1/23/25 Weekly Email

Hi all, 

I have two quick updates this week and then some educational material on UAEA. 

First, our newsletter will be out this coming week, likely Thursday, January 30th. We had some unexpected delays but will get published asap. 

Second, you may be hearing from me soon regarding some upcoming changes to work schedules. The vast majority of our employees are going to see no change but due a recent re-evaluation of work schedules there may be some tweaks coming to ensure compliance with federal law. I can’t share more at this time but the big takeaway is that the Employee Associations are all aware of what is coming, the changes are outside the control of Tempe, and we have set the expectation that departments work with people impacted by this. Feel free to reach out if you have questions. 

Given that I don’t have a lot of other updates this week I wanted to continue doing educational write-ups. A member pointed out to me recently that I frequently use a lot of terminology about our union’s operations that new members may be unfamiliar with. I try to explain as I go but I acknowledge that there is not a convenient Q+A page on our website that members can check if they ever have questions about our operations, our structure, or all the acronyms we use. At least…there wasn’t a page on our website up until I launched one about 15 minutes ago. 

In the coming months I will provide short Q+A writeups about UAEA in these weekly emails and then copy the information onto our main Q+A page. Some of this information will initially seem overly simplistic but I’ll start getting into more specific/esoteric information soon, with details about Labor Management Committees, the specific benefits of our MOU, the Grievance process, and so on. Feel free to reach out if you have specific questions about the union you would like answered - I’ll probably answer it immediately but then turn my response into something for all the members down the line. With that…let’s jump into UAEA 101. 

What is UAEA?

UAEA stands for United Arizona Employee Association. It is an employee association representing 800 members of the City of Tempe in contract negotiations, disciplinary actions, and selection of benefits. 

What is an employee association?

An employee association is effectively a union. Our primary purpose is to negotiate a fair contract for employees that guarantees certain wages and benefits and then hold the City accountable to deliver upon those guarantees. That said, some experts argue that there is a difference - employee associations frequently represent public sector employees and these rarely have the same labor protections as private-sector employees, in Arizona especially. This may be a distinction without a difference though - while our overall tactics may differ from private sector unions, our purpose is ultimately the same. 

Are there other employee associations in the City of Tempe?

Yes. UAEA is one of 4 employee associations in the City of Tempe. “Sworn” police officers (members of Tempe PD who carry firearms/badges and have arrest power) are represented by TOA, the Tempe Officer’s Association. Members of the fire department (who are not office staff) are represented by Local 493, which also represents Fire employees in Phoenix and Chandler. Supervisory employees are represented by TSA, Tempe Supervisor’s Association. There also are employees who work in HR and City Hall who hold “classified” jobs - they do not have a formal group representing them but can send a representative to weigh-in on proposed City changes. 

Which Tempe employees does UAEA actually represent?

There’s not an easy way to accurately answer that. The short answer is that we represent all non-supervisory employees…but that statement comes with some qualifications. For reference, you can identify these jobs by them having “NSU” in their job description. But we don’t represent employees who are classified employees and we don’t represent employees who are sworn police officers and we don’t represent fire fighters. But we do represent members of the Fire Department who are office staff and we do represent “non-sworn” members of the Police Department like Court Services staff, Forensics Specialists, and Detention Officers. So while we are not a Police union, we do represent the Police department and while we’re not a Fire union we do represent the Fire department. It also gets a little murky when one digs into job responsibilities - there are UAEA employees who supervise employees and TSA employees who supervise no one. The lines are a little arbitrary and probably made more sense when the group were initially divided - a longterm project after the JDQ is complete is re-evaluating whether jobs are appropriately categorized. Again, if you’re ever confused just check if a job description is marked as “NSU.”

Do the employee groups ever confer?

Yes. The 5 employee groups (UAEA, TSA, TOA, Fire, Classified employees) and HR meet on a quarterly basis in a group called the 6-Sided Partnership. This group discusses changes to the City that impact at least 2 of the groups, things like how overtime pay is calculated or how the healthcare points system could be improved. Any group may bring business to the group but frequently these conversations are led by HR. They will often discuss things like changes in state or federal labor law and how it will impact City operations. 

We also meet every few months as the 6-sided group to receive updates on the City’s healthcare and insurance providers, decide whether we want to renew contracts or put them out for bid, and, if needed, propose changes to the plans. WE DO NOT SET PRICES for healthcare or insurance - we merely review what plans are available and vote on selecting the options that we believe provides the most value for our employees. Everyone who sits on these groups is a City employee and is well aware of what we pay for healthcare - I promise you we’re all looking for the best possible deal. 

Do these conversations result in any actual change?

Yes. The employee groups do not always get everything we want but we frequently find that topics we bring up manifest in some form within the next few years. We also can play a direct role in how the City approaches things like the Segal Market study. The employee groups expressed some concerns about the original cities that were selected by Segal in the JDQ and proposed including some additional cities that they felt were more comparable in terms of size and population. We also proposed adding Maricopa County as a comparable employer since a decent number of Tempe employees leave for roles with them. This feedback was incorporated and Segal ended up analyzing 11 different employers in the JDQ study, which we feel will be a far better representation of alternative employers in the area. 

How many members does UAEA have?

UAEA currently has about 320 members. This is up significantly from 240, which was our member count about 2 years ago. We are still seeing consistent growth every month but it's been balanced in the last 6 months with a lot of retirements/resignations and members promoting to TSA positions. The UAEA board really likes when UAEA members are promoted to TSA - it usually means that the supervisor already has a grasp of union policy and will understand or empathize with our perspective if we need to discuss workplace issues. 

Why are only some of the represented City Employees members of UAEA?

Arizona is a right-to-work state. This means employee associations and unions cannot compel employees to join a union even if the negotiated benefits directly help non-members. To counterbalance this, UAEA has a number of member-exclusive perks like our legal services, our Employee of our Quarter program, our member meetings, and our annual scholarship. We hope the value of the work we do can continue to bring in new members - the greater the share of City employees that we represent, the harder it is for the City to not seriously consider our requests. 

This concludes today’s UAEA101 class. If you have any follow up questions about any of these explanations or suggestions for UAEA201 and future writeups, feel free to reach out.

Thanks for a great week everyone!