Talk:Collective Level Expectations

Ali already started this page at Staff Survey. We should combine them somehow.

RfS 00:14, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

We need to hash out the expectations in the Needs more discussion area so that we are all agreeing on the same thing. Feel free to move any item from the Solid and ready to go section to the Needs more discussion section if you feel we should talk about it more.

Needs more discussion

• All collective workers will get paid for attending meetings.

There are two items that we did not agree on that also deal with this item:

1. Should staff get paid for attending all meetings or just some?

collective members should be paid for all meetings they attend. If a member abuses this, and attends all meetings, sleeps through them, and is generally unhelpful, we would have to deal with that. If someone did this, they would most likely be slacking in other areas as well. As long as staff members are working and helpful, I think they should be paid for all meetings they attend. Laurel

1. Should there be a cap on the number of committees a collective worker should participate in?

Before we can make sense of the first statement we need to decide on the other two. Dave

• All collective workers are required to work a certain minimum number of hours per week.

What should this number be?Dave

Assuming all collective members are responsible for individual areas/programs, 24 seems like a realistic expectation to me. This allows for at least three 3-4 hour shifts in core coordination areas, a few shorter floor shifts, and enough hours for committee participation/admin time. We should also remember to factor the minumum amount of time we decide collective members should spend working with volunteers into this.Serge

• There will be a cap on how many hours per week collective members should be paid for.

What is this cap? Are we hourly or salaried?Dave We are salaried. The cap should be 40 hours/week. Laurel

• We, as the Collective, strive to give workers a flexible schedule.

This one might be good enough to move downDave Yes! Laurel

• All collective workers are required to spend a minimum amount of time working with volunteers.

What is this minimum?Dave

Do we want this number to be the same for all collective members, or should this be a percentage for those of us that aren't full-time?Serge

• All collective workers are required to perform tasks that nobody wants (or not enough people want) to do.

What are these tasks? How do we split them up and hand them out?Dave

• All collective workers are required to participate in a minimum number of committees.

What is this number? Right now it seems to be two.Dave

Solid and ready to go

• All collective workers are required to report all the hours that they work.
• All collective workers are required to set goals.
• All collective workers are required to have a job description.
• We will strive to hire and allocate work so that no one needs to work more hours on average than they are paid for.
• All collective workers will get paid the same hourly rate (or the same salary, assuming same hours).
• One definition of a living wage is twice the amount of the current legal minimum wage. (In 2009 minimum wage in Oregon will be $8.40, twice that is $16.80, and we currently make $11.55.) This definition of a living wage will be used as one (long term) goal for staff compensation.

Salary vs. Hourly, Minimums, Maximums

We are currently salaried and if we want to change from that, we should make a case as to why. I don't have strong opinions on it either way, but am assuming the status quo.

We might re-phrase the equal pay item like this:

• Salaries of all collective members are calculated using the same hourly rate.

I think that's simpler and does the job.

A salaried job should still have an expectation of how many hours are required. In a typical job a full salaried job is considered 40 hours per week. There are people who are salaried at 50%, get paid half as much, and are expected to work about 20 hours a week instead. I think that's the proper way to think about it. When you get into wage and hour rules (things like when we are required to pay overtime, etc.) the law defines salaried at 40 hours as well, so most of us are currently 37/40 or 92.5% of a salaried position. $16.80 x 40 hour x 52 weeks in a year is just under $35,000 as a end target salary, and I think that's a good long term goal. Though it will take several small steps to get there. (It's 1.57 time what we make now.)

I'd suggest that collective level jobs need to be at least 50% (20 hours per week) or 60% (24 hours per week). I also think that everyone who wants should be able to work towards a full 100% job (40 hours per week). That would be the "cap". I think leeway should be given to spend more time in one week and take flex time off the next, etc. We already do this on a month-by-month basis. This is in line with the flexible schedule goal.

RfS 19:25, 13 March 2009 (UTC)