Education & Training

The Education and Training Department provides a variety of educational services to the PEF membership, elected representatives and staff, as well as serving as the staff resource to the Professional Development Committee. These services range from the delivery of a workshop on Labor Management for new shop stewards, to identifying a training program that improves the skills of the staff, to administering the PSTP Voucher Program, to researching an issue for the Professional Development Committee. By providing information and building skills at all levels of the organization, the Education and Training Department empowers the membership, leaders and staff to successfully represent the PEF membership on union issues, as well as improving their own job and career opportunities.

Department staff, working with staff from other PEF departments, elected leaders and staff from the international unions and outside consultants, design and develop our training programs. Our union-based training programs incorporate real-life issues faced by PEF members on the job to enhance the learning process and prepare the participants to implement what they have learned in the workplace. These programs are delivered by staff from Education and Training and other appropriate PEF departments.

The administration of the PSTP Programs consumes a large amount of the staff’s time. Each year, through the Voucher and Voucher Alternative Programs, we provide more than 5,000 members with educational assistance or partial tuition reimbursement. Over 200 colleges and institutions participate in the PSTP Voucher Program as a direct result of negotiations conducted by staff from Education and Training meet the educational needs of the membership. As a result of these negotiations, many of these colleges and institutions have agreed to provide a discounted rate to the PSTP Voucher Program, which allows us to provide this benefit to more members.

Major Activities

Since last year’s convention report, the Education and Training Department has worked hard and has successfully achieved the goals that we set in that report and more.

Building Members’ Knowledge

We have, over the past year, continued to use our union-based training to build member knowledge and involvement in the programs and policies important to the PEF membership.

• We provided services and information to local leaders and members by offering union-based training through the division, region, or work-site structure.
• We provided various Labor-Management, Team Building, Conflict Management, and Stress Management training, at the statewide and local level, to joint-committee members, elected leaders and PEF-member activists.
• We designed and delivered basic steward training in concert with regional coordinators and field staff.
• We assisted the regional coordinators from Regions 10 and 11 to design, develop and implement the agenda and training for their annual regional leadership conferences.
• We continue to provide training at the agency and facility level in Conflict Management, Time Management and Stress Management.
• We coordinated the workshops being presented at PEF's 1998 convention.
• The Professional Development Committee has approved a change in the Voucher Program guidelines to provide employees in need of a college course to maintain their present job with priority status over the seniority list.
• For the spring ’98 and fall ’98 semesters, all eligible PEF-represented employees who filed a timely application received a voucher. These are the first two semesters that had no denials since the first semester of the program in 1995.
• The Civil Service Exam Fee Waiver Program has been extended to the end of the PS&T collective-bargaining agreement (March 31, 1999) with agreement and funding from the Professional Development Committee.
• Career-Advisement material and workshops have been designed, developed and implemented using funding provided by the Professional Development Committee.
• We continue to provide study guides to assist the membership in preparing for Civil Service examinations.

Building Quality Staff

We work with PEF staff at every level to provide them with the necessary skills to continue to provide quality service to our membership.

• As the MIS Department updated PEF’s computing and information systems statewide, Education and Training has been providing training for staff in the upgraded systems.
• Numerous training programs in such areas as Arbitration, Contract Negotiations, and Organizing have been identified and provided to staff to keep them up-to-date on the issues they face in doing their jobs on a day-to-day basis.
• In consultation with the staff union, Education and Training is conducting a needs assessment of the administrative staff, to further expand their knowledge of the information systems. The training outcomes are expected to be delivered this fall.

Beyond these three goals, the department has been involved in several large projects. We have provided an instructor for a training program for AFT staff. We are actively involved with SEIU in the Eastern Regional Training Network and will be providing an instructor to SEIU for a Representation Training Program they are developing for delivery this fall. We are actively involved on a major task force with the Governor’s Office of Employee Relations, the Office of Technology, CSEA and many state agencies. The task force, New Technologies for Workplace Learning, is designed to identify and use the new technologies, the Internet, video conferencing, etc. to deliver training and information to state employees.