold regularly scheduled meetings that are open to members. Perhaps you don't remember SEIU days, but there is much better communication now than there was then. If you'd like to work to improve that communication, you're certainly welcome to step up and help.
Thanks for your time and your feedback.Please contact me if you have more questions.
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