{"id":1105,"date":"2011-03-10T00:25:32","date_gmt":"2011-03-10T06:25:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cookcountypd.org\/blog\/?p=1105"},"modified":"2011-03-10T08:18:45","modified_gmt":"2011-03-10T14:18:45","slug":"furloughs-you-decide-voting-march-10th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/local3315.org\/blog\/index.php\/2011\/03\/10\/furloughs-you-decide-voting-march-10th\/","title":{"rendered":"Furloughs?  You Decide by Voting March 10th."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">Sisters and Brothers,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">The bargaining committee had hoped to negotiate a complete package to vote on, which would have included a new contract and the County\u2019s furlough day proposal.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the County continues to stall meaningful contract negotiations.\u00a0 Therefore,\u00a0the vote tomorrow will only concern furlough\u00a0days, and not a new contract.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">Here are the basics of the County\u2019s furlough proposal that will be voted on tomorrow, Thursday, March 10:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">Employees would take either 10 furlough days <\/span><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">or<\/span><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\"> 5 furlough days and 5 shutdown days (April 22, May 27, July 1, September 2, November 25), and the County would decide whether it would proceed with just furloughs or furloughs + shutdown days.<\/span><\/li>\n<li>The furlough days or shutdown days would not affect vacation accrual, and would not affect pension accrual if employees follow forthcoming guidelines on how to avoid pension consequences.<\/li>\n<li>The furlough days would have to be taken by November 30, 2011.<\/li>\n<li>In exchange for furlough days,\u00a0the County would agree not to layoff any employees until November 30, 2011, unless the County \u201c<em>in its sole discretion, determines that it must lay off Employees to maintain a balanced budget during the term of this Memorandum of Understanding. .<\/em> .\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">The terms of this proposal were not finalized until 8:00pm this evening, as\u00a0AFSCME\u00a0continued throughout the day to negotiate better terms.\u00a0 The County rejected numerous\u00a0AFSCMEproposals on furlough days, including a proposal spearheaded by our local, to guarantee no layoffs through November 30, 2012.\u00a0 For those interested, the complete furlough proposal will be available <a href=\"http:\/\/www.afscme31.org\/news?id=0155\">at each voting site<\/a> for review prior to voting. \u00a0We also will make every effort to send it to you in an attachment to an email once we obtain it electronically on Thursday morning.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">The bargaining committee will meet with the County again on March 18<\/span><sup><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">th<\/span><\/sup><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\"> to continue attempts to secure a new contract.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">In conclusion, I want to remind you that our sister locals (investigators and support staff) face drastic numbers of layoffs. Whatever decision you make, please try to be respectful to people who do not share your point of view. \u00a0Not only will layoffs mean that our work as attorneys will be significantly hampered, layoffs will also mean that life changing events will take place for many of our co-workers. \u00a0We all know how hard it is to make a living these days and it will be very difficult to see our co-workers laid off onto the street. So, it should not be difficult for us to empathize with their plight. \u00a0Some of you know exactly what it means to be laid off because you experienced it first hand four years ago. \u00a0I guess all that I am asking is that when you vote, you vote not only with your intellect and mind, but your heart as well. \u00a0Solidarity is a principle that should be in our hearts\u00a0<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">and<\/span> minds.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>In Solidarity,<br \/>\nK. S.\u00a0Galhotra<br \/>\nPresident<br \/>\nAFSCME\u00a0Local 3315<br \/>\nThe Cook County Public Defenders Association<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 Sisters and Brothers, The bargaining committee had hoped to negotiate a complete package to vote on, which would have included a new contract and the County\u2019s furlough day proposal.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the County continues to stall meaningful contract negotiations.\u00a0 Therefore,\u00a0the vote tomorrow will only concern furlough\u00a0days, and not a new contract. Here are the basics [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/local3315.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/local3315.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/local3315.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/local3315.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/local3315.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/local3315.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1105\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/local3315.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/local3315.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/local3315.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}