TITLE
Recommendation to adopt resolution amending the Fiscal Year 2019 Salary Resolution to revise the salary range for Gas Field Technician II and III and Gas Construction Worker III. (Citywide)
DISCUSSION
City Council approval is requested to revise the salary for the Gas Field Technician and Gas Construction Worker job classifications, consistent with City Council instructions. These classifications are in the Skilled and General-Basic bargaining unit represented by the Association of Long Beach Employees (ALBE). To implement salary adjustments, the City engaged in the meet and confer process with the aim of reaching agreement with the bargaining unit representatives.
The Energy Resources Department identified a need for a new job classification with three distinct paygrade levels to provide specialized skills necessary to ensure state and federal compliance associated with the delivery of natural gas to utility customers and certification requirements in specialized job assignments such as leak survey, corrosion control, telemetry, or valves and regulatory maintenance. The new Gas Field Technician classification will provide the department with the necessary skills to continue to deliver gas utility services to their customers while staying in compliance with existing and new federal and state law. In addition, the department proposed to modify the Gas Construction Worker III classification to reflect the specialized skills required to drill into live natural gas mains, which is of significant responsibility and a high consequence of error.
The City and ALBE representatives engaged in negotiations and held six meet and confer sessions regarding the proposed salary adjustments and the new job classifications between February 2017 and April 2018. While a tentative agreement was reached on the proposed salary adjustments, the parties could not reach agreement regarding the placement of employees into the grade levels of the new classification. As a resul...
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