Biweekly Pay Update

November 5, 2022

To the UTL Members:

During the last few weeks, I have had the opportunity to speak with City Manager Tom Golden about his plan to implement a biweekly pay schedule at the beginning of the new year, January 1, 2023. I attempted to convince him to delay implementing that change until the end of the fiscal year, specifically June 30th, 2023. He explained the large number of pay options exercised within the School Department payroll has created much difficulty in the auditor’s office in processing the various options available.

City Manager Golden offered the opportunity to defer this change to biweekly schedule to the end of the fiscal year if all UTL members were to agree to take a lump sum at the end of the school year to cover the summer break.   After discussion, it has been determined this plan would seriously impact contract language that allows our members the choice of either collecting a lump sum or receiving periodic payments through the summer.   I informed City Manager Golden of our decision that we will not put our members in a position of having to take a lump sum to defer a change to a biweekly pay schedule.

Furthermore, we have encouraged him to reconsider the decision to implement the biweekly option in January of 2023, as it has the potential of creating financial difficulties for a large number of school department and city employees.

At this point, I would advise if you feel strongly that this change will be creating significant difficulties for you that you reach out to any city councilor and ask for his/her intervention in getting the City Manager to postpone these changes until the end of the fiscal year.

For access to councilors' individually or as a group, see link below:

https://www.lowellma.gov/FormCenter/Contact-the-City-Council-5/City-Council-Contact-Form-45

We’ll keep you updated on this issue.

Paul

AFTMA Candidate Endorsements

November 3, 2022

To UTL Members:

November is here and we will be going to the polls next week to elect various candidates. For those U.T.L. members who vote in the Merrimack Valley, I am sharing a list of those candidates who have received the AFT Massachusetts 2022 endorsement.

Federal office:

Congresswoman Lori Trahan

Statewide Office:

Maura Healey for Governor

William Galvin for Secretary of State

Diana DiZoglio for Auditor

Deb Goldberg for Treasurer

State Representative (House of Massachusetts):

Simon Cataldo

Rodney Elliott

Teresa English

Ken Gordon

Ryan Hamilton

David Robertson

Dawn Shande

Thank you for your consideration.

Best regards,

Paul

Biweekly Pay Notification

Dear Members,

Several weeks ago, the UTL was notified through the office of Jim Hall, Chief Operating Officer, for the Lowell School Department, that the City was contemplating the move from weekly pay to biweekly pay (every two weeks). The UTL and most City unions had agreed to this arrangement some six years ago. However, it was not implemented at that time because some unions had not agreed to it, and it was necessary to get the approval of all unions to implement this change. Subsequently, after confirming that all city and School Department unions had agreed to this change, we expressed our concerns over initiating such a change at this time.

After receiving further documentation from the City concerning implication of this plan, the UTL became increasingly concerned the implementation of this change for January 1, 2023 could create an extreme hardship for many of our members. This resulted in an extensive conversation between myself and City Manager Tom Golden on Friday, October 21st in the hopes of persuading him from having this change implemented with the first check in January until the fiscal year ends on June 30, 2023. As a result of that discussion, a letter was sent to the City Manager on Tuesday October 25th, (copy of which is reproduced below), officially requesting that he postpone implementation of this change until the end of the fiscal year.  We have not received a response to that letter to date. In the meantime, we request that you speak to as many City Councilors as possible explaining the difficulty that it creates to eliminate the first weekly paycheck of January 4 as outlined in our letter to the City Manager. We will keep you informed regarding this matter as additional information is received.

Thank you.

Paul Georges

Letter dated 10/25/2022 to City Manager Tom Golden:

"Thank you for having a thorough discussion with me about the contemplated shift to biweekly pay for all City of Lowell employees scheduled to take effect the first week of January 2023.  As a result of that conversation, I would like to officially request that the city defer changing to biweekly payment until the end of June 2023.  As I have explained, I believe that it will create an extreme hardship for those School Department employees and some city employees who will find deferring weekly pay to a biweekly schedule extremely difficult.  Many such employees live week-to-week and the schedule presented for transition would mean that employees would not receive a paycheck on Thursday, January 5 which is  precisely after the  expensive December holidays.

Also, to be considered, is that this is when all employees are expected to experience a projected significant increase in the cost of living as energy costs are anticipated to spike because of global shortages.  This will result in extreme hardship for these employees and their families.  For this reason and others that we had discussed, I want to formally request that the City of Lowell defer the transition to biweekly pay until the end of the fiscal year, when the cost of energy is expected to decrease considerably, and employees are better prepared to make that adjustment."    

Paul