DNR Meet and Confer Minutes November 6, 2020

MAPE DNR Meet and Confer Committee

11/6/2020 Notes

Attendees:

DNR management attendees:  Assistant Commissioner Barb Naramore, Denise Legato, Adam Browning, and Matt Olinger from DNR HR, and Michelle Apman from Commissioner’s Office taking meeting notes.

MAPE attendees:  MAPE business agent Dan Engelhart, Meet and Confer Chair Megan Benage, and Meet and Confer Committee members Jed Becher,  Harland Hiemstra, Nicholas Snavely, Kelsey Olson, and Martha Vickery

1. Meeting Overview

- Review agenda and time allotments (Megan)
- Review action item spreadsheet and status of tasks (attached) (Megan)
 

Item 1: Paid Parental Leave (PPL) and Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA)

Adam committed to coordinating a response regarding the FMLA leave language used by other state agencies. He did not provide a timeline for this.

How this information is written requires ‘specialty advising.’

The MAPE suggestions have been reviewed for consideration, but have not yet incorporated into existing documents.

There are errors in the information currently available on the intranet, including broken hyperlinks. An immediate fix would be correcting links—Adam will check to see if this was done and if not, this will be done by our next meeting.
 

Item 2 –Wildfire R & R

• Federal funding exists to pay wildlife employees their mandatory day(s) off
• Regarding accepting federal funding to pay wildfire employees for mandatory day(s) off (Wildfire R and R, second item) Denise will follow up to see if a MOU is necessary
• This could also be a supplemental negotiation
• Dan reported this is a final step to resolving this issue. MAPE is prepared to ask for a statutory change. Foresters are interested in pursuing this wage/equity issue.
• Denise committed to reporting on this in our next meeting

2. Meeting Dates

• Adam will deliver proposed dates for 2021 to Megan by 11/20/2020
   

3. Meeting Facilitator Status and Progress

• Request is pending since September 2020
• Adam stated management has had discussions
• Barb is anticipating receiving feedback from comments made to HR staff
• Barb reported that DNR management will share progress before end of November 2020
• Barb said staff are trying to clarify what are the important points.  She said “we would not go in a different direction than what we discussed in September.” Denise said she agrees.
   

4. Assistant Area Fisheries manager allocation requests

• MAPE asked Fisheries management to send out call to staff to send individual reallocation requests if they have not done so. Requests were delivered in mid-summer of 2020.
• There was miscommunication between staff and leadership about who was submitting the reallocation
• Matt said there are currently 7 individual reallocation requests. They are being reviewed and confirmed.
• Megan understands from Fisheries that there should be 16 requests total for this reallocation request. She requested that HR communicate to Fisheries the current status of the reallocation requests and open lines of communication to resolve frustrations.
• Denise will take responsibility for communication with HR
   

5. COVID Health Screening

• The Health Screening Requirement for those with no symptoms is tedious and creating extra work for supervisors.
• Denise emphasized the importance of this as DNR employee cases continue to climb
• MAPE M&C representatives communicated their appreciation for keeping staff safe and trying to create consistent practices that are not onerous
   

6. MAPE Listening Session Concerns Overview

• MAPE conducted 3 listening sessions with DNR members in October of 2020.
• We will be summarizing and ranking concerns
• We will be using these concerns to develop a 2021 work plan.
   

Parent health and stressors

• Stresses as working parents, lack of support and paid time leave options
• Alternative work schedules like early mornings, evenings and weekends are not supportive of parents—especially single parents with no alternate source of childcare
• Women are being disproportionately affected by COVID 19 in the workplace- all agreed
• There is confusion regarding COVID Leave choices
• MAPE asked for more flexible options to help support DNR staff
• We stressed the need for something new:  it would be great to have an unpaid leave option for families that CHOOSE virtual learning for their children, whatever the reason.  Something that is easy to use like Paid COVID leave—it includes an agreement between you and your supervisor, a Form that HR signs, the leave can be used intermittently and as needed.  There’s no change to your job appointment, no doctor’s note needed, no long approval process, and it’s not permanent.  Minnesota parents are allowed to choose all-virtual learning and it would be great to have an easy leave option for the DNR staff who choose this justifiable option. 

7. Culture and Equity Assessment

Tabled until January 2021 Meeting
 

Meeting adjourned 11:05 a.m.

Respectfully submitted by the DNR-MAPE Meet and Confer Team