Job Posting Violations

After looking over the job postings that was delivered to the membership on 9-11-08 several items were found that we felt needed to be pointed out because they are in violation of the contract.

1.) Some of the postings have less than 16 hours (Harvard Medical School - NRB desk rover, Library # 239067, and Harvard Medical School - Vanderbilt Hall)

2.)The job posting date on most of them are 8-27-08, although HMS- Harvard Institute of Medicine is 9-3-08, HMS-NRB desk Rover and Vanderbilt Hall are 9-9-08. All dates are before the actual date the jobs were posted which is 9-11-08.

3.)Most of the postings still have no real job description (most are still copy and paste from information from the AB website). The postings from HMS do offer a better description but still doesn't give the details most officers want to know before applying for a new post (does job require being outdoors during bad weather, does job require knowledge of computers like CCTV, Widener Mass Ave entrance or is this a position that your sitting behind a desk answering phone and giving simple directions to people who are lost).

4.)Several of the job postings have more than on job per sheet and this is not made very clear at all. The one titled Library has four jobs listed one being Fri, Sat, 0800-1600 Monday 2400-0800 (24 hrs). Another job listed is Sat 1600-2400 at Widener (8hrs far short of the minimum 16). Next job listed has 625 Central Square Fri 1500-1900, Lunch Relief 0900-1900 lunch relief ends at 1500 and you cant do relief and 625 Mass Ave at the same time, and it Tues-Thur 1300-1700 Lamont which the Thur shift isn't available do to it already being taken by an officer who adds those hours to his set location to equal 40 and has been for a long time now. And the last job is Fri Tue Thu 1300-1800 Pusey this job only adds up to 15 hrs. (not the minimum 16). Now after taking a look at this mess you can see why there should only be one job listed per sheet of paper and that the current way they are doing this is confusing to the officers who may be looking for a different post to bid on.

5.)At this time there is still no bid sheets been made available to officers. Some posting say send a resume which is ridiculous because officers aren't applying for a job but instead are looking for a transfer/job promotion. Other postings give a phone number to call and say inquires directed to.... First there is no paperwork here leaving the officer no way of disputing the person taking these calls if they were to come up later and say they never received this officers call and moved on giving the job to someone they prefer more. This is definitely not a good ideal to let them get started at because it will only cause major problems later.

6.)On the job postings for Harvard Medical School they have listed under requirements several things that need to be addressed to so that they and the officers applying know what to expect.

A.) Good knowledge of HMS Campus and surrounding area. - First I think this is a little over the top considering that all officers haven't worked the HMS area and therefor many would have to learn the area the same as if they had hired someone new. It needs to be made clear to the management at all units, that all officers have a right to bid on these jobs regardless of what unit they currently work in, regardless if the officer currently knows the area or will have to learn it, and that the same rules apply to all officers when it comes to bidding and getting any job post.

B.)Good Writing Skills. - Exactly what do they mean by good writing skills? Does this post require the guard to do more paperwork than usual (if so it should be listed in the description) or is this no more paperwork than your ordinary guard would do (log sheets, incident reports, etc.) if this is the case then applying that a officer must have good writing skills is a little misleading since all guards are required to keep logs and fill out incident reports. Simply put if a guard didn't have enough writing skills to fill out a log or incident report then they wouldn't have been hired in the first place.

C.)Flexible Schedule.- What are they calling a flexible schedule? When a officer bids on a job it is with the understanding that his schedule and set days off will be the same as what was posted and bid on. While the management has the right to move a officer to a different post to in order to coverage for shift/post, they do not have the right to continually change around the officers days off or regular scheduled hours. A officer should only be pulled away from their regular shift/duties in cases of emergency where they have to get the post covered immediately (no time to use call in sheets ) or no other trained officers to cover the shift.

7.) All the job posts they have made available at this time are part-time with the exception of the construction site in Alston (Turner). I know many of the new hires have been told they will get full time hours and many have been told they will be on a set shift. None of these full time positions that have been given to new hires or they are being trained for (managements reasoning when asked about these people) have been posted. If they hired these people they had to have a job available so where is the posts for these jobs? And a lot of the claims about these people being trained is not exactly truthful either. Many of these positions being covered by new hires can be learned in one to two days. Many of these post are a matter of someone telling them a short list of things to do then leaving them on their own to cover the post. If they are there for training then get it done and move on don't use training as a excuse to bring in new hires and put them where ever take a notion with no respect for the officers who are already there and denying them the opportunity to these positions first.

We will be checking this weeks postings just as we did these and we will once again point out all violations and demand they are fixed. Check back later for more updates.