By Jim Cline and Donna Steinmetz
Cline and Casillas today released a major overhaul of its Premium Website. Clients and subscribers can visit the new website here. A video showing how to use the new website can be seen here.
This revised version of the Website is the first major revisions since the Website’s release a few years ago and is aptly called Version 2.0 of the Premium Website. The changes are significant both as to user accessibility and the extent of information provided. Several changes to the website should make it much easier to navigate and access the information that you need. Those changes include:
- Revised and easy to navigate front-end interface with clear fonts and directions leading you to the various information folders;
- Revised folder system that allows you to easily navigate back and forth between the website information sections;
- Extensive and detailed site navigation information clearly marked with a blue compass rose, which lead to both written and video instructions;
- Detailed step-by-step video instructions (supplementing the existing written instructions) showing you how to more easily move through the website and locate the information you need;
- New search tools allowing you to retrieve documents across the website using specific search terms;
- Powerful new “related materials” links which allow you to quickly access “related materials” to the subject you are researching and navigate directly to those other materials from wherever you are in the website; and
- New ability for the law firm in advice situations to directly “hot link” you directly to the page you need for more information on your immediate situations.
Besides these important revisions to your ability to navigate and search the website materials, Cline and Casillas have vastly expanded the information posted for you with this the new version of its Premium Website. New or enhanced materials include:
- Pre-publication release version of the Second Edition of Jim Cline’s The Rights of Washington Public Safety Employees: Representatives Manual (three months ahead of its expected September 2015 publication date) This expanded and updated version is nearly 40% larger than the existing Manual;
- An extensive array of detailed and up-to-date new “case tables” — 9 in all — summarizing the law on these topics:
- “Reasonable accommodations” cases identifying what courts have required as a required accommodation for public safety employees with various health conditions;
- Arbitrators’ rulings on public safety employee contract interpretation cases
- Arbitrators’ rulings on public safety employee discipline appeals
- FLSA rulings on whether time worked is “compensable” issued by courts and the Department of Labor
- PERC Rulings on which workplace topics are a “mandatory subject of bargaining”
- PERC Rulings evaluating what contract clauses have been found to have “waived” a union’s “right to bargain”
- PERC Rulings on what employer actions constitute unlawful discrimination or retaliation
- PERC rulings on which employer actions constitute sufficiently “adverse actions” to warrant protection from unlawful discrimination
- PERC Rulings on what constitutes unlawful “interference”
- Up-to-date summaries of all PERC ULP rulings, complete with headnotes allowing you to navigate the cases; and
- Latest 2015 wage ranking and settlement trend information for Washington public safety employees.
With these enhancements, other existing sources of information continue in the Premium Website, but in a more accessible form, including:
- Demographic and Compensation Report Menus guiding you to literally hundreds of various reports from the Cline and Casillas database;
- A Menu to the unique Cline and Casillas “Contract Term Reports” that allow you access to specific language comparing your contract language to comparable contracts in 127 specific contract issues;
- An up-to-date array of all Public Safety CBAs throughout the State of Washington;
- CPI data — both the latest and the historic inflation reports;
- Numerous Interest arbitration cases with detailed summaries of key arbitration holdings over the past 6 years;
- Links to numerous article on various legal topics in our “Cases and Legal Materials” folder made easy to navigate as it follows the exact outline set out in the Representatives Manual;
- A “Special Materials” folder providing links to information relevant to public safety employee working conditions and preparation for interest arbitration.
But with the release of this “Version 2.0” of the website, we are not done. Over the course of the next year, our plan is to continue enhancing the Premium Website with even more content:
- Creating case links from our Representatives Manual, allowing you to directly locate the cases cited in the Manual
- Regular information Webcasts on breaking developments in the law and contract negotiations
- Adding additional interest arbitration cases and summaries
- Release of one or more additional books, including an upcoming Guidebook for representing Injured Washington Public Safety Employees
- Compensation and Benefit Surveys on many new topics not covered in previous Statewide surveys, ranging from special pays to health insurance to uniform allowances
We never rest. Our firm’s Central Mission is to provide you the best possible representative marked by our aspiration goals of advocacy that is Expert, Effective, Excellent, Ethical, and Emphatic. Toward that end, we look forward to any feedback you have regarding your experience with the Premium Website, and all of our services.