Final TEA Update on Duncan-Roberts Settlement

Final TEA Update on Duncan-Roberts Settlement

As noted in previous announcements, TEA has no official position and the TEA lawyer will not be representing individuals in this matter. Members should check the forms they received for accuracy and ask for more information if needed.

Regarding the eligibility dates, TEA members will find they are declared "represented" as of April 14, 2001 (or the later date that you joined TEA as applicable), and are thus not eligible since. If you wish to contest this finding, you will find the following documentation on the TEA website:

For Transit members, excerpts from the pending contract include the Title, Duration, and the Pay provisions of Article 17 showing the effective dates of the contract. These will show that your retroactivity was only for the period February 2002 forward, hence you might request to be considered eligible between April 2001 and February 2002.

For Wastewater members, you will find the Title and the Duration pages, showing the effective dates to be July 1 2002 through June 30 2005. Thus Wastewater members may wish to contest the eligibility finding between April 2001 and June 2002.

In addition to the documentation you should point out that you were denied retroactivity for the contested dates, using wording of your choice.

Eric Mandel, TEA President

TEA Advisory on Roberts/Duncan Claims

Notice from the Board: All of you should have received a Class Action Claim Form if you MAY be eligible for a portion of the settlement from King County. We have checked with our legal counsel, though they have made very clear they are not the attorneys for any members who are affected by this Class Action.

Because this is not a TEA issue, we can only suggest that if you feel there is a question about the time period that should be included in the calculation of settlement payout, you go ahead and make a correction in your submittal of the legal forms.

Specifically, the settlement only covers those eligible for the period when they were not represented. The TEA members are in an unusual circumstance, in that we were recognized in April 2001 but were not covered by a contract until July 1st 2002 (for Wastewater members) and until January 1st 2002 for Transit members. Thus there is potentially a “gap” where you might choose to argue that the interim time period should be included in the calculation of settlement payout.