General Membership Meeting-AFSCME 404
August 15, 2019
430PM Redman Club
Present:
Adam Castle, Emilio Florez, Ryan Cates, Jamie Sheppard, Antonino Guerrero, Kurt Crosby, Jake Schoenecker, Molly Kennedy, Kelly Woelpern, Amy Fast, Eric Hesse, Stacy Mueller, Joel Frey, Anne Sullivan
1.Secretary Report:
Motion to approve July meeting minutes by Adam Castle , 2nd Molly Kennedy. Motion passes
2. Treasurer-Antonino Guerrero:
STATEMENT OF INCOME AND EXPENSES FOR MONTH ENDING: July 2019
CASH BALANCE BEGINNING OF MONTH: $ 78469.84
INCOME FOR THE MONTH: $ 7345.40
EXPENSES FOR THE MONTH: $ 3098.85
CASH BALANCE ENDING OF MONTH: $ 82716.39
SAVINGS: $ 80036.38
SUBMITTED BY: Antonino Guerrero
Motion to approve Treasurer Report subject to audit by Kurt Crosby subject to audit. 2nd by Emilio. Motion passes
3. Correspondence: On the Forensics Atlas program for MSH and CRP, the vacation pools were merged prior to August 15th and well before the September 4th date we were given by management for when it would be done. No reason for why this happened has been provided to Labor. This means that staff from all units in MSH and CRP have 22 vacation slots combined. Scheduling/management gave no notification to Labor or our members that this was going to happen or that it had happened once they had done it. This resulted in some staff who knew about it being able to take vacation before other staff were knew nothing about it. If you have problems or potential grievances related to this, let myself or a Union officer know. If you just want to vent, feel free to contact Jodi Culver-Seaquist or Scott Melby.
4. New Business: Contract passed with 83 percent council wide. 87 yes 26 no locally out of over 900 members.1/8 of our membership voted for 900 members. There is an absentee ballot option for next year.
Convention has18 signed up to go. Get your name in to Hesse or Cates by the 1st of September. Must have the time off of work to attend.
Atlas app is up and running in a testing phase. INET has the process posted of how to download. LG is not working at this time.
5. Old Business: MSOP funding still an issue. waiting on Moose Lake for more information. We were misled by management on the hiring.
6. Items from the membership: Fast-on atlas there are 4 additional vacation spots. Cates-from CRP. They are merging so we are taking their 4 spots. The 4 spots are combined with the current MSH as of September 4th. Management just informed us today (8/15/19). Karla says that Jodi said nothing will be approved. Keep Jodi informed if there are issues. Fast-would have been nice to have a heads up about this. Cates will talk with management and report it for the minutes. Screen shot everything and save for records.
When requesting vacation, your days off will no longer be charged against you.
Nursing home is separate from all of the other combining going on in MSH.
Hickory cannot house MIND due to licensing. Will not inverse to transition. Cannot be inversed to FNH but you can volunteer to do overtime there. Nursing home is short right now.
MSH Meet and Confer Minutes: https://www.union404.com/news/august-2019-msh-meet-and-confer-1
MSOP Meet and Confer Minutes: https://www.union404.com/news/august-2019-msop-meet-and-confer
7. Good and Welfare:
8. Officer Reports:
President: Ryan Cates- This past month I Attended Forensic Meet and Confer-
Hospital Coverage- 2 staff should be sent to all hospital coverages to allow for breaks. Management concedes and this should be being done.
Band Practice- If a unit staff attends a band practice then their position should be back filled.
Ancillaries- If you cover on B2N or B2S then you need to read and sign for both units.
Vacation days- If somebody takes vacation on their regular day/days off, it will no longer count against the number of vacation slots available.
Overtime and inversing in the restructured organization- Overtime and inversing will be program wide for FSS’s in FMHP. Vacation will be 1 large pool.
LPN and RN mutual- Will be allowed in forensics unless it changed an inverse status. Will be reviewed after 90 days.
Organizational restructuring- LPN OT, inversing and floating processes will not change.
Forensic Nursing Home issues- A meeting was scheduled to discuss problems at FNH.
Discrepancies in what steps people are hired at- Some people are hired at higher steps while more experienced people are hired at step 1. Management will look at this.
Unit staffing- Some units are ran short or with as few as 1 staff for extended amounts of time. Need more building extras.
HSSS staffing levels.
Parking issues at Bartlett.
Attended Weekly check-ins.
Attended MSOP Meet and Confer.
Filed multiple grievances and sat investigations.
Talked with members in multiple work areas and listened to their concerns.
Presented and argued grievances.
Talked to members about the tentative agreement on the new contract. Explained the good and the bad points of what was agreed upon.
Became frustrated with management.
Communicated information to E-Board members about issues facing the Local.
Chaired the Executive Board Meeting
Chaired the General Membership Meeting.
Attended Forensic Interest Based Problem Solving. Discussed the overtime granting process and we looking at a system where you sign up for known in advance and/or subsequent shift overtime separately. This will eliminate numerous issue that result from just having 1 overtime sign up.
We ask that all members who are interviewed as non-subjects in an investigation, request Union representation. If management refuses, then members should refuse to answer questions. Participation in investigations is completely voluntary and they cannot coerce you to answer their questions. We need to do this to compel management to discontinue their practice of refusing to allow Union representatives into investigations.
On the Forensics Atlas program for MSH and CRP, the vacation pools were merged prior to August 15th and well before the September 4th date we were given by management for when it would be done. No reason for why this happened has been provided to Labor. This means that staff from all units in MSH and CRP have 22 vacation slots combined. Scheduling/management gave no notification to Labor or our members that this was going to happen or that it had happened once they did it. This resulted in some staff who knew about it being able to take vacation before other staff were knew nothing about it. If you have problems or potential grievances about this, let myself or a Union officer know. If you just want to vent, feel free to contact Jodi Culver-Seaquist or Scott Melby.
VP: Matt Stenger-
VP: Eric Hesse-
Executive Board: Jake Schoenecker- Continue to support members with investigations and attend meetings.
Executive Board: Chief Steward Emilio Florez-It was a really busy month. A lot of investigations on MSH campus. I helped file a couple grievances and have been attending meetings. We visited a few areas this month and hope to continue to site visit. There have been request for testers to test the ATLAS app for forensic FMHP you may see this on the sharepoint site.
Thanks,
Emilio Florez
Executive Board: Chief Steward Steve Wilking-
Executive Board: Chief Steward Molly Kennedy-
Executive Board: Chief Steward Marvin Sullivan-
Executive Board: Jamie Sheppard- I attended MSOP Meet and Confer, E-board Meeting, General Membership Meeting and the Negotiations Assembly in Minneapolis where it was decided on whether or not to push the contract through. We heard a lot of discussion from several people other locals who were for accepting the contract and who were willing to strike over it. At the Assembly, majority ruled and the contract was accepted for the membership to vote on individually. 83% statewide voted yes to accept the contract. We have 850-900 members in our local alone, and of those members, only 113 total voted here in St. Peter. (Keep in mind, some of our members may have voted at another polling place, and people from other locals may have voted in St. Peter.) I am just using the info I have to point something out to you…this means that we had roughly a 13% voter turnout. For those who made it to vote, thank you! For those of you saying you didn’t vote because you don’t feel your vote matters or it will get accepted anyway, you forgot, were on vacation (trust me I get it, they don’t make this easy for us, but it is the Constitution we have), etc. …think about this for a second…whatever your excuse is for not voting, are you willing to have approximately 1/10 of the local membership decide for you if we strike or not? I know this is on a much smaller scale but I hope it gives you some perspective on why voting is so important. FYI-I know this is too late and there is nothing you can do about it now, but I just learned at the general membership meeting that they offer an absentee ballot. I was not aware of this until now. It is what it is, so please remember that this is available in the future and ask one of us and we will assist you with how to get one. It wouldn’t be a bad idea if everyone just asked for one since we never know exactly when contract voting will take place. Furthermore, show up to a meeting every once in a while and maybe you will learn something, just sayin’.
In Solidarity, Jamie Sheppard-E-board
CS Facility Support: Stacey Mueller-
Chief Steward MSH / CRP / Nursing Nights: Kurt Crosby-NOC shift report, We have been quiet on NOCS as far as investigations and inversing. I attended Meet and Confer, Interest based Problem Solving and the membership and Eboard meetings this month. We are working on shoring the process on signing up and the granting of OT. Please be patient with the scheduling office as everything is always more difficult. We had a nice turn out for the last meeting, hopefully we can see even more next month!! Be safe.
Crystal Kreklow:
Motion to Adjourn by Molly Kennedy , 2nd by Karla. Motion Passes
Meeting adjourned at 615PM