General Membership Meeting-AFSCME 404
October 18, 2018
3pm Redman Club
Present:
Adam Castle, Emilio Florez, Crystal Kreklow, Matt Stenger, Ryan Cates, Jamie Sheppard, Eric Hesse, Antonino Guerrero, Emilio Florez, Molly Kennedy, Stacy Mueller, Jacob Dougherty
1. Secretary Report:
Motion to approve meeting minutes by Adam Castle, 2nd by Stenger. Motion passes
2. Treasurer-Antonino Guerrero:
STATEMENT OF INCOME AND EXPENSES FOR MONTH ENDING: September 2018
CASH BALANCE BEGINNING OF MONTH: $ 83432.00
INCOME FOR THE MONTH: $ 7555.28
EXPENSES FOR THE MONTH: $ 14011.76
CASH BALANCE ENDING OF MONTH: $ 76975.52
SAVINGS: $ 54827.30
SUBMITTED BY: Antonino Guerrero
Motion to approve Treasurer Report subject to audit by Molly Kennedy, 2nd by Emilio. Motion Passes
MSOP Meeting Minutes: https://www.union404.com/news/october-2018-msop-meeting-minutes
MSH Meeting Minutes: https://www.union404.com/news/october-2018-msh-meeting-minutes
3. Correspondence: New payroll system. President will need to submit all officer expenses to receive the monthly stipend. Treasurer would normally submit all expenses. This would now have to be done by the president within 30 days. This has since been suspended.
4. New Business: Eboard recommended good and welfare to do away with the $150 for family member death. Will now be a sympathy card and 50 dollars for immediate family passing. Immediate family is spouse or child. The gift is per family. Need to contact Jamie or Kurt within 30 days of the passing. Members must be active fee paying member. Motion by Steve. 2nd by Stenger. Motion passes
Eboard recommends for good and welfare. If an active fee paying member dies. The family receives 404 dollars. Motion by Emilio, 2nd by Wilking. Passes
We know this is an important issue to everyone. If you have questions about how the Eboard came to this decision, please contact any Eboard member for more information.
Eboard recommends transferring $25,000 from checking account to the savings account. Motion by Stenger, 2nd by Emilio. Motion passes
Motion for informational picketing for MSOP to cover signage, water, and other expenses up to 4000. Friendly amendment by Stacy for up to 6000 2nd by Emilio. Motion passes. Note: Up to 6000.
November 5th is CBHH open forum with 404 officers. Motion by Emilio for mileage and per diem plus provide lunch for the members from CBHH who participate. Friendly amendment by Stenger. Mileage and per diem paid and up to 200 for the lunch. 2nd by Emilio. Motion passes
Hesse motions to donate money to officer Parise losing his life while on duty. Molly makes motion to donate 300. 2nd by Stenger. Motion passes
5. Old Business:
6. Items from the membership: Our broadcast was shut down by Youtube because some members of AFSCME 404 intentionally reported inappropriate activity to the website. Youtube received so many complaints that they shut down our broadcast.
Wilking recommends forming a committee to look into other media to broadcast our membership meetings. Emilio, Jacob and Steve are chairs of the committee.
7. Good and Welfare: Contact Jamie or Kurt if there are any upcoming retirements. HR will not help the local track this. We will not know about it unless we are informed by our members.
8. Officer Reports:
President: Ryan Cates- This past month I have:
Met with Physical Plant management about the GMW’s schedule. They agreed to allow us to find out what our members want for weekend schedules and then to move forward with Labor’s preference
Attended a follow up meeting about GMW’s placement.
Went to a staffing meeting in MSOP where management gave prepared remarks and failed to listen to our concerns.
Attended MSOP Meet and Confer.
Attended the Forensic Safety Committee.
Met with management at Forensic Meet and Confer. Management gave us updates on expense reimbursement for outings, Security Services merger, RPA dress code, LPN vacation requests and carport ICS use for FNH
response. We asked about SNV process for kitchen, Maser Control radio issues, Tamarack issues, changes to the staff search policy, IOD process and Security Services being forced to use channel 1.
Filed multiple grievances and sat investigations.
Attended the Council 5 state convention in Bloomington. At convention we elected a new President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer and Executive Board. Participated in educational workshops about union operations
and voted on resolutions.
Met with State Policy Committee.
Talked with members in MSH and listened to their concerns.
VP: Matt Stenger- Working with RPAs getting casual wear. Working on WTAs getting casual as well will be our next direction.
VP: Eric Hesse- Election day is near. Please, please, go out and vote on Tuesday, November 6th. For the list of AFSCME endorsed candidates, please visit http://afscmemn.org/vote
Been a busy month with grievances, meetings, and organizing a work action in MSOP. Will give a more in depth report next month.
As always, please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns.
In solidarity,
Eric Hesse
Executive Board: Jake Schoenecker- Continuing to sit investigations and voting on the executive board.
Executive Board: Chief Steward Emilio Florez-I sat a few investigations this month, we planned a meet and greet in Rochester at CBHH. I helped out with new member orientation. I am working with other stewards on a few projects as well. We are looking at meeting with CARE as well soon. We did site visit at Bartlett and dropped off new contracts. We had a chance to speak with staff and gather more ideas and information. I have also been working with physical plant management on continuing issues and weekend schedules. We will continue to look for ways to make our workplace more comfortable for everyone. If you need assistance with anything or have a question please reach out to one of us.
Thanks,
Emilio Florez
Chief Steward
Executive Board: Chief Steward Steve Wilking- Hello All! A slow month for me. I have presented (1) grievance for a termination. Chief Union Steward Marvin Sullivan has reached out for me to assist him. I presented (1) grievance on his behalf and fielded many calls to and from on various issues. I continue to work with the HIMS department in regards to their concerns. Investigations continue. Currently we have (4) DHS Licensing investigations. Many other investigations continue to rise. Please be mindful of doing your jobs. If you have questions, comments or concerns please reach out to any union officer. I continue to attend weekly check-ins, interest based problem solving and our monthly meet and confer. I also attended the monthly safety meeting.
Lastly, please make sure you bring things to the Unions attention. We can’t fight for something if we don’t know it’s happening.
In Solidarity,
Steve Wilking
Executive Board: Chief Steward Molly Kennedy- Hello all, this month I was the steward in 2 investigations and answered some questions about some of the items discussed at our last union meeting. I continue to touch base with our members about the importance of being a full share member and what that looks like especially when negotiating our wages, retirement and insurance. If you have any question please feel free to contact me by email or at extension 53589.
Executive Board: Chief Steward Marvin Sullivan
Executive Board: Jamie Sheppard- I attended the C5 Convention in Bloomington, attended MSOP Meet and Confer and attended the E-board meeting as well as the General Membership meeting. I continue to track the grievances and will be starting to track retirees. The Good and Welfare Committee had a lot of discussion in regards to the death of a family member. We have never had anything set in stone as far as what exactly we give to our members as a gift to show our condolences. We have received some backlash for what has been decided in recent months therefore, we have come to a final conclusion on how this will be handled in the future. This was not an easy decision and there was much debate involved due to all of the many different variables and sensitivity of it all. The decision was reached and voted on to give a card and $50 to an active paying member for the loss of a spouse or child and $404 to the family for the death of an active paying member. For members who have lost loved ones in the past, and nothing was done for you by our Union, we are truly sorry for your loss. Please understand that there is no easy way to track over 900 members family members due to we don’t check the obituaries every day, not everyone has your last name, not everyone is local, and we are not mind readers, etc. This is the exact reason we just brought back the Good and Welfare Committee, we realize it is very much needed.
Here are the guidelines that have been decided on for the death of a member’s family member. Starting now, on October 18, 2018, it is ultimately the members responsibility to notify us for the loss of their spouse or child within 30 days. This is not to say another member is not permitted to notify us on your behalf (in fact, we encourage other members to please do so). With that being said, we also discussed our retirees. We usually like to do something for all of our members who get out of this hell hole and get to enjoy life. Therefore, it was decided that ALL retirees will get a brand NEW car! Just kidding-I was just curious to see how many people actually read my reports LOL! It was brought to our attention that we have missed some of our retirees in the past. For that we do apologize and we would like to be more on top of this in the future. This is another reason why the Good and Welfare Committee was started up again. We are not always made aware of when people retire and we cannot count on HR letting us know. If we don’t hear it for you or another member we may not be aware of it at all. I will say it again it is very hard to keep track of so many members at several different locations. Therefore, it has been decided that an active paying member will have 60 days to notify us of their retirement. The people you are to notify for the above situations are myself and Kurt Crosby. If you have any questions (NOT comments if you are looking for a debate, I am not interested) please contact me. Thank you!
In Solidarity, Jamie Sheppard-E-board, Good and Welfare Committee
CS Facility Support: Stacey Mueller-Nothing to report
Chief Steward MSH / CRP / Nursing Nights: Kurt Crosby-Sat several investigations again this month. One was regarding the Workplace Expectation policy. I am encouraging every member to familiarize themselves with this policy as it is meant for EVERY employee, not just our members. Things like this go both ways and also helps all of us as well. Won a step one grievance for a member this month.
Working on trying to get clarification on using the sally port for ICS response to the FNH.
Will be working on a work action in the near future and will try and keep everyone in the loop. Power in numbers!!!!!
Kurt
Crystal Kreklow: Communications has reached out to Ryan. They would like to do a story on the radio issue at MSH. How did the local fight and how you got results. Send Ryan any information about what was done to improve the situation with the radios at MSH. Get out the vote. Contract negotiations. If we don’t win the election, one side is running and is trying to be the new Wisconsin. Looking for people for door knocking and/or phone banking. Secretary from international will be here next week and will be out door knocking at end of October. The international secretary will be here October 27th at 10 am. 266 Harman Avenue in St. Paul.
Motion to Adjourn by Stenger, 2nd by Wilking.
Adjourned at 415pm