Here are the latest musings around ZSE:
MOU’s - About 4 weeks ago, we were able to send our MOU’s up and out of the building for review. This is the most bogged down and cumbersome part of the process. The region has assigned 1 person at a regional level to mark up all the MOU’s for the entire region for potential illegal language. The BWS MOU is the only that has not been sent out of the building for scrutiny as we are still collecting area specific details. Admittedly, it is frustrating but part of the process nation wide especially with the anti-labor POTUS EO that is having all federal management scrutinize anything that could even potentially infringe on “management rights”.
Center Rep Meeting - Derek Adams and I went to San Diego to attend the Bi-annual Center Rep Meeting. Here are some of the highlights:
A new training order is on the horizon that could have some pretty significant changes that I would be more than happy to discuss. One of the main hold ups is (once again) the residual effects on the anti-federal labor EO that has management wanting to remove all mention of “collaboration” as it could infringe on management rights.
We discussed DataComm implementation and the concerns of how to train D-Sides due to the immediacy and almost stealth-like manner a trainee can issue an instruction. We will need to be very vigilante when this rolls out.
When it comes to the NEST, the worst thing a developmental can do is to withdraw from training. The NEST advises that they run for as long as they can to make themselves more palatable for retention and reassignment.
Paul and Trish told us that the NCEPT process is a living program that is meant to be constantly changed to meet the demands of the workforce. They (the NCEPT team) just recently scaled back from pulling a movement list from 6 times a year to 4. The reason was because the higher frequency of movement was leading to facilities checking people out just to release another person. The move to slow it down a little is so that a facility can stack resources for a little bit in order to progress towards being healthy.
As far as the NCEPT goes, long term absences are now being taken out of our numbers. To be considered a long term absence you would have to be a permanent medical DQ, military deployment, or an RVP.
Thank you all for your time and support and hopefully we can start bidding for next year very soon.
-Alex Navarro III