Welcome fellow CSEA members:

Although we have not had an update in a few weeks we have been working hard to advocate for the health & safety of all our Erie Unit members. We have taken a lot of phone calls & emails, and we agree with you: 

forcing employees to come back to work in the middle of a pandemic, with school possibly starting in the next few weeks, is not sustainable long term. There are many large employers in the area who have either extended or reversed their decisions to bring back staff by extending work from home policies and we believe Erie County should follow suit. Although we have reached out to Erie County (overall) several times to do this, we have not come to the table to negotiate a comprehensive working from home policy to get through the pandemic.

We have stressed that they will lose good workers. We have stressed that they are forcing employees to choose between their children and their jobs. We have stressed that employees with health conditions (and those who are taking care of higher risk family members) are suffering needlessly. We have stressed that lack of flexibility with daycare and working against employees instead of with them is causing further duress in an already panicked workforce. We have stressed that tax paying employees will be forced to rely on services administered by Erie County that are already stretched too thin. CSEAs concerns have, overall, fallen on deaf ears.

We hear what a lot of you are saying and have tried our best to communicate throughout the Pandemic, however, despite the meetings, phone conferences, emails and phone calls that our officers are involved with every day, much of the time it seems like we are chasing our tails and have nothing concrete to report. However, we will commit to that in the spirit of transparency.

In the next few days, a survey will be sent out through the county asking what employees needs are in the upcoming school year. Please answer the questions to the best of your knowledge. From there work schedules will be looked at to see how you can be accommodated. We will have a seat at this table to make sure our members needs are met. (For our ECMCC members, we are looking forward to having a meeting with ECMCC hopefully next week.) 

On behalf of our members we have done several things to help improve our working conditions, including:

Working with PESH (Public Employee Safety and Health); CSEA was involved with formal complaints regarding conditions of cleanliness, lack of employee access to cleaning/sanitizing products and EC using unlabeled cleaning materials

CSEA has filed a 311 complaint and spoken to the City of Buffalo regarding inspection of elevators at another site that are unmarked as far as weight limit and occupancy. CSEA has worked with Management with issues of building cleanliness in other areas, as well as keeping employees safe through social distancing by having employees workstations moved, posting signs, and having indicators put on floors.

CSEA is working with our Labor Relations Specialist to determine our course of action regarding their COVID-19 policy, which we believe overreaches on the Governors Executive Order by requiring employees to provide negative test results in order to come back to work. This policy was not negotiated, and we believe it should be a mandatory subject of bargaining.

CSEA has filed several grievances throughout the Pandemic, including class action grievances for loss of accrued time for those deemed non essential and/or using unutilized time at home, failure of management to give employees adequate notice for shift changes and for forcing employees to work out of title without compensation. Out-of-title for contact tracers and sending employees home for covid related absences and requiring employees to use their sick time.

CSEA has ordered masks and personal hand sanitizer for all of our Local 815 Members, to be distributed at a later date. Although we acknowledge our members anxiety will not truly be reduced until bigger issues are addressed, this is something that we can do in the meantime. While many of you are angry (at CSEA, at Erie County, and at the stressful situations you have been dealing with for the last 5 months) there are some things that we need help with:

If you see/experience an issue with regards to cleaning, health or safety PLEASE let us know! Although we encourage communication with our Officers, Stewards & Grievance Reps, it is also helpful for us to communicate directly with YOU, our members, to know what is happening at your work locations. Please continue to send your concerns to contactus@csea815.com, and feel free to CC your Officers or Stewards/Reps to let them know whats happening too. Having a paper trail makes it easier to follow up with Management and gives us teeth if nothing is done and we need to go another route to get the situation resolved.

If you are denied FFCRA (Families First Coronavirus Response Act) Leave, please reach out to one of your CSEA Officers. If you believe that you were unfairly denied, we are encouraging our members to file complaints with the DOL. Because we have so many different positions in many departments, and each situation is specific, this is not something that CSEA can do on behalf of our members.

If you are approved for FFCRA Leave, please reach out to one of your CSEA Section Officers so we can monitor and make sure you are receiving the time/payments that you are entitled to.

If you still have not, please take a couple minutes to help save Public Services and encourage Senate members to provide vital Local Government funding that pays for our jobs! https://cseany.org/help-save-new-york

We want to thank you for all the work that you have been doing to help keep Erie County going over the last few months. We know it has not been easy because many of us are facing the same issues. We appreciate and value you and will keep you updated. 

In Solidarity,

Your CSEA Erie Unit Officers