CGE Executive Council Meeting Minutes – September 18, 2013

In attendance: Thomas Morrill, Béatrice Moissinac, Araby Belcher, Mindy Crandall, Eric Coker, Lizz Hardardt, Shannon Andrews;  guest member Kevin Weitemier;  guests from AFT-Oregon President David Rives and new Political Action Organizer Julia Trist;  Ashley Bromley, Angela McClendon

Meeting called to order at 3:00 PM

Minutes from 9-11-13 meeting – Approved
Email Decisions – Approved an email to send to the Engineering Dean about the EECS situation.

AFT-Oregon Update (with David and Julia) – There’s another Student Debt Forum coming up soon and they’d love to see some CGE folks there. Institutional boards: We updated David about how nominations went. AFT-Oregon will be a resource in communicating with the governor’s office when the student position comes open again. David went to AFL-CIO national convention recently and enjoyed meeting other unionists and hearing about what’s going on. We’ve just heard that the UO faculty union has just settled their first contract – great! Julia is new to AFT but has been working a lot with other unions before she joined AFT-Oregon this week.

AFT-Oregon EC Meeting – It’s this Saturday morning at the new office in Portland. Kevin is driving and he can take Eric, Araby, and Ashley. Ashley will RSVP for them.

AFT-Oregon EC Resignation – The VP for Political Action, has resigned. We’re interested in nominating someone for the position and would need to do so by this Friday. Unfortunately the person we were thinking of is from a local that already has two members on the EC, so not eligible. We can’t actually think of a good option, so we’re going to skip this one.

Student Debt Forum – This is on October 12 in Portland. Lizz and Eric would like to go. We’ll also ask the reps if any of them are interested. We need to RSVP by next Wednesday, the 25^th.

Accountability Check-In

1. Communications: Talked with Barometer about regular column. Started fall newsletter to go out as scheduled. Reviewed a lot of literature. Updated new-member welcome letter to start sending.
2. Bargaining: Lizz says she has “done a lot of work and accomplished nothing” – which is not entirely true. We’re waiting on admin for a lot of things (bargaining, grievances).
3. Organizing: Met with Brenda. Got demographic info. Lit review done. Recruiting stewards is ongoing. Learned office visit software and introduced it at organizer training.
4. External Relations: Met with Bret from SEIU. Participated in AGEL call. Did what we could about the institutional board. Participated in “Left Bank” table at the farmers’ market. We might have missed one of the CLC meetings. Sent Lizz to CGEU. AGEL blog and workshare didn’t pan out.
5. Financial: Thomas and Angela have duly considered what they need to do to accomplish the Form 990 in a timely manner. IRS apology letter framed. Consideration of salaried position for Business Manager is ongoing [Mindy reminds the other officers that they still need to provide some input on the email she sent earlier]. Hiring of external auditor is waiting until RA bargaining is resolved. Quarterly budget review: First page looks good so far. Second page: we’ll probably go over a little bit on our swag item. We may need to increase the Information Requests line since we used most of it for RA bargaining but haven’t started re-opener yet. Ashley will come up with a rough estimate for how much AGEL hosting might cost.
6. Social: Convened the committee and they came up with a nice full calendar of events. First casual sports event has been scheduled. Welcome BBQ planning is starting. Bumper stickers created.
7. Brew-Off: Committee has been meeting and making things happen. Date and location are finalized. Brewers list is filling up. Pint glass design is almost finalized. Music is good; sound and security services will be lined up soon.
8. AFT Reform: Kevin is continuing to participate in the AFT-Oregon EC.
9. Dues Committee: Sean is developing a plan for what he’ll do once we get some data.
10. Upkeep: Email accounts all successfully transferred. Extra phone line cancelled. Quarterly accountability meeting happening now! (So meta.) Angela worked on archiving files. Ashley started getting some local member benefits lined up.

SEIU Strike Potential – Their members voted to approve a strike if negotiations do not progress. We hope they’ll be able to resolve everything at the bargaining table, so we’d like to support their actions toward that. We’d like to write up a website post (“SEIU FAQ”) that we can link to in an all-member email. Mindy will begin a draft for the EC to finalize by this time next week.

Meeting adjourned at 4:40 PM