Kearney Member Wins Grievance After Being Denied Pay Raise

NAPE Member Justin Edwards is a Staff Care Technician II (CNA) at the Central Nebraska Veterans Home in Kearney. Justin received his 2021 annual performance evaluation in March, but quickly realized that his evaluation was incomplete. 70% of performance evaluations are based on SMART Goals, and this entire section of his evaluation had been left blank and not scored. 

Article 26 of our contract has many protections for employees regarding their annual performance evaluations. One section of the contract states that evaluations must comply with the evaluation system that is approved by the Department of Administrative Services and shared with NAPE prior to implementation. Evaluations that leave entire sections blank or are incomplete do not comply with this system. 

Because 70% of Justin’s evaluation was blank, he received an overall unsatisfactory score of 2.6. This would have caused him to miss out on the performance based step raise on July 1, so Justin reached out to a NAPE steward who correctly realized that this was a contract violation.

Justin then got in contact with NAPE field staff who filed a grievance on his behalf, alleging that since the evaluation was incomplete in violation of Article 26, Justin’s performance must be considered satisfactory for 2021. After the grievance was filed, NDVA agreed that since the evaluation was incomplete due to factors outside of Justin’s control, he should not be rated unsatisfactory. NDVA agreed to change his evaluation to be satisfactory and ensure he receives his performance based pay increase on July 1. 

Thanks to good advice from a NAPE Steward, Justin was able to challenge this evaluation through the grievance process, ensuring that he would not be punished for management’s oversight on his evaluation. If you need assistance at work, don’t hesitate to contact us right away.