Personal Care Attendant Quality
Home Care Workforce Council
One Ashburton Place, Room 1109
Boston, MA  02108 

DEVAL L. PATRICK
Governor

TIMOTHY P. MURRAY
Lieutenant Governor

JUDYANN BIGBY, M.D.
Secretary

Tel.:  617-573-1786
Fax:  617-573-1890
www.mass.gov/eohhs

Personal Care Attendant Quality Home Care Workforce Council
 
One Ashburton Place
Boston, MA 02108

  Council Meeting – Executive Session

Minutes	September 8, 2008	 	21st floor, Conference Room 3	
 	
CoUNCIL  members in attendance	Joe Bellil, Liz Casey, Paul Spooner, Larry Braman, Joe Tringali, Jean McGuire	
 Staff attending	Jack Boesen, Michelle Byrd	
coUNCIL  Chair	Jean McGuire, Chair	
Note taker	Michelle Byrd	
 Other Attendees	Douglas Shatkin, Labor Negotiator	

The Council’s Executive Session began at 2:55 p.m.

Report on negotiations for the PCA Referral Directory
 Jack Boesen reported that the initial meeting with Rewarding Work was productive.  The FY09 PCA council budget has approximately $40,000 earmarked for maintenance of the referral directory.  His initial impression is that Rewarding Work would be able to re-work their proposed budget for first year total costs to approximately $215,000. Rewarding Work is currently creating a directory with the Sate of Vermont and Jack has contacted representatives from the state about their project.  Joe Tringali asked what the difference is between operating and PAC funding.  Jack explained that Rewarding Work’s original budget included initial start-up costs of $200,000 and that our PAC funding will cover those costs.  The estimate from Rewarding Work on the annual maintenance costs of the directory would be $165,000.  Jack expects the directory to go live by April 2009 so maintenance costs for the first fiscal year would be for approximately three months. Jean McGuire reminded the Council that the PAC funding is restricted to one-time start-up expenses.  Jack explained that many of these initial expenses would be for software, software licenses and training.

Collective Bargaining
Douglas Shatkin updated Council members on the meeting with Mike Fadel, Rebecca Malberg and Tim Foley, Political Director of 1199 SEIU.  Mike Fadel expressed SEIU’s wish to find a joint way to solve the dilemma regarding deductions of union dues and/or agency fees without signature authorization.  He proposed that the council take the lead initiating legislation to support the previously agreed upon language in the collective bargaining agreement.  Doug Shatkin reported that he sees some flexibility from the Union on this issue and that their concern is setting time parameters on the process.  The Union expressed the belief that this issue could be resolved quickly if it was proposed directly to the Governor by the Council, with support from the Union.  Doug expressed concern that if this issue is not resolved, the funds could disappear.    Paul Spooner voiced his concern that collective bargaining is at a “stalemate”.  Jean McGuire asked the council to deliberate regarding the union proposal but questioned whether or not the council members were all on the same page regarding their role on how to proceed. She also expressed concern that the process supported by the union could not be as easy as they propose or resolved as quickly as they suggest. Doug Shatkin feels that the council could support language that would allow agency fees to be deducted without signatures and make a recommendation to the administration to accept the collective bargaining agreement with that language in place.  Doug expressed concern whether or not the proposed language could be legally supported.  He also suggested there be a six-month “grace period” where union members could sign up to pay union dues, sign up to pay agency fees or make no choice.

Jean suggested that three issues needed to be dealt with including 1) The best legislative language to put forward, 2) confirmation that automatic deductions would be a legal action and 3) that interim language be added covering the “grace period”.  Discussion among council members addressed whether or not their actions would be changing PCA legislation or public law legislation.  

Doug suggested to the council that he and Jack Boesen meet with John Marra regarding the legality of re-crafting the language in the collective bargaining agreement and ascertaining if there would be administration support for this action.  It was suggested that this happen before MassHealth is consulted on their role.  Council members agree that these actions would best support consumer concerns.