Consolidation

As verified by Tim Rust and I we have voted 10-1-1 to start the consolidation process.

Monday Morning at 0700 hours I will start to confirm if you accept your nominations for office. If you do not want to be nominated cross off your name. Otherwise I will contact you.

We will vote for new officers for 2018  Wednesday Dec 6th to Wednesday Dec 13th. Votes will be anonymous over Survey Monkey.

Thanks - Jared

Vote on Merger

Saturday November 18th I am sending out a vote for starting the merger of 4 locals.

I am not sure if it is clear but the 4 locals are...

Sioux Falls Schools
City of Sioux Falls
County Highway Dept
Metro Communications

This is not a vote to merge, it is a vote to start the process which will take 6-9 months.

We lost 2 people - now down to 10 people in our local. Any ideas to get more solidarity would be helpful. (I always joke that if we get to 8 I move to decertify - then we will have 22 or 0 members - Jared)

November is when we do nominations and elections for positions in the Union. I will post on the board. I will then send out election survey Nov 25th.

Things to keep in mind for 2020 contract - though it may seem long ways off, but it is not...

Adding a step in grievance - As written now after appealing to Paul we have to go to Department of Labor. In a larger organization this probably wouldn't be a problem as Paul wouldn't have a direct say of the decision when it was made in the fist place, however, at our size Paul makes decisions that we have to appeal. The Department of Labor then starts a long process time wise and includes lawyers - which is fine, we have lawyers - it is the time. Putting in a step of appealing to the Metro Board - though Paul has communication with them - will hopefully have more thoughts in the mix and makes a formal public record.

Work on phrasing to give more power on our schedule. With this go around Admin wanted to make changes to our on call time - having days when you are on-call to hold over, having off day on call, and various things. I will admit that our current contract hindered switching some people to 12s, but Admin simply wanted us to ignore the protections without any benefit or return. I think we should work on phrasing that allows for changes and the Union officially votes on new schedule.

Benefits - Ona works her ass off for benefits this time of year. LeNora and I met with her about the benefit changes, however when we spoke to her things were very much in the air. We already have a 75%/25% insurance coverage - which is good, as most businesses I see cover less than 50% or 100% - surprisingly very few inbetween. However things we spoke are "If we could save money would it be better to have a Sanford Only or Avera Only plan?"  "Would going to the $1000 deductible (with high max) be better than what we did?"  - I would like to add phrasing for having the Union more involved in the decision. Maybe it would suck going to an Avera(or Sanford) Only would suck, but if we save $1000  a year would it go.

In solidarity - Jared

Consolidation talks

Hello All –

Had a good set of meetings with Kooper (our organizer, who plans on buying a house so he is here for a while.)

The main topic of discussion was a proposed consolidation of the locals. It would be 4 units – Us, City of Sioux Falls, County Highway, and Teachers Union. This would let us consolidate information, allowing us to unify what goals the other units would have. It would consolidate our account and create more checks and balances (right now Lenora and I could run with all our money, we won’t, but probably should not have that ability.)

 The goal of our organizer is to be able to have picnics, parade participation, and basically be more active. Joining the locals would allow that to go easier.

The proposed board would consist of paid President and Treasure Secretary, which would then be paid positions ($5000 a year).

Then every unit would have a VP and a Chief Steward. So a board would have 10 and need majority to vote for quorum (6 people present).

The concerns brought up –

We would still have individual contracts.

The process would go like this… We vote if we are interested in consolidation. After that 1 or 2 delegates go to committee for merger.

I will send out a vote on November 18^th if we want to form committee. The vote to actually merge would be 6-9 months after that. PLEASE GET YOUR QUESTIONS TO LENORA OR ME.

There has been a dues freeze in South Dakota for the foreseeable future, so our dues will not go up.

IN METRO NEWS - A member has proposed we look at getting the uniform to business casual instead of having to have a Metro Logo. Basically to match what Admin currently wears. What are your thoughts on this?

Also make sure you check out the Afscme Advantage - you can save some money on various things. I just looked at the Mortgage discount and mortgage protection insurance.

https://www.afscme.org/members/advantage