7/26/2004

Court Officer to PEF: Kudos on timekeeping victory!

Dear Mr. Benson,

I am a New York State Senior Court Officer working in Kings County
(Brooklyn). I belong to the SCOA which is the Senior Court Officers
Association which represents all Supreme Court Officers and court officers
working in the lower counties such as Westchester, Rockland, Putnam and a
few others.

The reason I am writing to you today is really to congratulate you on your
contract agreement. My reason for doing this is not because I think the
contract is a "fantastic" one for union members, but because you guys fought
one major aspect of that contract agreement and WON!!! That aspect is the
"electronic time keeping" portion. I can speak about this topic with some
personal knowledge because starting back on February 26th of this year
myself and my fellow Senior Court Officers in Brooklyn Supreme Court began
"SWIPING IN and SWIPING OUT" everyday, and it is truly a nightmare. We
previously signed in and signed out on paper time sheets ACCORDING TO OUR
CONTRACT, but that ceased on that infamous Thursday back in February. We use
this system called the "Kronos" system and basically we swipe our ID cards
at the beginning and end of our tour.

Now not only did the Office of Court Administration in essence violate the
contract by implementing a new time keeping system without negotiating it
but our union put up almost no fight to stop it. Now we are currently in
negotiations for our new contract and last I heard we were "hopefully" going
to be getting some sort of "grace period" for swiping in and out (i.e.
swiping out maybe 15 minutes earlier). That's it, no money increase for
using the system, no removal of the system, no nothing. 15 minutes, who
cares about 15 minutes.

Well now after hearing about your victory and I can't say it is truth for
sure, but I heard our Association is possibly going to take a "different"
stand on this issue. Well what a good idea!!!!! It's just to bad it wasn't
done before we started it back in February. Nothing like a union looking out
for it's members.

Well again Mr. Benson congratulations to you and your members.  You are truly
lucky to not have to deal with "Kronos", who ironically is the God of time.
Forgive me I have to run it's time for me to swipe............