Floor Moving on Work Capacity Test

The Work Capacity Test has been in its current form as a Letter of Agreement (supplement to the body of our Contract) since at least the 2013-2015 Contract and is a LOA in our 2015-2019 Contact.  There were no additions or subtractions to the wording during the last Contract negotiation period.  However due to an opinion of the Department of Justice an interpretation of the LOA has changed in Section 5. Medical Certification (b).

The language reads: A medical certification from a licensed physician attesting to the employee’s ability to safely perform arduous, moderate or light level fire duties with restrictions may be substituted for passing the equivalent level of the WCT.  Such medical certification cannot be substituted when an employee has failed any WCT in that calendar year. (underline added)

The Department of Justice is now recognizing that the “with restrictions” portion of the language does restrict the fire duties one could perform and puts the Department into the position of determining if that restriction can be “reasonably accommodated” under the Americans with Disabilities Act.  Depending on the restriction placed by the licensed physician there is a possibility that the fire fighters duties could not be accommodated.

The change is previously the “with restrictions” wording of the medical certification was largely ignored and that with a medical certification it was assumed that one could fully perform at their designated fitness level.  This is no longer the case.  The only way to be fully qualified for your fire position, without restrictions, is to take and pass the WCT at the appropriate fitness level.

Forestry Leadership Nominations Close February 26th

Forestry Local 629 leadership nominations for our president, vice president, secretary and treasurer positions will close Friday, February 26th at 5:00pm.  Nominations should be sent to Mike Bray, SEIU 503 Statewide Forestry Coordinator.

Our Forestry Local has 3 delegates to General Council and the automatic delegates are the president, vice president and secretary.  Our treasurer serves as an alternate delegate.

The nomination form can be found at the SEIU 503 website: http://www.seiu503.org/2015/12/notice-of-nominations-and-union-elections-2/

Remembering Bob Novick

It was with sadness that I read of the passing of Bob Novick on Wednesday, February 3rd in “The Oregonian”.  Bob Novick was the third, in my memory, SEIU 503 (at that time Oregon Public Employees Union) statewide Forestry Local organizer and one of the more influential. It might have been that we were in one of those leadership transitioning periods or there was a great sense of hope of what lay ahead.  Whatever it was Bob was there as a guide, like he had some idea of what was around the next corner.

Bob was a fully rounded Organizer, his wings had not been clipped and he soared.  Then an Organizer was expected to bargain contracts, represent someone at at discipinary hearings (when a Steward was not available), organize new members and share information about greater Union operations.  Bob performed all of those jobs in that simpler time when friends were those you knew from meetings and actions.  At meetings he was always surrounded by others and involved in livley discussion.  He gave me the idea of what an activist is.

Steve Novick, Portland City Commissioner noted that his father instilled “good-quality left-wing politics”,  to that I would add, something that his father, my organizer, said following a march “the action is always at the front” and that is where Bob could usually be found.

Forestry Local Leadership, Nomimations Now Open

Nominations for the Forestry Local leadership positions of President, Vice President, Secretary and Treasurer opened February 1st.  Nominations will close at 5:00 pm on February 26th.

Nominations can be submitted to Mike Bray, SEIU Forestry Local Organizer.

These leadership positions is how our membership traditionally selects our representation on the Statewide Labor/ Management committee.  In the recent past representation has been heavily weighted towards the State Forests program and it is hoped with this new election a diversity of the Department's Programs and geographic locations will be represented. Over the years membership has come from the Administration,  Protection, State Forests and Private Forest Programs.

The President, Vice President and Secretary serve as the automatic delegates to General Council, the supreme governing body of our Union.  Our Local representation is based on membership numbers and based on that we have three delegates.  The Treasurer is an alternate delegate.

Please consider nominating yourself or a co-worker for one of our Local's Leadership positions.

Forest Firefighting Positions Available

Oregon Department of Forestry has posted 47 announcements for Seasonal Full Time wildland firefighting positions.  The position titles are:

• Wildland Fire Dispatcher
• Forest Officer
• Wildland Fire Suppression Specialist
• Wildland Fire Suppression Specialist Entry
• Forest Lookout

More information is available here:https://www.governmentjobs.com/careers/oregon

Confront or Overlook The State of our Local

Forestry Local - President’s Message

January 9, 2016

The good of our Local is that we were able to negotiate a pretty good contract, have contact mechanisms in place like a listserv, a top 100 forestry blog and that we are financially strong.

The bad, we are on leadership and representation life support.  Even though we pay dues we are currently organized as a volunteer organization.  Leadership is composed of volunteers and our representation function is also made up of volunteers, Stewards.

• Volunteer organizations work when some of those volunteers are willing to do just a little bit more.

• Confront or overlook

Stewards are the primary mechanism where representation is provided to our fellow employees in need.  We are gasping.  There are no Stewards in half of the State, Central and Eastern Oregon.  There are no Stewards in another ¼ of the State, the South Coast and Cascades.  In the ¼ of the State with Stewards there are not enough, with vacancies in Astoria, Forest Grove and Salem.  On Tuesday a new Steward was selected at South Fork, Will Bennett.  Brandon thank you for organizing this, I happily brought pizza and pushed until there was a selection.

Our organizers, make it pretty clear that they are not here to provide representation.  Their supervisors make it pretty clear to them that they are not to provide representation services. They are not trained to provide representation services.  They are like the Red Cross and bring the volunteer Steward and the person in need together and organize training like the Red Cross first aid classes, only ours is called “contract enforcement”.

I will go a lot of places and bring pizza when a Steward will be elected, I’m not so willing to travel to represent someone, and will leave that to others or our MRC.  It is the way we are currently organized.  Maybe it should be changed, if there are not enough volunteers willing to do a little bit more, but I think the current system of handling problems locally with locals is still better than other alternatives, look at the Bundy in Malheur.  Confront or overlook, let’s do something about finding more Stewards.

We are in a leadership selection phase in our Local, the President, Vice President, Secretary and Treasurer positions are open.

Nominations open: February 1, 2016

Nominations close: at 5 pm February 26, 2016

Candidate statements are due: by 5 pm March 11, 2016

Ballots mailed: March 29, 2016

Ballots returned: by 5 pm April 22, 2016

We are on life support now.  Our Treasurer took another job, our Secretary and Vice President will not be returning and myself, wondering what is next.

Leaders are needed to step up and fill our Local’s Leadership shortage.  The same is true in our State and in our Country.  To often leaders are selected from those who did not show up, or showed up late.  I don’t think that is the way it should be done.  I would like to overlook, but on this, I am more likely to confront.  The world is run by those who care enough to show up.

Think about it, you know the election timeline now. 

Forestry Statewide on for January 9th

Our next Statewide Local meeting is on track for Saturday, January 9th at SEIU 503 Headquarters in Salem from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.. A call-in time from 10:00 to 11:00 p.m. is available for those who cannot make it in person.  The phone number is available from your Leadership or Mike Bray our SEIU 503 staff organizer.  Please register at the following link so enough food can be ordered for our lunch:


http://seiu503.seiu.org/page/s/forestry-local-629-statewide-meeting

Items on the agenda include our leadership election timeline, state of our Local and agenda items for upcoming Labor/ Management meetings.

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