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November 2021 Membership Meeting Minutes part 1

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General Membership Meeting-AFSCME 404

November 18, 2021

1030 PM Zoom

Present:

Adam Castle, Ryan Cates, Eric Hesse, Kurt Crosby, Alex Flores, Steve Wilking, Annie Jakacki, Marvin Sullivan, Eric Manriquez, Nick Weerts, Hans Paulson, Ben, Amy Weber, Thea Lillo, Sherry, Nik Proehl, Jenny, Tanner, Lauren, Toby, Nicole, Shannon Timm, Dan J, Antonino Guerrero, Chris Splett, Logan, Jessica Butler, Jake Schoeneker, Cory,

Eric makes motion to adopt rules for the meeting. Rules to raise hand, called by chair, limited to 2 minutes each, given warning with 30 seconds left, Chair will call on all members before calling on a same member on same motion. 2nd by Adam. Motion Passes.

1.Secretary Report:

Motion to approve October meeting minutes by Adam Castle. 2nd by Kurt. Motion passes.

2. Treasurer-Antonino Guerrero:

STATEMENT OF INCOME AND EXPENSES FOR MONTH ENDING: October 2021

CASH BALANCE BEGINNING OF MONTH: $ 155,091.46

INCOME FOR THE MONTH: $ 7381.74

EXPENSES FOR THE MONTH: $ 8172.70

CASH BALANCE ENDING OF MONTH: $ 154,300.50

SAVINGS: $ 125,749.65

SUBMITTED BY: Antonino Guerrero

Motion to accept upon audit by Eric. 2nd by Jake. Motion Passes

3. Correspondence: FMHP Meeting Minutes: https://www.union404.com/news/november-2021-fmhp-meeting-minutes

 

MSOP Meeting Minutes: https://www.union404.com/news/november-2021-msop-meeting-minutes

4. New Business:  Nominations for officers will be made at December membership meeting on December 16th. 15 positions and 3 trustee positions up for election. If someone is nominated, they should attend to accept or decline. If they are not there to turn down the nomination, they will accept the position unless they inform the union otherwise. Ben-is there an open spot on the eboard? Ryan-there are two. The eboard discussed it and will not appoint for a month. They will be open for the election. Nominate yourself or someone else can nominate at the December meeting.

Election will be held on January 20th. Ballot boxes will be available to vote. We will let you know of the locations. Vote while at work or in the community. Every dues paying member gets a vote.

 

5. Old Business: Last month there were votes for sweatshirts. We will discuss again at the December meeting further due to unhappy members. Attend the meeting to get your voice heard. If you would like a t-shirt, talk to a steward and they can get you one. They are in the union office.

6. Items from the membership: Cory-Admin is in talks of adding different shifts. Are we looking at going back to the old shifts? They are using money as the reason. Kurt-It was brought up at meet and confer today. It’s in the notes. We brought up 10 hour shifts. They said it saved 1.6 million to do away with those shifts. I brought up how they are adding clinical and there are other options for shifts. Becky didn’t say they are off the table but basically did due to the cost. The eboard has talked about it and we want to include nocs staff in the conversations going forward. It needs to be known by everyone about what it would mean for staff to feel respected.

Sherry-Please don’t leave the LPNs out of the 10 hour shift debate

Ben-Was the point made that direct care appreciates money not being more important than safety? Kurt-Yes, They are defensive but they have an agenda and they get to make the decision. Becky heard us but those things have to be communicated. Shifts are important to us. The more pressure we can place on them as a union, the more power we have. Alex-It was also pressed that numbers are going up and admin hasn’t done enough. Steve-Scheduling pattern that came out, management came to us with 7 to 3 and 12 to 8. Some of it came from OSHA citations. There was supposed to be an overlap and they came to us with some of those options. They are driving the scheduling choices and trying to make operation decisions. We have more meetings scheduled. Kurt-Management reserves the right to change schedules with a 28 day notice. The fact they are talking about it with us says something. They can do it either way. Cory-We understand that but if feels like management knows they messed up.

Ben-Steve brought up the link that OSHA won’t enforce the vaccine mandate. What about the mandate for Medicaid and Medicare. Does that apply? How is the state going to get around the mandate not being enforced and using loopholes to force us? Ryan-We brought up mandates and Scott said they don’t support mandates. Annie-I am sitting in with meetings dealing with this. As of now the presidential mandate doesn’t effect st peter. Only the MSATS umbrella. Has nothing to do with Medicare or Medicaid. That is different BMS funding. Anoka will fall under that as well as CBHH. 8 or 9 facilities and vets homes. Those are the only programs required via a presidential order. This is separate from OSHA. The 100 staff for private is an OSHA things. There is no mandate coming right now. DHS doesn’t want this mandate outside of what they have to do. They don’t want to enforce it. We have a lot of members on both sides. DHS is trying to push it out as far as possible. Shannon-How does care fall into that? Annie-We were told from DHS that it’s Anoka and cbhh. We have been told it is not CARE. Only under MSATS umbrella. Depends on type of funding the program is getting. Kurt-Postal workers and teachers were exempt for the mandate. What is being at the international level to combat the mandates? Other union jobs are being affected even though it doesn’t affect us right now. Annie-when it comes to this. AFSCME doesn’t push for mandates at all. We have no say if it is the president. We support locals in private sector who have mandates. We don’t have any jurisdiction until it comes in to affect someone’s job. We are pushing they need to have a testing option if they force vaccines. We have been pushing back with our locals to have a testing option. We can request it with Anoka but it is a federal order, we can’t do anything with those. Privately, we push back to ensure it’s not a vaccine only. Ben-Since OSHA isn’t enforcing, we have the right to not go to work if we believe it’s not safe. I assume this doesn’t apply to hostile work environment issues? Annie-The language you are talking about is OSHA guideline and right to employees. They can refuse if it’s an unsafe environment. You can’t just say I’m not working, you have to tell them due to the safety issue I can’t work here but I am willing to work somewhere else. If they don’t, they need to pay you. If there is an issue with it, we take it up with management and OSHA. Go to osha.gov and be aware of what it says if you refuse to work. Hans-Since safety is a mandatory bargaining issue, this isn’t making it more safe. Would we bargain on this? Annie-It’s a federal mandate and we can’t bargain over that. For employers placing mandates, if it isn’t being pushed by the government, then we are pushing for testing. Nick-This doesn’t apply to our local, but can we put in place information for those who are concerned and have the information ready and available as a resource? Annie-There might be some information on our website or memberlink. If it isn’t, I can check to get it on there. Nick-If the info is there, it’s there for the members. Let’s do it and move on. Annie-There has been a lot of information from council 5. When we get info, we try to get it available. Kurt-Local 404 can’t change the federal level. But we have international AFSCME, what are they doing? We have entity In DC that is AFSCME. They have the resources and we don’t. Annie-I understand they are doing what council 5 is doing. There are lobbyists all over the country. They bring forward our concerns. AFSCME is very diverse on both sides. There needs to be a testing option if there is a mandate. It supports both sides. Kurt-Do you know if we can look into notes about what is being done up there? Annie-Look at afscme.org. They have information on there, along with Facebook afscme. Shannon-Where are we at with shaving of beards with N95? Ryan-As of now, they still don’t know what they will do. There are no consequences right now. Annie-Why isn’t everyone tested then? We have been requesting that for a year now. We have pushed back on point prevalence testing as well. That is coming from DHS IT group and are refusing. We have talked to the commissioner and they are not doing that. We will continue to push. Alex-I brought it up to Scott and he didn’t seem to agree the testing is a major concern. He doesn’t seem to support testing of all staff. Annie-The upper levels are sick of hearing it as well. We have not had anyone disciplined for not being vaccinated. We have had unpaid leaves for not following testing policy mandate or vaccine. DHS wide is 10 people disciplined. Marvin-I just scrolled through the websites and don’t see anything from Washington. Annie-look at press releases and under lobby or legislative. Marvin-I did and nothing pops up. Annie-I can reach out to our communication and legislative directors for additional information. Eric-If people want to find out what the international is doing, there is a link to contact them. There are also meeting minutes you can request.

OSHA was on site today due to covid issues. There were 5 complaints on there. They will be in the membership link.

Steve-I found on afscme.org under covid link for resources. Marvin-It doesn’t answer anything. Kurt-I know 5 can’t change anything, we shouldn’t have to look this hard from international. Who can we reach out to find more information? Contacts. Annie-I will reach out to our communications director.