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

As long as collective workers are salaried, this is a moot point, as we're paid by the week, not by the hour. As far as paid hourly workers, it's different. Tonyc 04:56, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Not really. Salaries are calculated on the expected amount of time it takes to complete the work, and so the question becomes which meetings are included in the job description. RfS 20:13, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

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

I think this involves two, separate things: how much do we want to pay non-salaried folks for meetings, and how much is too much to expect from salaried people? One is a budget issue, one is a burnout issue. Tonyc 04:56, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

• 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

I agree. 37.whatever is silly. We all work over 40 hours. We should all be paid for that amount, at least. Tonyc 04:56, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

If we re-calculate our salaries at 40 x $11.55 instead of the current 37 x $11.55, that (a) gives a raise to most of us, and (b) puts the full time workers at the bottom of the bracket where we don't need to worry about legal liabilities relating to overtime laws. I'm a proponent of getting everyone who wants the full time work to be paid for salaries based on a 40 hour week (like the rest of the world). RfS 20:13, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

• 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

That's a good point. Should the number of "floor" hours be expressed as a percentage of paid hours? What about half? Tonyc 04:56, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

• 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

I think what the tasks are (exactly) will vary over time. RfS 20:13, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

• 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

I don't think it seems to be two. It is two. That's what I was told when I joined. If we want to change it, let's. But I'm going with a default of two. Tonyc 04:56, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

We used to say two for full-timers and one for part timers. There are currently 18 committees/working groups when all are running. There are 13 collective members. (2 part-timers, 11 full-timers). This would work out to 24 slots available for the 18 groups, which is 1.33 people per group (plus hourly workers and volunteers). Please remember this math when thinking about creating new committees. Point is, people are actually on more committees than the minimum, and if everyone is on the minimum amount, some committees would be short. RfS 20:13, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Solid and ready to go

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

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)