Extra! Extra! Weekly News from SHARE

January 10, 2020
Dear SHARE:
We wish you a very happy and productive 2020! The past year of jointly launching our region and working on making things better has been an incredible experience for us. We are truly grateful for your open minds, collaborative spirit and endless expertise. A lot has been accomplished already, but we are looking forward to a number of new efforts this year, which include (but are not limited to) improving onboarding, working on a redesign of HR ServiceNow, and further clarifying and documenting many of the processes involving UCPath. Team spirits are high and we are excited about working with you!
Further, we wanted to follow-up on this message from Marc Fisher, Vice Chancellor, Administration that provided additional information about the central processing of formal wage claims related to Senate Bill (SB) 698. As Marc states, our BRS regional HR and Central HR teams are continuing to fine-tune processes as more information is received from the Labor Commissioner’s Office.  
To minimize late or incorrect pay and to mitigate possible SB 698-related claims, we are reminding managers and supervisors to: 
  • remind all your employees of the need to complete and submit their timesheets at each deadline(suggest they record their time each day versus waiting until the end of the pay period);
  • ensure all your employee timesheets are approvedat each deadline
  • with their approval, submit and approve time on behalf of employees who are unable to do so at each deadline;
  • ensure that hiring requests are submitted by the established deadlines and new employees are onboarded in a timely fashion;
  • work with your HR Partner to make sure short work breaks are ended so the employee can be returned to pay status as appropriate;
  • Ensure all pay-related requests are submitted in time for UCPath entry
  • check back periodically on the SB 698 webpage for any additional information we learn over the next several months, as well as important FAQs and links.
Be sure to refer to the SB 698 webpage on how to proceed if department supervisors/managers receive a formal wage claim from the Labor Commissioner’s Office filed by one of your employees. 
On a separate note, the University has recently had a number of unfair practice charges filed against various campuses as a result of contracting out for services that include work customarily performed by bargaining unit employees (regardless of dollar value and length of the contract). 
Our Purchasing and HR teams are now required to notify central campus Supply Chain Management and Labor Relations of any contracting out of Service Unit work, by sending a copy of the proposed work (and requisition number if available) for review. This means we will likely have to prevent these hires up front. Please know it is not our intention to burden your departments, we simply must review closely for these and help UC Berkeley remain compliant with bargaining unit policy to protect the campus from further legal action. 
Our HR Partners and Purchasing Supervisor are all aware of the distinctions that determine when it is okay to hire an independent contractor and when work must be performed by an employee of the University, particularly for represented classifications. Please work with them to be advised appropriately and thank you for your understanding on the importance of these distinctions. 
That’s it for today! 
Warm Regards, 
Teal Sexton and Max Auffhammer