Different benefits for different segments

HR in NY

We have kind of a tricky situtation here. We are currently in the process of decertifying the union that has represented a portion of our employees. 60 out of 160. Under the bargaining agreement they had different benefits than the non-union population. Now that everyone will be under the same umbrella we are trying to equalize all benefits. It's costing the company a lot of money. The union population had 3 personal days and the non-union did not. At the end of the contract year they were paid for any of the personal days they did not use. We have kept that policy in place for that segment. We are going to offer the rest of the employees the 3 personal days, but we would like to keep the part of being paid if you don't use them out. We need to cut some expenses somewhere. My question is can we pay part of the population for unused personal days and not the other part? Thanks for your input.

Mel in CO

I guess that my question would be if you are cutting costs across the board, why wouldn't you consider not paying out the personal days for everyone (regardless if they were in the union or not). I am unsure of the legalities but from what I am reading into your post, by simply enacting a policy such as this you are creating an "us against them" mentality around the facility. I would suggest doing something across the board such as paying out only 1 personal day at the end of the year or allowing the employees to carry personal days over (with a limit); or simply just not allowing the payout to everyone.

My former employer had different benefits for different facilities even though they were across town and many times I would assist with HR functions in their facility. It always created a "us against them" mentality and the employees with the better benefits would look down upon the other employees and act superior. The same was true of the employees that received the "reduced" benefits package. We always would gripe and moan about the different benefits although we all had the same job description - we just worked in different facilities. I would defer to some of the other experts on this forum for the legalities, but from a human relations standpoint, I don't suggest it. Good Luck!

Down_the_Middle

HR in NY:
If you've made the decision to offer as much equity in benefits as possible, can you integrate this equity approach on a gradual basis??? For example, offer the non union employees the option of being paid this year; 50% next year and d/c the practice in 2 yrs. I don't see anything discriminatory about this approach as long as you're not making decisions based on protected categories. Another option might be to require that the payment of personal days involves a day off (vs being paid in addition to working). P/R costs are not likely to increase as long as the day off doesn't require a replacement employee being scheduled.

Having some experience with decert's, I know how awkward the equity issue can be, but if employees understand there's a willingness to have equity at some point in the future, you'll be more successful w/o having to bite the economic bullet. Certainly, the bigger issue right now is to ALLOW the decert to proceed w/o getting management involved. I'll assume you understand that this is an employee-only initiative and cannot have any managerial assistance. Good luck........