Updates

CTWU Check-In for December 20, 2024

CTWU Organizing Committee
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We hope your workload is easing up as the year winds down! The CTWU check-in is a weekly newsletter available to all Child Trends staff in the bargaining unit. Every week, we’ll be sharing updates and resources to keep you informed. 

Miss a week? All newsletters will be saved in the public CTWU folder! 

Our reason for wanting to form a union is simple - we love Child Trends, the work we do, and our colleagues. At the core of our mission is the belief that as employees, there is no one who can cherish, improve, and protect Child Trends as we can. We believe deeply in ourselves, our colleagues, and in the power of collective action to improve the lives and conditions of communities, such as Child Trends. Ultimately, we believe forming a union at Child Trends and ensuring underrepresented voices are heard by leadership will enable us to better carry out our mission of improving the lives of children, youth, and their families.

Updates 

Excelsior List Posted

  • The Excelsior List shows everyone who is eligible to vote in the election. We’ve saved a copy on the CTWU public drive. 

Exclusions

  • A handful of staff were excluded from the bargaining unit due to being categorized as a supervisor or confidential.

Challenges

  • If someone does not see their name on the list but believes they should be included, they may contact the NLRB to ‘challenge’ for their inclusion.

Join the Bargaining Survey Development Team!

  • Due to staff interest, we are excited to announce that we are initiating the convening of a Bargaining Survey Development Team; this important survey is how unions first assess staff priorities to develop their initial proposal to management.
  • Anyone in the bargaining unit is welcome and encouraged to reach out if you would like to play a role in this very important process!

Did you miss the last info session? Read notes here!

  • Last Friday we welcomed Jalen (President of Social Policy Workers United) and Colin (Vice-President of Social Policy Workers United) from MDRC to share more information about their unionizing effort and bargaining process. 
  • MDRC’s responses to your colleague’s questions can be reviewed in the linked document above. We have also included responses to a few key questions below in our Top Questions of the Week.
  • We have added their most recent contract and summary to the CTWU public drive if you would like to take a deeper dive!

Upcoming Info Sessions 

  • Office Hours next week: We will be hosting office hours in the place of our weekly info session on Friday, December 27th (Time TBD). These office hours will be exclusively for Child Trends bargaining unit staff, and will not include our AFSCME representatives. Keep an eye out for an announcement about the time and Zoom link early next week!
  • Next Info Session: Our next info session is scheduled for Friday, January 3rd at 1 PM ET. We’ll spend time sharing recent updates and leave time at the end for Q&A. No charge code will be provided to attend this info session and staff must use time outside of work to attend. Invites will be coming to your non-work email over the weekend! 
    • Zoom info: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82108421164?pwd=8W2eoJzN9yDbwMx7Ra4nchWm pewdFe.1 
      Meeting ID: 821 0842 1164 
      Passcode: 275509 

 

New Resource Highlight

ChatGPT provides a balanced perspective on unionization concerns

  • The last couple of weeks have left us with a lot of emails to read through and information to parse. We analyzed the conversations being had by staff using ChatGPT, and summarized the key concerns and responses to those concerns into a slide deck.
  • Check out ChatGPT’s parting words of advice to everyone navigating this process on slides 12-14! 

Resources 

Check out our CTWU folder! 

New Resources Posted!

  • Election Process Infographic: We know there are a lot of moving parts to keep in order for the upcoming election - we have developed a condensed infographic to keep you informed on timelines and what you will need to do, each step of the way!
    • As a reminder, you will vote as either Group A or Group B. To find out what group you are in, please check the Excelsior List linked above.
  • Understanding your voting group: Use this short deck to understand the difference between voting groups, which roles are included in each group, and which roles are voting subject to challenge. You can even see a sample ballot!

We’ve added/updated  the following resources to give staff an overview of the organizing effort and election process: 

Top Questions of the Week 

We are actively updating our FAQ document as people send in questions. Keep them coming! We want to make sure everyone has the information they need. We also would like to ask for a bit of grace as we receive a lot of questions and we want to make sure the answers we provide are robust and accurate. This week, we are highlighting a few responses from our Q&A with MDRC, alongside our questions of the week:

What proportion of MDRC were informed about the petition before voluntary recognition occurred? How was it received by non-informed staff?
MDRC: During the time we were organizing, we were remote. You don’t already know who’s going to be in or out of the bargaining unit, and you do your best to reach all those people who may be in. Part of organizing is, who is connected to whom, and how do we create an environment where people talk to each other? I couldn’t say what percent of contacts we didn’t reach but we did our best to reach everyone we could. It was hard to get to some folks, because we couldn’t reach out to folks on company email, and had to get personal contacts. Sure there are people we missed, but we made sure to catch people up as soon as possible. For folks just getting involved, you haven’t missed anything. Really, the juicy stuff happens when you build the contract. I wasn’t the first person called but when I got a call, I said I wanted to get involved. Whatever part of the process that call comes, you accept the charge and get to work. It is always an iterative process making sure everyone is included. As someone who joined early, it’s a lot of work to organize. People volunteer their time and are doing their best. It is easier in an office when you could go to someone’s desk or put something in a mailbox. It’s tougher to scale when doing it remotely. Try to give some grace to people, it’s really hard and takes bravery and courage.

Did not having the statutory supervisory title limit opportunities to lead research tasks or serve in the research sense as a PI or Project Director?
MDRC: No, it has not. The statutory supervisory title pertains to personnel management much more than it does project management. I suspect Child Trends is similar to MDRC in that these two types of management are sometimes blended together, which can make it confusing. The duties that are now reserved for statutory supervisors are not related to leading research tasks, and we have many people in our unit who serve as PIs and Project Directors. Here is the list of things that statutory supervisors at MDRC have the authority to recommend or effectively recommend:

  • Promotion;

  • Permission to reduce or flex their schedule;

  • Permission to become a remote worker;

  • Permission to flex a holiday (up to three per calendar year);

  • Lead the annual performance management and review process;

  • Creation of a Professional Development Plan – including recommendations to provide support for training, conferences, and professional organization fees; and

  • Addressing performance issues, including placement on a Performance Improvement Plan.

In the time between voting and a contract being agreed upon were your salaries, promotions, etc. frozen?
MDRC: No, they were not. During contract negotiations, the "status quo" was protected (e.g. MDRC could not reduce our benefits), but this does not mean that we were unable to receive raises, promotions, and other new benefits. In fact, SPWU was able to secure some major economic wins by negotiating with MDRC in parallel to contract negotiations. These wins included a $53,500 pay floor, disconnecting our end-of-year raises from an unfair/arbitrary performance rating system, and one-time bonuses to offset rising costs of living.

What’s the first step to bargaining our union contract? 
CTWU: The first step is to create a bargaining survey and ask coworkers across levels, departments, and roles what you want to prioritize in a union contract. Priorities can range from protecting what we love about our organization, such as flexible work schedules and matched retirement contributions, to fighting for improvements for anything from expanding paid parental leave, to a more consistent and transparent promotion process, to raises. CTWU members will also be able to nominate the bargaining team members— your coworkers!— who will represent you at the negotiating table alongside an AFSCME representative. The team works on drafting contract language— called articles— covering anything from just cause protections, to anti-harassment language, to longevity pay, to benefits like insurance. During this time the bargaining unit will be asked to weigh in on major priorities or points of compromise as needed. Once the bargaining team and management have secured a tentative agreement, this draft first contract will go to CTWU members for a vote. If members vote yes for our contract, it will be ratified and go into effect! If members vote no for our contract, then the bargaining team will go back into bargaining. We want to be transparent that this process can take time, however we intend to fight for the strongest contract possible for our union, no matter how long it takes. 

How can I get involved?
CTWU: Our union is something we are building together and we don’t want to leave anyone’s voice behind. We would love even more folks to get involved and help shape CTWU! We are beginning to pull together a team of members who can work on a bargaining survey. Our bargaining survey is how we determine our priorities. If you are interested in joining the team, email us at ctworkersunited@gmail.com.

Feedback & Suggestions 

If you have any questions or suggestions, please don’t hesitate to reach out! Have a good weekend everyone! 

Email us: ctworkersunited@gmail.com