Present:
Tim Headlee, Marvin Sullivan, Eric Hesse, Ryan Cates, Luke Frederick, Adam Castle, Amanda Mathiowetz, Molly Kennedy, Lisa Hobday, Connie Anderson, Shannon Pech, James Hemshrot, Mary Wolfe, Kendra Benson, Amanda Hollom, Matt Stenger
1. Secretary’s Report: No changes to be made on October’s General Membership Minutes. Motion to accept by Matt Stenger, 2nd by Marvin Sullivan, motion passed.
2. Treasurer-Connie Anderson: STATEMENT OF INCOME AND EXPENSES FOR MONTH ENDING October 2014 CASH BALANCE BEGINNING OF MONTH: $ 64568.14 INCOME FOR THE MONTH: $ 5558.46 EXPENSES FOR THE MONTH: $ 13108.24 CASH BALANCE ENDING OF MONTH: $ 57018.36 SUBMITTED BY: Connie Anderson Motion to accept by Luke Frederick, 2nd by Molly Kennedy, motion passed
3. Correspondence: • Donations for the holidays: Typically Local 404 gives $250 each to Toys for Tots, Food Shelf in St. Peter and Mankato, Salvation Army, and Santa Anonymous. A member suggested donating $200 a piece to 5 charities to include ECHO in St. Peter. It was decided to not include Salvation Army due to unfavorable press. Motion to donate $250 each to Toys for Tots, ECHO Food Shelf, St. Peter Food Shelf, and Santa’s Anonymous by Molly Kennedy, 2nd by James Hemshrot, motion passed. • Local 404 Holiday Party December 18th, 4:30 pm at the Redman: AFSCME will be providing food and having a drawing for gas cards and chamber bucks. Motion by Molly Kennedy to spend no more than $1200, 2nd by James Hemshrot, motion passed. • A proposal was made by John Hibbard of MSOP that the local hand out turkey’s to its members for Christmas. It was decided that AFSCME would give vouchers for a 10 lb turkey (note: you can go over 10 lbs, just have to pay the difference) to all full share members. There will be times set up for members to pick up their voucher. The vouchers will be coming from Cub Foods since they are union. They gave an estimate of $0.70 - $0.85 per pound. There will be an expiration on the vouchers. Motion to accept by Molly Kennedy, 2nd by Matt Stenger, motion passed. • Kim Weise of Wells Fargo attended the meeting to talk about benefits they offer for union members active and retired. Family members of union members are also eligible. The special benefits include the following: - A $500 award card. When you purchase a new home or refinance your current one with Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, they will send you a $500 My Mortgage Gift award after closing. The award can be used for purchases at participating retailers. - A $500 First-Time Home Award. You will be eligible to apply for a $500 First-Time Home Award from Union Plus. -Mortgage payment assistance. In the event you experience an unexpected loss of income, Union Plus provides an interest-free mortgage assistance loan or grant to eligible union members and their parents and children. The first $1000 does not need to be repaid. **If you have any more questions you can contact Kim Weise at 507-387-9382 or via email [email protected]
4. New Business: • Reminder- if you are doing work for the union on your own personal time, please submit the number of hours and what you were attending to Connie Anderson so you can receive per diem. • There was not an MSH Meet & Confer this month due to not having agenda items. If you have any concerns you would like brought up please email Tim or Chuck.
5. Old Business: • Nothing to report.
6. Items from the membership: • There are continued concerns for staff safety at CBHH/CARE. The union will be having a labor management meeting December 11th. There are also times being set up for EAP to be made available to staff.
7. Officer Reports
Presidents Report: *Please see Chuck’s report below.
VP- Chuck Hottinger Late October into November has been a whirlwind of activity with the OSHA Citation Mediation and the Conditional License Term 9 effort both underway. The two tasks complement each other in that the discussions and research done can be applied to both efforts. The Term 9 mission is to recommend a replacement or modification to Rule 36 to provide a safer environment at MSH for patients and staff. The current policies and procedures that we are operating with do not adequately addresses patient behaviors be they criminally volitional or driven by symptoms or functioning. This work group has Management, Licensing, Mental Health Advocates, AFSCME, MNA, MAPE, and the Teachers represented. The December meetings will result in a draft report which is due January 15th 2015. This has been a very cohesive group and I’ve only had to drag out my soapbox staff safety speech once since we started working in September. The immediate goal is to address the Forensic Division but the entire group is aware that anything created here could be used to address the other divisions of DHS direct care. The OSHA Mediation is in process in St Paul at the Office of Administrative Hearings with an Administrative Law Judge. There has been four sessions to date with OSHA, Management (Carol Olson and Anne Barry), MNA, and AFSCME represented. There is a meeting scheduled for November 24th to hopefully craft a resolution and settle the complaint. There is a gag order in place that limits what Tim and I can divulge at this point. The progress to date has been surprisingly quick with very few sticking points other than timelines. The union input has been very well received and may well be a major part of the resolution. This again may result in a resolution that can be applied across Direct Care and Treatment. There have been numerous meetings during the month with Labor Management meetings for Care/CBHH, CRP, FNH, MSOP (see Molly’s report), and Facilities Support. The St Peter CARE facility has been a major concern for the local with Matt Stenger shouldering the load as the Chief Steward. We will be offering a Contract Class in December in time for the Negotiations delegates to attend. This class is designed for stewards but would be of value to anyone who has an interest in correctly interpreting the AFSCME Contract provisions. In solidarity, Chuck Hottinger – VP Admin
VP- Molly Kennedy This month in MSOP a couple of key items came up at MSOP meet and confer that I would like to go over. First we spoke about holidays and how they are given out. Currently they are given out unit based and if those folks requested the holiday off then they are back filled by Utility Pool then all the other spots that need to be filled go to whoever is left from the utility pool that want to work, post positions and the transport team. All those areas are sorted out and put in order of seniority to work the holiday. Well I have heard many complaints about how this has been going. It usually only comes up on the holidays everyone really would like to work (ex: Presidents Day and Martin Luther King Jr. Day). We suggested as an e board that we just go back to straight seniority. That would mean we work at the top on the seniority list and fill positions, when it comes to a specialized areas it would be most senior capable and qualified. I am asking for feedback on how you think it should be done. Please email me to let me know which way you prefer. We just want what the membership wants:)
The next thing that has been brought to my attention lately is the amount of inversing that has been occurring from the 1st watch to the 2nd watch. At our next meet and confer I have requested some data that we can look at and see where all this overtime has been coming from. But I think in the meantime we should be considerate of the people getting forced to be here 2 shifts on a continual basis. What if it was happening to all of us and just not 1st watch. More people would be upset because their lives are being impacted. Keep that in mind going forward:)
Now for the less heavy stuff, I wanted to inform everyone that our www.union404.com website is currently down. We purchased a 6 year domain and it expired without warning last week, we are currently trying to get it renewed. I'll send out something when it is up and running again. Also we are going to be doing another contract training on Friday December 19th the location will be announced. This class is 8 am-4 pm and you will need to have the time off from work, please contact me if you are interested in attending. Lastly we voted as an e-board at our last meeting that we will be giving away 13 to 14 pound turkeys to all of our full share members before the Holidays. I'm currently working with Market Fresh foods in Saint Peter to supply the turkeys. We will be doing a voucher and the meat department will have a list of full share members. We will also be setting up different times at different locations to hand out the vouchers. I will have more details on this in a week and I will send an email out to everyone. Please see the attached flyer to the AFSCME Holiday Party . Hope all are having a great winter season and I hope to see you all at the Holiday Party!
Molly Kennedy VP Steward Coordinator
Executive Board: Luke Frederick
Executive Board: Adam Castle Nothing new to report.
Executive Board: James Hemshrot I have had a couple of Step 3 grievances. If you do call in sick, please look at your time sheets. It has happened where some people are not getting paid because it has been determined that staff is abusing their sick time. This is being marked unpaid without the staff knowing. This has been addressed with Melissa Gresczyk regarding Employee Right to Know.
CS MSH/Transition: Ryan Cates I have had a a few overtime grievances. Have not received many responses yet on 3rd step grievances from last month.
CS CBHH / CARE & MSOP: Matt Stenger Our next meet and confer will be on December 11 at 12:30. During this meeting our plan is to discuss the work environment at CARE Saint Peter. I haven't heard of any issues coming from CBHH Saint Peter or Rochester. We are still trying to get the administration to give more training on the man down system and pat downs due to concerns in these areas. We are also looking at ways to improve the safety and security of the staff.
CS FACILITY SUPPORT: Mike Homer I have been working with WTA’s and fictitious Work out of Class status. People have been getting told they are out of class without receiving the raise. When working out of class your paperwork should come from Human Resources.
CS Nursing Home: Eric Hesse Council 5 would like to send Local 404 kudos for recently becoming the local with the highest percentage of full members in the state sector. This is a tremendous achievement and congratulations goes out to all that have been participating in new employee orientation for getting people to sign a union card and for those who have been talking with fair-share members and getting them to sign. Let’s keep it up! For the Nursing Home, we met on the 13th with management and HR about various topics. Discussed were: 1) Confusion on which clock was being used to determine if an employee was late. It was determined that the clock on the phone would be the one that the charge RN’s will be using. 2) Some feel that some charge RN’s are inconsistent on whom they mark as late. If you see a discrepancy, please let me or a steward know. 3) Both sides agreed that there should be a two minute grace period of when to report to shift report to allow for people putting stuff away and getting situated. The shift reports will begin at 6:02am, 2:02pm, and 10:17pm. 4) Discussed rotation of wing assignments and trying to get people rotated more often. We meet again on December 11th, so if anybody has any issues or concerns they would like to be brought to management’s attention, please contact me. I also have been working on a 3rd Step on a discharge and still awaiting word back. I’ve also filed a 3rd Step on switching of normal set days off without proper notice. In solidarity, Eric
CS MSH / CRP / Nursing Nights: Shannon Pech There have still been issues with inversing. Per contract you shall not be inversed before your days off or into vacation.
Motion to adjourn by Eric Hesse at 6:05 pm, 2nd by Luke Frederick
2014 AFSCME Holiday Party Where: The RedMen Club Saint Peter, MN 56082 When: General Membership meeting is at 4:30pm on Thursday, December 18th. The party will begin immediately following. There will be hot beef sandwiches and side dishes provided. Plus we will be giving out door prizes ?