New Beginnings Performance Management System
Here’s what you need to know about the Department of Defense’s New Performance Appraisal System.
What is the Goal of New Beginnings?
The main objective of New Beginnings is to develop and maintain a results-oriented performance culture that ties individual performance to organizational goals. The performance and appraisal system emphasizes employee and supervisor interaction. It calls for employees to get more communication and feedback over course of the year. The goal is admirable, but implementation is key.
Volunteer Oportunities
Volunteering has a meaningful, positive impact on the community.
Below is a list of great opportunities for individuals, families, students seeking community service hours, and businesses wanting to connect with the community.
Read More
A Big Win for Military Families and Commissary Workers
From AFGE National:
In a strong show of bipartisan support, the Senate has rejected a move to privatize five Department of Defense commissaries under a pilot project that could have resulted in the privatization of all military grocery stores. Read More
Labor Relations Course AFGE 1658
AFGE Members here is a way to learn about your Union and earn CLPs.
Labor Relations Course AFGE 1658 – 75 Questions – 2 CLPs
Click on the link below to open and download the test. Read More
Website Going Live!
Welcome to the new AFGE 1658 Website
Brothers & Sisters,
We have finally done it! Welcome to the 21st century. Please bookmark our new website AFGE1658.org. Take a look around and send us your thoughts and input.
Sorry, there are no polls available at the moment.
The President’s Voice: Upcoming Contract Negotiations
The President’s Voice: Upcoming Contract Negotiations
As I mentioned in a message last month to the membership our union continues to move forward towards contract negotiations with the Command. A number of steps have been taken including allocating funds in our union budget for negotiations, arranging for collective bargaining training for union negotiators, forming a Union Negotiation Team and proposing a set of Ground Rules setting forth how the negotiations will be conducted. Any such Ground Rules have to be negotiated and agreed upon by both parties.
Once again, there is no firm answer as to when these negotiations will begin and how long they will last since it is very important to keep in mind that those events are dependent upon both parties (the union and management). Moreover, there are events that cannot always be controlled or predicted by either or both parties. While we all want to complete these negotiations as soon as possible we also want to end up with a good end product – a better contract.
These negotiations will take into account the results of the survey conducted with our bargaining unit (BU) members last year. That survey indicated a number of issues considered to be more important for our BU members including: Telework, Unsafe Work Conditions, Wellness/Fitness Programs, and Duty Hours/Flex Time. I strongly urge our members to contact the union on an ongoing basis on issues you want us to consider during these negotiations. Your input is very important.
After our union completes negotiating changes to our Negotiated Labor Management Agreement (NLMA) any such negotiated changes will need to be submitted to a vote of our dues-paying union members for ratification. No negotiated changes to the current NLMA can be approved without the approval of our dues-paying members.
The union will keep you posted as to the general progress of these negotiations such as when they begin.
Paul Veselenak
President, AFGE Local 1658
Traditional Negotiations
By Gregory Polcyn; Area Vice President, AFGE 1658
Traditional negotiations can often be thought of as a “zero-sum game”; what is one parties’ loss is the other’s gain. In this fixed pie, limited resource environment hardball tactics are often used to get to an agreement. Often times traditional negotiations lead to “win-lose” outcomes, because one side will always get more than the other side in this scenario.
In traditional negotiations both parties often begin with very similar strategies. In labor negotiations, there are opening positions and final positions. To illus-trate traditional negotiations, I’ll use the example of buying or selling a piece of real estate. For example, an 1100 sq ft. condominium with a 1 car detached gar-age. This is a scenario we all can relate to either as the buyer or the seller.
As the seller, my strategy is to ask more than what I expect to get for the condo. This would be my asking price; in this case $115,900. Remember, my asking price is not what I expect to get. What I expect to get is my target price, which will be lower than my asking price. In this case my target price is $109,500, $6,000 less than my asking price. However, I really want to sell this condo so I’ll take even less than my target price. In fact, I’ll take $102,900, but that’s it; that’s my lowest price. This lowest price ($102,900) is referred to as the seller’s reserve price or a bottom line price. The seller will walk away from the table if they don’t get this price.
On the other side of the table is the buyer. The buyer also has an asking, target and reserve price but they are opposite in value. As the buyer, I want to start low and go higher incre-mentally. One aspect of traditional negotia-tions is that parties do NOT normally share information such as the bottom line price. In this example, my initial offer on the condo was $101,500, lower than the seller’s reserve price, but I don’t know that. If the seller agrees too quickly to my price, I know I over-bid. My target price would be $104,900. My reserve price, the price I will not exceed, would be $108,900.
Somewhere between $102,900 and $108,900 is a zone of possible agreement (ZOPA). Eve-ry dollar the buyer pays goes directly in the sellers’ pocket, that is why these types of ne-gotiations are so confrontational. As the buy-er I don’t know what the seller’s reserve price is and he is not going to tell me, so I have to guess. If I guess high, then I lose. If my guess is close to or at $102,900 (seller’s reserve price), I win.
In traditional negotiations both sides tell only what they think the other side needs to know. As the seller, I don’t want to mention that I have “crazy” neighbors that throw parties every weekend during the summer. If one side tells too much, then that opens up the possibility of losing something, i.e. time or money.
In my next article I’ll discuss the use of a BATNA- Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement and how that plays into negotiations.
Shhhhh… It’s an open secret!
By: Rebekah Foley, Secretary
It’s an open secret at the Detroit Arsenal that not all organizations enforce the 30 minute lunch policy in the same way. I am sure that you, or someone you know, are able to benefit from an extended lunch. If you work in an area that strictly enforces the 30 minute lunch policy, there is an option for extending your lunch period without taking annual leave.
NLMA Article 19, Section B(5) states: “Each BU employee will received a thirty (30) minute unpaid lunch period somewhere near the middle of his/her work day. With prior approval, on a case by case basis, a BU employee may request and may be granted up to thirty (30) addition-al unpaid minutes for lunch if his/her hours of work requirements will be met within 0600 hours—1800 hours. Each BU employee will depart for and return from lunch on time.”
So remember, if you need an extra 30 minutes at lunch, talk to your supervisor ahead of time and make plans to work an extra 30 minutes at the beginning or end of your duty day.
Your Life Without the Union: A Tale of Terror
By Jessica Fields, AFGE 1658
Imagine your life without the union. Imagine a world where no union ever existed. No eight hour workday, no forty hour workweek, no weekends. No work-man’s compensation, no healthcare plans, no retirement benefits. Since there are no child labor laws, there’s no such thing as childhood. Unsafe working conditions are the norm. Disparate treatment is rampant for women or mi-norities or LGBT workers. The worksite is inaccessible for those with disabilities. History bears out what workers can suf-fer when employers operate without checks and balances. Consider the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, the radium watch dial girls and the Memphis sanitation worker. Such fates are unimaginable to us, because we live in a world that is transformed by collective bargaining.
The foundation of any union is an assertion of basic human dignity and a belief that we are stronger together than apart. Unions are found across the social spectrum: pipe fitters and actors; autoworkers and athletes; nurses and police officers. Solidarity binds us together, and our varied perspectives coalesce into a unified voice. Despite our differences, we become a sort of family – sisters and brothers – and pool our resources for the collective good. Through collective bargaining we change the quality of life in our workplace. One individual is transformed into a force for societal change. Holy smokes! The very idea of a union is a revolutionary act.
Your union is so much more than the full-time employees and elected officials. The un-ion is you. You are the union. The union is most effective when its members invest and participate. Our union encompasses an in-credible assortment of talent and experience and education.
The question becomes what can’t we accom-plish if we were to flex our collective strength! What if we increased our lobbying of political representatives? What if we spoke positively and proudly of our union? What if we peer reviewed our resumes and increased scholarships and promoted union values into leader-ship positions? There is so much the union can still accomplish. We stand on the solid foundations that past unions were able to construct. We can add our own chapter to this great labor history. Speak your mind, lend your skills, teach a class, bring a new mem-ber, come to meetings, sign a petition, get involved politically, support other Federal unions – but do something.
Any other future is, well, terrifying.
Negotiation: A Dinner Drama
By Gregory Polcyn; Area Vice President, AFGE 1658
As our Local heads into negotiations on the Negotiated Labor Management Agreement (NLMA), aka the union contract, I decided to write an article on everyday negotiations. If the feedback is positive, I’ll write more articles on this subject. If not, I’ll write about how we defend employees who steal toilet paper from Government bathrooms.
There are four possible out-comes regarding negotiations: win-lose, lose-win, lose-lose and the coveted win-win. Most negotiations result in a win-lose situation, which inevitably involves compromise. I’ll provide a little vignette that I’m sure everyone can relate to:
It’s Friday night and you and your spouse/significant other want to go to dinner. Well, here’s the problem. You want Chinese and they want Italian. What to do, what to do? You can stomach Italian, but you’ve been craving beef and broccoli all week! You know that it’s going to take a lot of begging and cajoling to convince her (sorry, I mean “them”) that Chinese is the way to go. Also, did I mention that you’re already in the car and both restaurants are about the same distance? How do you negotiate in this scenario? I’m sure we all have our methods, but I bet it might go some-thing like this:
“Ok, we’ll do Italian tonight if we can do Chinese next week”. In this scenario, one party gets what they want (Italian) and the other party doesn’t. This is the common “win-lose” scenario, and this is a great as long as you are the winner. However, what if you don’t want Chinese next Friday? What if you get sick and can’t go out? What if you have to work late! Well you should have thought about that before you compromised. This is one of the problems with “win-lose” scenarios in negotiation.
I’m sure we can all see the flip side of the coin where you win and get your beef and broccoli; but what would be a “lose-lose” in this dinner scenario? Well, it turns out that you and your spouse are both “blah” on Mexican food. The funny thing is, you both think the other person really likes Mexican food. You don’t want to hurt their feelings by saying you don’t, so you continue to go Mexican restaurants – hating every minute of it – all the while thinking you’re doing the other person a favor. Sound familiar? I hope not.
Here’s the real question on most people’s minds: What would be a win-win? That’s a little more difficult to define, but there is a Chinese-Italian fusion restaurant where you can have beef and broccoli, and your significant other can have whatever they want. However, it is 15 miles further out, it will cost 50% more and since you’re in the car already and didn’t make reservations, you’ll be waiting 45 minutes to be seated. Hey, I didn’t say it was easy, I just said it existed.
What is the take-away here? If you want the coveted win-win, you’ve got to prepare for it.
