What Is A CSEA Contract?
CSEA contracts, which are also commonly termed union contracts, are agreements that establish the terms and conditions of employment between members of the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) and their respective employers. The CSEA is a public sector labor union in the United States. The agency is more formally known as the New York State Civil Service Employees Association, Inc. and represents 300,000 public employees working in various roles across 1,100 bargaining units.
CSEA contracts are collectively bargained between CSEA representatives and employer management. Because they relate to aspects of employment with a CSEA represented municipality , authority, or school district, CSEA contracts fall within an exception to the Statute of Frauds. The Statute of Frauds is a law that outlines the types of contracts that must be in writing in order to be enforceable. Although their underlining goal is to allow for the free flow of information and the wide dissemination of information, the Statute of Frauds doesn’t always capture contracts involving professional, service, and employment relationships. Accordingly, if you’re in a dispute with your employer from the perspective of an employee who’s covered by a CSEA contract, you’ll need to look to your applicable union contract.
Components Of A CSEA Contract
While each CSEA contract is negotiated specifically for the needs of a given district, employee, and given negotiation cycle, there are significant elements that are found in most contracts. These include a salary schedule, working hours for specific employees, or categories of employees, fringe benefits and job security.
The salary schedule is a combination of categories of employees. Salaries are then determined by steps in each category. The schedule is then applied to finds a specific employee’s salary. The salary also takes into account whether the employee has a degree, a masters degree or a degree plus further hours of credits.
The working hours for each employee may be found in a job description or in the body of the contract. The hours for some employees may also be listed in an appendix. This is sometimes done to reflect a unique situation.
Fringe benefits generally cover the costs of insuring that the district’s employees have medical, dental, and vision care. In addition, there may be various types of leave including sick, personal, bereavement and parental leave. Vacation and holiday schedules may also be included.
Job security relates to both the length of each contract and whether the policy creates tenure, or job continuity as it may be called for teachers. Most contracts are three years in length, but can be longer. Job security for teachers means that their employment is for life, unless there is a defined cause for dismissal.
Negotiation Of A CSEA Contract
The process for negotiating a CSEA contract varies from one workplace to another. In places where employees are represented by the union for purposes of collective bargaining, it is the union that negotiates the terms and conditions of work. The general process is that the union designates a workers’ committee or a bargaining team, which seeks input from the bargaining unit members by, for example, holding meetings in the workplace, conducting surveys, or other forms of information gathering. The bargaining team then works with union officials, consultants, and legal counsel to develop contract proposals and proposals for contract language.
At the start of the bargaining process, the union submits proposals to the employer for consideration. The terms of a CSEA contract are generally negotiated. This means that the initial contract proposal from the union is a starting point for negotiations, not a take-it-or-leave-it proposal. If the union and employer reach an agreement on all terms proposed by the union and accepted by the employer, those terms are incorporated in the new collective bargaining agreement. If agreement cannot be reached in negotiations, however, a CSEA contract is said to be renegotiated.
The CSEA collective bargaining agreement will have a number of different terms, including: If the parties are having difficulty resolving issues at the negotiating table, they can seek help from the New York State Employment Relations Board (PERB). It is within PERB’s absolute discretion to assist both parties with negotiations in whatever manner PERB chooses. Therefore, the parties may obtain conciliation services, mediation services, or fact finding services from PERB. If an impasse in the negotiations remains unresolved for a certain period of time, either party may request PERB to appoint a mediator or a conciliator to resolve issues in dispute.
In many cases, although the negotiating parties are unable to make further progress on resolving issues, they will voluntarily agree to extend the time for concluding the renegotiation. In such case, the existing CSEA contract continues in effect until the parties reach a new agreement on all unresolved issues and the new contract terms commence.
Any disputes that arise during the process of negotiating a CSEA contract fall within PERB’s jurisdiction. An employee may file a complaint with PERB if the employer has committed an improper labor practice in dealing with the employee’s negotiating team. For example, if the employer fails to negotiate in good faith with the employee designated official bargaining team or the employee designated union labor representative, that failure to engage in the negotiation process is an improper labor practice under the Taylor Law. PERB will investigate and, if necessary, pursue a claim against the employer for a violation of the Taylor Law. With respect to negotiation of a CSEA contract, the CSEA enjoys the right to file an improper practice complaint with PERB in its derivative capacity as collective bargaining representative of the affected employees.
Note that if a worksite is not currently represented by the CSEA or any other union for purposes of collective bargaining, the employees of that worksite are prohibited by the Taylor Law from engaging in or participating in any strike against the state, any other municipality or public corporation, or the College.
Average Problems In A CSEA Contract
One of the most significant challenges in CSEA contracts is ensuring that all parties stay within budgetary constraints. As most state and local governments and certain public authorities go through regular budget planning cycles, project needs and funding can shift significantly between agreements. These sudden changes may leave a municipality with an unanticipated cost to fund the contract. Even when a budget is adequate, municipalities must also bear costs associated with making certain investments to upgrade their facilities to meet particular requirements set forth in the contracts.
Relatedly, disputes may arise over how costs are appropriately qualified or quantified, phased, certified , and/or invoiced. When these types of disagreements occur, municipalities have no recourse to recoup losses from the state and are often left renegotiating with contractors. Other common conflicts in CSEA contracts include disputes over the time it takes to obtain approval from the state and/or federal government, disagreements over contract terms requiring adherence to the Disadvantaged Business Entity (DBE) program, and disputes related to the bid process. Complexities can also arise when a CSEA contract interacts with other municipal contracts (such as a Design/Build contract), and municipalities must review and understand the other contracts to resolve issues, particularly when the other contracts were entered into before the CSEA contract.
How CSEA Contracts Affect Workers
A significant impact of a CSEA contract is the improvement of job security. In a CSEA bargaining unit, it is extremely rare for an employee to be terminated for things such as performance or misconduct without just cause. This improves the lives of those employees by eliminating the fear of being terminated without notice or having that termination occur without due process. Hopefully this will make CSEA members more secure in their jobs which will lead to more energy and creativity being expended on the completion of the work.
Another benefit of a CSEA contract is the entitlement to a number of significant benefits whether it be better medical coverage, greater amounts of sick or vacation leave or entitlement to marketplace bargains for things like car rentals or movie tickets.
The improvement of working conditions can also be a significant impact of a CSEA contract. Very often we see the CSEA process resulting in new equipment or improved physical surroundings or activities such as training that in the final analysis will make employees more productive and reduce the incidence of accidents or injuries at the workplace.
The overall influence of a CSEA contract should be an improvement in employee satisfaction with their job and their employer. A satisfied employee is one who is often more productive, more creative and more helpful to their fellow workers.
Recent Changes In CSEA Contract Agreement
CSEA contracts are the rules and standards that govern contracts in about a dozen states. Changes or developments in such regulations have the potential to alter the contract terms that would be agreed or that are agreed in these states. The shifts in the national economy have made this and similar issues all the more important as business owners and managers are more open than ever to reassess long-held beliefs relative to their business practices, including approaches to CSEA contracts and other types of agreements.
A recent ruling by the Oklahoma Department of Human Services on a CSEA contract is noteworthy in this regard. The Child Support Enforcement (CSE) officer contract award is in controversy because it is alleged that the procedure used to award the contract was not in compliance with state law requirements for such contracts.
The Oklahoma CSE awarded its electronic payments contract to Innovation Payments , Inc. (IPI). In doing so, it failed to give appropriate notice to the other participants in accordance with the requirements of Oklahoma law. The Oklahoma Attorney General’s office, which is conducting an investigation, directed that the contract be terminated if the award procedure is found to have violated state law, pursuant to Title 74, Section 85.7(2) in the Oklahoma State Statutes.
In particular, the complaint is that the CSE did not permit the other applicants to review the scorecards prepared by evaluators before the notice of the award was given. In addition, It is alleged that the review copies are also normally made available for review by the winning applicant within the same period as the review of the scores by the other applicants, so that the winner could understand and potentially raise issues regarding the reasons for the awarding of the contract to the other applicant.
