County tables controversial labor protocol

Controversy struck the Alger County Commission meeting on Monday, Feb. 13 after the county board originally attempted to approve a notice of discontinuation of working through employees lunch periods.

People in attendance said that the idea was so bad, that it could impact tentative labor agreements, force staff into contempt of court scenarios, force some understaffed offices to be closed more than they are already and violate state law so badly that it would disqualify Alger County from receiving tens of thousands of dollars in state funding.

“It all comes down to (the board) not knowing how our offices work. There are so many different nuances,” said Kristi Dausey, President of AFSCME Local 625, which is one of the two labor unions for courthouse employees.

According to multiple employees across both courthouse unions, it is a common practice for the last 20 years to work during lunch hours to provide extra flexibility. Employees would work through lunch on one day and then take an extra 30 minutes on another day, avoiding any overtime. Past contracts included language that supported the practice, but the AFSCME union has been working on a tentative agreement for the last 14 months while other points of confusing language are clarified.

The proposal was brought up by District 2 County Commissioner Dean Seaberg, who said that staying open during the lunch hour was crucial to serving the county taxpayers with more consistency.

“Taxpayers shouldn’t have to call half a day off work to do their business here. People should be able to come in on their lunch hour and use our facilities,” he said.

Seaberg also stated that he was concerned about the county staying in compliance of other labor laws requiring workers to be offered a lunch break after a certain amount of hours, but what specific law he was referring to was never asked by anyone in attendance.

The unions said that the consistency of courthouse hours is not an unreasonable request, but has to be discussed through the department heads to not cause damage.

“If we’re in a trial and someone says, ‘hey, we got to stop so I can take a lunch’, the judge is going to find them in contempt,” Alger County Prosecutor Rob Steinhoff said during the meeting. Steinhoff serves as one of the county’s department heads, along with other elected officials like judges, the county clerk and county treasurer.

Employees spoke at the meeting citing other problems that could arise as an effect of the policy change. The Probate and Family Court office has multiple employees in the same office, but don’t do the same jobs. Some court employees serve as court recorders and would not be able to regularly stagger out lunches. Equalization only has one employee. Friend of the Court office is required by state law to be open 20 non-traditional hours a month or would lose it’s funding. Roughly 66 percent of that department is funded through the state and the county would have to pay to offset any lost funding from the move. Time off due to illness, bereavement and vacation also would cause problems.

“They want to do all this, but we’re understaffed,” Dausey said.

Multiple people in attendance at the meeting asked for the item to be tabled until the labor relations subcommittee could review the impact the decision would make on each department.

“We would like to be able to work with the board to discuss this concern and find a reasonable situation that everyone can agree upon,” Alger County Courthouse Employees Association President Cheri Goetz said. “We hope the board will reach out.”

However, District 3 Commissioner Esley Mattson said that discussion through the labor relations committee would force the unions to reopen the contracts. Dausey said that this situation would require department head involvement, so the contracts would not need to be reopened. According to the employee guidelines approved by the county commission earlier this year, department heads would have to be directly involved in any situations about the operations of their departments. Goetz declined comment on the issue.

The county commission voted 4-1 to table the issue, with District 1 Commissioner Rick Capogrossa making the motion and District 4 Commissioner Kelly Livermore seconding. District 5 Commissioner Mick Rondeau and Seaberg also voted to table. The commissioners voting to table cited additional information could come from Alger County Administrator Steve Webber who was not in attendance and to give additional for department heads to respond.

Mattson was the only one that voted against tabling the discussion.

“We already have our instruction,” Mattson said.

He was referring to a letter sent to the commission from an unspecified female, received on the day of the meeting. When Munising Beacon reporters asked the county clerk’s office for a copy of the letter, they were informed that it was protected under attorney-client privilege. There was also no language in the packet of information released on the county website about what the notice would entail.

The county commission said they would address the issue again at the meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 21, but the agenda was not available by deadline.