Bargaining Team Met. Your CAPS Bargaining Team met this week to go over the initial bargaining survey results, discuss priorities, and evaluate strategy and tactics for upcoming bargaining. Right now, the best way to help your Bargaining Team prepare for the upcoming negotiations, and to ensure your voice is heard, is to participate in the bargaining survey (the password is “electron“). Please submit your responses no later than February 21, 2020, at 11:59 p.m.
Senior Environmental Scientist (Supervisor)/(Specialist) Lawsuit. CAPS Attorney Christiana Dominguez presented oral arguments last Thursday, January 28, at the Third District Court of Appeal in Sacramento in CAPS’ long running litigation with CalHR, CDFW, and the State Personnel Board (SPB) over CDFW’s use of the Senior Environmental Scientist (Supervisory) class to supervise its peers in the Senior Environmental Scientist (Specialist) class.
Before a panel of three Associate Appellate Court Justices, CAPS argued that CDFW and CalHR violated the Personnel Classification Plan when they changed reporting relationships without taking the matter to SPB for consideration and SPB, in turn, failed to exercise its jurisdiction and take them to task for doing so.
A decision has not yet been rendered. There is no timeline for the Court’s decision. A resolution is expected within a much shorter time frame than that between the completion of briefing and Thursday’s arguments. CAPS will keep you updated.
Science Fair Season Kicks Off Soon! CAPS sponsors a Special Award at 15 Regional Science & Engineering Fairs, statewide, rewarding excellence in scientific subjects that CAPS members work in every day. State Scientists can earn Mentoring Leave for judging regional Science Fairs. Section 3.17 of the CAPS MOU specifically allows State Scientists to claim Mentoring Leave (described in Section 3.16) for support of regional science fair judging. To use Mentoring Leave, State Scientists must first use an equal number of hours of personal time (this includes time when you wouldn’t normally be at work), and then present the verification of that time to their Department. The amount of personal time used may be matched, up to forty (40) hours per calendar year, in the form of Mentoring Leave. If you are interested in being a volunteer CAPS Special Awards Judge at the Fair closest to you, contact CAPS (caps@capsscientists.org)!
News Briefs
Newcastle reemerges, spreads in California. Virulent Newcastle disease resurged in Southern California as people broke quarantines by moving birds and farming equipment, state authorities said.