Union grievance redresses pay sacrifices:
Arts Council members spell teamwork P-E-F

By KARA E. SMITH
Teamwork is important in the workplace. Only by pulling together can employees hope to achieve the goals of their organization. And as working professionals, PEF members are some of the state's staunchest team players.

However, as a group of members at the state Council on the Arts in Manhattan found out last year, being a team player isn't always all it's cracked up to be. In fact, as they discovered, sometimes the "old team spirit" can backfire against you

"About five years ago, our agency faced a number of deep staff cuts," said Debby Silverfine, former PEF chair of the joint labor-management committee at the Arts Council. "So, a number of us agreed to temporarily accept salary cuts while the agency weathered its fiscal difficulties.

"Basically, we agreed to continue doing our old jobs at a lower pay rate," said Silverfine, who was an arts program analyst 2 at that time. "We thought it would just be temporary, until the agency recovered."

But five years later, when the fiscal crisis had passed and the agency was solvent enough to initiate several new hiring waves, the members were still working at reduced pay rates.

When they asked management for a timeline for returning to their old salary grades, the members felt they weren't given straight answers.

Grievance, last resort
"Since we were unable to resolve the problem in labor-management meetings, PEF filed a grievance on our behalf in June 1997," Silverfine said. "Arts Council managers and the Governor's Office of Employee Relations acknowledged there were staffing inequities, but they were slow to suggest ways of remedying the situation."

At last, the members have settled their case, receiving a 14-month lump-sum payment and average annual pay raises of $3,000. Four of the grievants were reclassified from arts program analyst 2, to arts program analyst 4. Debby Silverfine was promoted from arts program analyst 2 to director of the agency's electronic media and film program. A sixth grievant left the agency before the grievance was settled.

"Management didn't have a clear plan for righting the salary inequities," Silverfine said, explaining the group's decision to grieve the case. "Many people were working at three salary grades below what they should have been for their jobs."

Out-of-title work was rampant, with many PEF members performing duties assigned to much higher-paying job categories.

Team sacrifices forgotten
"PEF did a wonderful job of helping us resolve many of the problems in the organization, but management still hasn't outlined clear job descriptions for certain positions," Silverfine said. "It's important that we make sure this is carried out so that we don't fall into this same out-of-title-work trap again.

"Management still has a lot of work to do," she said.
"These members made significant personal sacrifices for the betterment of their workplace team but, unfortunately, once the agency's difficulties were resolved, those sacrifices were forgotten," said PEF field representative John Dillon, who worked with the members to resolve the case. "It's just unfortunate that these dedicated professionals had to file a grievance before management was willing to rectify such glaring inconsistencies."

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