This is the text of an article that originally appeared on the Daily Texan's web site at http://www.dailytexanonline.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2002/10/30/3dc00a2fdd39c. I'm reproducing the text here because the original was garbled. And, I don't know how long the Texan will keep the article online.
-- Joanna

Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2002

Council to propose grievance process changes

By Katherine Pace
Daily Texan Staff

The Staff Council will soon ask UT President Larry Faulkner to consider amending the employee grievance process.

"We want to have a process that's more equitable for regular staff members," said joann2 Castillo, a computer programmer at the Center for Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering and chair of the UTSC Grievance Working Committee. "Most staff members feel that the process is heavily weighted toward the administration. People feel powerless and that there's no point in bringing a grievance because it doesn't have a chance of getting a fair review."

The grievance process is the procedure by which an employee appeals disciplinary actions taken against him or her by the University.

The council will ask the University to create a staff ombudsman to serve as an employee's director through the grievance process. The council will also ask that the grievance panel, which hears the complaint, be chaired by the ombudsman and be composed of three people appointed by the administration and three randomly selected staff members below the rank of supervisor.

Under current policy, an employee presents a complaint to his or her supervisor. If the supervisor is the subject of complaint, an employee may present the complaint to the department head. If the employee is unsatisfied with the department head's decision, he or she may submit the complaint to the appropriate dean or director. If still unsatisfied, he or she may request a hearing, which is chaired by the appropriate vice president.

The process requires that grievances be processed through the employee's direct chain of command, often the source of the complaint, Castillo said.

"The balance of the entire process is in the administration's favor," Castillo said.

Last week, former UT staff employee Patsy Julius and her two lawyers walked out of a grievance hearing after the hearing officer refused to accept their witnesses' testimony.

The hearings should be chaired by an independent hearing officer from outside the University, said Robert Jackson, organizational and grievance specialist for the Texas Faculty Association and Julius' lawyer.

"As long as a member of the administration is the hearing officer, staff members will never have a fair hearing," Jackson said.

Esther Hadjar, an attorney in the UT System general counsel's office, said last week that the lawyers did not understand the scope of the hearing.

Complaints with the grievance process are not new, Castillo said. In 1999, the University Staff Association, which is currently inactive, presented Faulkner with 11 recommended changes to the grievance process, including:

• the grievance process should be formal, not informal;
• the collective parties involved in the grievance investigation and decision should be impartial;
• the grievance process should protect the individual employee, not management nor the institution;
• the grievance process should be a democratic peer-panel review, not an autocratic process conducted only by University officials;
• and a staff ombudsman should be hired.

President Faulkner created an ad hoc committee to review the recommendations, said Nancy McCowen, executive assistant to the president. The committee then made recommendations to a policy committee charged with revising the UT handbook of operating procedures. However, Faulkner discharged the policy committee in 2000 before it could create a finalized report of recommendations for a new policy, said Linda Casarez, director of human resources.

The committee was dissolved because it had finalized its primary work, said Kyle Cavanaugh, associate vice president of human resources. Before its dissolution, the committee completed 24 new policies, which were written into a new handbook of operating procedures.

Cavanaugh decided the Staff Council, which was created in spring 2001, should assume the task of presenting a new set of recommended amendments, McCowen said.

Frank Simon, Staff Council chair, said he hopes to submit a letter of recommendations to Faulkner this week.

Simon refused to comment on the recommendations until Faulkner responds.

The University cannot comment until it receives the letter, McCowen said.

"I hope they do something to make the process better for everyone at UT," Castillo said. "It's to UT's benefit to take it seriously."