Your 008-negotiation team met with the department regarding their proposal to yet again add more duties to our HSS members. Since the implementation of Cal Saws, eligibility cases have been plagued with the creation of duplicate persons. Sometimes this can cause complications under limited circumstances. Since the discovery of this issue, the department has had a program specialist resolving these cases. In what is becoming a predictable pattern, the department decides to red

Greetings, Union Sisters and Brothers, On August 6th, 2026, your UPE 008 board members met with DHA management to continue our discussion on Welfare-to-Work (WTW) sanction and exempt cases. After 45 days, sanction cases will go to the continuing case bank, and exempt cases will go to the continuing bank after 90 days. If, after 90 days, staff still want to monitor their case, they can let their supervisor know. This will help to reduce staff handoffs and additional work whe

UPE met and conferred with Sacramento County regarding its proposed Artificial Intelligence (AI) Policy and updates to the Wireless Communication Devices Policy. As a result of UPE's advocacy, the following employee protections were included in the Wireless Communication Devices Policy: * Employee Privacy: County-issued wireless devices will not be used to monitor or track employees, and any location data associated with the devices will not be used for disciplinary purposes.

On June 26, 2026, your 008 board and subject matter experts met with the department concerning their proposal that the County Duplicate Impact List (CDIL) be the work of eligibility workers. UPE’s position is that this is not HSS's duty, and we are continuing to advocate for this. Additional research is being done by our team to determine how other counties in the state are processing this duty. Another meeting will be scheduled soon, and we will keep you updated. UPE thanks

Greetings, Union Brothers and Sisters, Your 008 board and subject matter experts met with DHA on July 10, 2026, to discuss the process for sanctioning and exempting Welfare-to-Work (WTW) cases. After hearing concerns about workload balancing, the Department proposed moving sanctioned and exempt cases into a general bank. The goal is to prevent employees from having to monitor and carry cases that do not count toward their assigned caseload. Once a sanction is lifted or an exe

Greetings UPE Family! Tuesday, July 21, 2026, your UPE bargaining team met with the department regarding the current vacation restrictions. First things first, the department (so they say) has no clue as to when ILT for CARES will even start. They say that the state keeps pushing the date, even though the implementation date is still on track for October 26, 2026. They also say that vacations will be granted or denied by the supervisor on a case-by-case basis depending on t

On 7/17/26, your 008 board members met with DHA Fulton management to discuss the bureau absence reporting procedure. Staff had differing call-in times, some calling in 1 hour before their start time, some 30 minutes before, and some at 7:15 am. All of a sudden, they want everyone to call in at 7:15 am, when some people start at 9 am. This is unreasonable. We proposed that those at Fulton be able to call out 30 minutes prior to their shift. The department counter-proposed 1 ho

Greetings, union brothers and sisters, Your 008 negotiations team met with the department over the proposed implementation of a new process they are calling the (CDIL) County Duplicate Impact List. This is a list comprised of cases that have been identified as duplicates in the county of the Golden Record. The department states that they receive 60-70 cases per day with duplicate person(s) associated with it. There is a backlog of a few hundred cases that need to be process

Greetings, union brothers and sisters, Your 008 negotiations team met with the department regarding the implementation of ABAWD requirements effective June 1, 2026. At our request, the department provided a guideline or “script” to assist workers in eliciting responses from clients in order to meet an exemption per HR1 requirements. UPE felt that some of those suggested questions could lead clients to request resources based on their answer. The department agreed and will b

Greetings, union brothers and sisters, Your 008 and 005 negotiations team met with the department over the implementation of CORE. UPE continued to try to convince the department to offer additional training in a traditional induction-style classroom. The department is proposing that HSS staff take 5 days’ worth of WBTs (web-based training modules) at their desks, followed by a week of self-taught case practice. Not only is this style of training inadequate, but much of the

On May 19, 2026, UPE met again with DHA regarding ongoing issues at Susie Gaines Mitchell (SGM). UPE again brought up the lack of interview space. The Department stated that they recently added another CSR interview room. The Department also made clear that no interview rooms are assigned to individuals, with very few exceptions. UPE requested that the Department place reserved signs on the doors of reserved rooms to avoid confusion among staff. Nearly all rooms are assigned

Greetings, union brothers and sisters, Your 008 and 005 bargaining units met with the department again regarding the proposal of CORE. We continue to fiercely advocate for much longer training than what the County is offering for Cal Works. We made several proposals to expand the duration and to add additional content. The department did agree to hold our members harmless for 1 year as it relates to errors and omissions, and 6 months if members fail to keep up with their ass

Greetings, union brothers and sisters, Your 008 and 005 negotiation team met with the department regarding CORE. A pattern is emerging: the department continues to arrive at these meetings with unrealistic timelines and expectations for implementing this major overhaul of our operations. The most offensive and insensitive proposal the department made is that all MACF workers will be cross-trained in CW for a mere 2 weeks. Of the proposed 2 weeks being offered, 1 week is virt

Greetings UPE sisters and brothers, Your UPE 008 team met again with DHA management on 5/1/26 regarding ABAWD/HR1 changes to the CF program. Department management agreed to several of UPE’s proposals to hopefully lessen the impact of the massive HR1 changes: Workers will be held harmless for 6 months for errors and omissions due to the newness of the program changes. Workers will be given discretion to decide which customers are “obviously unfit for employment” under the new

On April 17, 2026, UPE 005 representatives met with Sacramento County over four new proposed County-wide policies: Incompatible Activities, Nepotism, Pre-Employment Checks, and a County Code of Conduct. Incompatible Activities requires members to disclose any outside employment that may conflict with their County employment. The Pre-Employment Checks relate to what criminal history information DPS can and cannot disclose to hiring Departments while considering new candidates.

Greetings Union Brothers, Sisters, and Friends, Your 008 bargaining team met for the second time with the department regarding the re-implementation of ABAWD requirements for CalFresh, due to HR1. Management shared all training materials with us, and we took a deep dive into the content, training structure, and analyzed what would make this more effective for staff. Due to the diligence and extensive steps required for workers to handle ABAWD,

We’ve received questions about whether employees are entitled to an additional rest break when working overtime. Here’s a clear breakdown: Under California law, you are entitled to a paid rest break for every 4 hours worked, or major fraction of 4 hours (which is anything over 2 hours). If you work a standard 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM shift with a one-hour unpaid lunch, you have worked 8 hours and are entitled to two rest breaks. If you then work overtime from 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM,

Greetings, Union Brothers and Sisters, On April 10, your 008 board members met again with DHA management to discuss the questionable document validation process. Last time we met, DHA proposed that the follow-up groups at Greenhaven and East Commerce handle all returned documents from PID and proceed with those cases. At that time, we requested data on this group’s average call time, task time, and phone time to determine whether they have the capacity to absorb this additio

Your 008-bargaining team met with the department regarding their proposal to have OA’s site verify the identification of clients when they are unknown to Cal Saws or MEDS. The department stated that they wanted to avoid handoffs when ID needs to be submitted. UPE believes this is an out-of-class job duty meant for eligibility staff only. We were unable to come to any kind of agreement for a change in the duties of our Office Assistants. We demanded that the department retrac

Greetings union brothers, sisters, & friends, On April 7th, 2026, your bargaining team met with the department regarding the fallout of the 28th street closure and additional operational changes the County has made as a result. Specifically, minor consent applications will now be centralized department-wide instead of being handled by an individual specialized unit. The department agreed to provide training to all HSS staff as a reminder of how to treat these confidential ca