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There will be a General Membership Meeting on Tuesday March 7^th at 6 p.m. at our Braintree office, located at 150 Wood Road, Suite 400 in Braintree.

There will be a General Membership Meeting on Tuesday January 10^th at 6 p.m. at our Braintree office, located at 150 Wood Road, Suite 400 in Braintree.

The next General Membership Meeting will take place on Tuesday December 6^th at 6 p.m. at our office located at 150 Wood Road, Suite 400 in Braintree. This meeting is in place of the one originally scheduled for Tuesday November 15^th.

View the ULP

November 4, 2022

VIA ELECTRONIC MAIL

Mary Mahoney, President

OPEIU Local 6

150 Wood Road, Suite 400

Braintree, MA 02184

RE: VACCINATION UPLOAD POLICY

Dear President Mahoney,

I am writing to follow up with you regarding my correspondence dated November 2, 2022, and to update you regarding our plan to implement the mandatory vaccination reporting policy at the Trial Court.

As you are aware, the Trial Court first notified Local 6 of our Vaccination Upload plan on August 8, 2022. We then met with you on August 25, 2022, at which time we shared that the policy would begin on October 1, 2022, and be voluntary for 30 days, after which time it may become mandatory if there was not a sufficient response. We met again on October 3, 2022, to demonstrate the vaccine upload tool and again answer questions regarding our implementation of the plan. On October 24, 2022 we informed you that unfortunately we would need to move to a mandatory Vaccine Upload plan.

Please find attached a letter from the leadership of OPEIU Local 6 to Chief Justice Locke and others regarding the Trial Court Vaccination Documentation Upload Requirement.

Please find attached a letter from the leadership of OPEIU Local 6 to Chief Justice Locke and Court Administrator Bello concerning recent wage increases offered to management staff at the Trial Court.

Dear Sisters & Brothers,

The Trial Court and OPEIU Local 6 are committed to providing you with regular updates on the progress of our current negotiations.

We are pleased to report that on September 20, 2022 the Trial Court and OPEIU Local 6 have signed Ground Rules. This will guide both parties in negotiations as we reach our goal of reaching an agreement on the successful adoption of a new compensation and classification structure.

The Trial Court and OPEIU Local 6 have scheduled bi-weekly meetings on Wednesdays to discuss the new classifications and other associated Compensation and Classification Study issues. We also scheduled “off-week” regular meetings, designed to address follow up questions and to plan subsequent Compensation and Classification Study meetings.

Thank you for your patience during this very important process.

In solidarity,

Your Local 6 Officers and Staff

A General Membership Meeting will take place at our office at 150 Wood Road, Suite 400 in Braintree on Tuesday September 13 at 6 p.m.

Sisters and Brothers:

We must inform you the Trial Court arbitrarily and capriciously posted new job vacancies for Case Specialist, Probation Case Specialists and Child Support Processing Clerks above the negotiated Step 1 starting salary. The Trial Court has also increased all Case Specialists, Probation Case Specialists and Child Support Processing Clerks currently at Grade 7, Step 1 and Step 2, to a Step 3 rate. All this was done without an agreement with the Union!

In response, OPEIU Local 6 has sent a Cease-and-Desist Letter to Chief Justice Locke. We have also filed a Prohibited Practice Charge and Grievance naming Chief Justice Locke.

To provide you with some background, in mid-May the Trial Court approached the Union with a “special recruitment proposal” to address a shortage of job applicants for the Case Specialists, Probation Case Specialists and Child Support Processing Clerks. We responded that we were open to a discussion about their recruitment problem after, and only after the Trial Court paid our members their negotiated hazard duty pay for which they waited months to receive!

On June 8, we met with the Trial Court to discuss their recruitment and hiring problem. We suggested that the Trial Court also has a problem retaining employees as well. Further, we know of numerous departments that are severely short-staffed, which has caused a significant burden on our members who are left to pick up the slack. On top of an inordinate number of retirements over the past year, we have seen over 170 resignations during the same period. We were shocked when Human Resources confessed that they didn’t know why newly hired and long-time employees were leaving in droves because HR wasn’t even conducting exit interviews! The answer to their problem is to increase the Starting Step salary to Step 3 for a year for Case Specialists, Probation Case Specialists and Child Support Processing Clerks and to increase current employees in those classifications who are at Step 1 and Step 2, to Step 3. That is nice, but we asked, “what are they going to do for the rest of the OPEIU Local 6 members who work at the Trial Court?” “What about the members who have dutifully carried the caseloads in understaffed departments during the pandemic?” “Don’t you care about them?”

We asked that they send us a written proposal for us to consider. We promptly responded with a counter-proposal that included bonuses for current members based on seniority, and exit interviews with an OPEIU Local 6 representative on the exit interview panel.

We are outraged by the bad faith the Trial Court exhibited by not even pretending to entertain our counter proposal and deciding to implement their disrespectful, ill-advised plan. Word is getting out, and we are already hearing from members fuming at the unfair and ill-mannered Trial Court’s treatment toward them.

We will keep you informed about how our grievance and the Prohibited Practice Charge at the Massachusetts Department of Labor Relations progresses. As well as, any progress we may make with negotiations.