Alaska union files unfair labor practice complaint over Tandem Motion outsourcing contract

The Tandem Motion contract illegally transfers work that should be conducted in Alaska by state employees to a Seattle company and the contract should be cancelled, the Alaska Public Employees Association charges.

The union representing the Confidential Employees Association filed an unfair labor practice allegation with the Alaska Labor Relations Agency and asked for an injunction. The union alleges numerous contract violations.

Administration Commissioner Kelly Tshibaka seeks to reconfigure key aspects of state personnel management through the work of Cara Griffith and Tandem Motion, using $4.5 million in federal money from the COVID-19 bailout law. The state claims it rushed the contract because the law requires that the money be spent by the end of the year.

If the federal government, as is possible, allows the state to spend COVID-19 bailout money after Dec. 31, the state would like to extend the six-month contract for up to two years. Tandem Motion’s submission to the state said additional years would cost $6 million per year. The renewals would give “us more time to complete the projects,” a state official said.

Tshibaka, DEC Commissioner Jason Brune and several employees under Tshibaka helped steer the contract in the procurement process by making their backing of Tandem Motion clear to everyone involved, writing letters of support the company included in its response to the request for proposals.

The state’s claim is that the $4.5 million outsourcing project is not outsourcing, but the contractor “will be training bargaining unit members on how to complete the work and not taking their work away from them.”

This claim contradicts what Tshibaka’s department said in its request for proposals, the union said, and there is no reason the work cannot be performed by state employees.

Tandem Motion said it will come up with “performance and learning management programs” for state employees, and will finish “activities to redefine classifications and position descriptions by December 15, 2020.”

About 40 percent of the work is “classification,” to be led by Compensation Connections LLC in Washington.

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