Making the Switch: Retraining, Reclassifying and Redeploying

As individuals with mental illness and those with developmental disabilities have moved from large facilities to smaller more home-like settings, the manner in which care is given has changed. Traditionally,individuals being cared for in large institutional settings were moved from wing to wing or building to building during a day for defined activities. Movement to community care has stressed a process where individuals are integrated into community life as much as possible.

For workers, this change has represented movement from closely managed facilities to semi-autonomous settings where workers have far more voice in how care is provided. When facility services are broken up and moved to the community, management of those services is also decentralized. Group homes are usually directed on a daily basis by non-management lead workers who, in turn, answer to centralized supervisors who rotate through the facilities on a weekly basis. Other workers may report to a centralized location each day, but then leave to work with their clients in the community.

In most cases, institutional workers are separated into job classifications that are labor-specific. For example, to provide all the required services to make a large facility run smoothly, there are direct care workers, nurses, housekeepers, dietary workers, etc. Community-based workers often perform multiple tasks — shopping, driving, cooking, laundering, cleaning, assisting with medications and treatments, and arranging recreational activities.

AFSCME has insisted that states begin with job security and provide redeployment guarantees and develop retraining programs.

Some states have created new job titles and descriptions for institutional workers who move to community-based care. In others states, job classifications have moved to community-based care without title changes. Some states have developed new “working titles” for community-based workers. (Examples of community-based job descriptions and programs appear in Appendix K-O)

AFSCME has insisted that states begin with job security and provide redeployment guarantees and develop retraining programs. While no one should be laid off or take a pay cut, people may be asked to work in a different job, in a different setting or to take on new responsibilities and training. These requirements are spelled out in letters of understanding and collective bargaining agreements, and examples appear in the Appendices.

Training, continuing education methods and course content vary from state to state and depend on the needs of the individuals who will be served and the employees who bid and win the jobs. Most states require some pre-assignment training, although a number of states say that training is best done after the assignment has occurred.

The following are examples of what AFSCME affiliates have accomplished:

MINNESOTA

During the transition to community-based services, there was almost no reclassification because it was the union’s view that moving from a state facility to the community would be easier if job classifications remained consistent and seniority-based bidding could occur. There was training because, for example there was a difference in cooking for an institution of several dozen residents and for a group home of several residents. A system was established where workers could bid on training opportunities based on seniority. Pools of staff that trained together. When a home opened, a group of workers would be moved in at the same time to minimize confusion and adjustment problems.

"In order to best serve the needs of our citizens, we must have the best-qualified and best-trained mental health personnel available. Our state employees are those people. The success of our efforts will be determined by our ability to integrate those employees into the new community-based system." — Sen. Don Wesley, the Nebraska Legislature's Chair of the Health and Human Services Committee.

OHIO

To massively reorganize the state’s mental health system and shift resources from state hospitals to community programs, OCSEA/AFSCME worked out an agreement in 1987 which required retraining of staff and established a no layoff policy. (See Appendix.) The training program developed by the Ohio Mental Health Department to retrain institutional workers for community care of severely disabled clients included an introduction to community support programs and opportunities for state-operated community services, followed by a month-long direct skills teaching course. All institutional workers moving to “State Operated Services” (SOS) programs have this core training. Then, particular SOS programs provide 40 to 80 hours of additional training specific to that program, i.e., crisis intervention, group homes, etc.

RHODE ISLAND

In 1980, AFSCME Council 94 signed a no layoff agreement with the state of Rhode Island whereby no Local 1293 members would be laid off because of deinstitutionalization policies of the state. When Rhode Island began to implement its labor management agreement to move to a community-based system for people with developmental disabilities, new community job specifications had not yet been developed. The leadership of Local 1293 drafted a list of responsibilities that would logically need to become part of the new job. This list was shared with management, modified and posted well in advance of vacancy postings for the first group home to provide interested members detailed information on what to expect. Members could also take a tour of a soon-to-be-open group home before any assignments were posted. Seventy-five bids were made on the first group home.

A new job specification was officially created later in the 1980s. It provided many of the elements developed by Local 1293 plus a significant pay raise for members. In 1997, the union and management signed an agreement to reorganize the supervisory positions in the bargaining unit into new classifications which emphasize training and mentoring.²³ Examples of Rhode Island’s community-based positions appear in the Appendix.

FOOTNOTES

1. The positions have not been posted yet pending approval of the state's hiring council.