On June 18, 2024, UPE and members of the bargaining unit met with Court management to assist in the process of updating the Placer Superior Court’s appearance guidelines. Being mindful of all in the bargaining unit, we gave suggestions for potential language that would be a better representation of what our valued members would like to see, and the Court agreed with those edits. Our focus is for the Court to provide clear and concise language that will not cause interpretation conflict in the workplace. UPE is taking an active role in increasing communication so that interpretation in these areas is not different from unit to unit. Additionally, these guidelines must reflect the diverse needs and preferences of all Court employees, fostering an inclusive and respectful work environment for everyone.
On June 24, 2024, we also met with the Court to discuss a new Workplace Violence policy. Unfortunately, there was no previous policy to refer to. Still, the proposed policy was a close representative of what other Courts used, which was a template of what Cal/OSHA uses as a guideline. When the group discussed the topic of training employees on this policy, your team felt that it was necessary to add training for management to be able to de-escalate situations that might occur with angry customers and how to properly support employees when issues like that arise.
UPE would like to thank Renee Graham and Lacy Rees for being the subject matter experts for this meeting.