Procedural and administrative questions have been raised after a recent Dunleavy Administration decision to award a lucrative state services contract underwritten with federal COVID money to a Seattle-based company barely a year old.

The preferential and expeditious terms of the request for proposals (RFP) benefitting Tandem Motion and the subsequent selection of Tandem Motion despite material deficiencies in its RFP response have been the subject of several posts by reporter Dermot Cole.

https://www.dermotcole.com/reportingfromalaska/2020/9/1/4xfq7lojju33i933wf93y5mbtht9zt

Further, the Administration's RFP appears to exploit the COVID-19 public health crisis and subsequent mitigation funding in the "Pandemic Preparedness Plan Phase 2—Personnel Management" title, suggesting the routine personnel management duties contained within the project are outside the scope of work assigned to state employees and tapping into millions of federal dollars to bankroll the seemingly predetermined Tandem Motion award.

The Alaska Public Employees Association (APEA) filed an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) charge against the State on behalf of affected employees (whose jobs specifically include personnel management functions) to the Alaska Labor Relations Agency (ALRA) last month.

pdf APEA-SOA ULP Tandem Motion RFP (Aug. 21, 2020) (2.64 MB)

ASEA members may recognize Tandem Motion from a problematic performance evaluation program launched last fall in sections of the Dept of Administration and Dept. of Environmental Conservation. Described as a pilot program, Tandem Motion's performance metrics and reporting largely ignored union contract language regarding employee performance evaluations which led to widespread confusion in the departments.

Evidence of the new Tandem Motion contract has appeared in the form of "Recruiting and Onboarding Survey" announcements sent to state employees. Please contact your ASEA Business Agent if you have questions about Tandem Motion initiatives in the workplace.