In attendance: Thomas Morrill, Shannon Andrews, Kris Osterloh, Alisha Jones, Drew Hatlen, Gloria Ambrowiak; special guest Lizz Hardardt; Ashley Bromley, Angela McClendon
Meeting called to order at 10:00 AM
Minutes from 10-22-2014 Meeting – Approved
Email Decisions – (1) Approved Brew-Off shirt order. (2) Approved final laptop order. (3) Approved giving GMM childcare subsidy to a non-member (we ended up voiding this check because they didn’t come; we think they were unsure of what they were requesting).
GMM Debrief – The food was delicious! Turnout was pretty good (we counted about 115). A lot of people left when we got to the small group discussion portion. We’d like to get them to stay! One option is to start with the small groups immediately after food, which seems totally doable for this year. Another option that would require more consideration is to have more than one GMM per term, so each one can be kept short. There were negative reactions to David Rives’s political speechifying; we had specifically asked him to only present 2 minutes of introductions, but he talked quite a lot more. Sherm Bloomer came to talk about tuition remission issues and that was very useful. (Our brothers and sisters attending from GTFF were impressed that we have some helpful administrators here.) We purchased a bit too much beer, so we’ll make a note to get less next time (the cider all got finished!).
Social Hour Debrief – Thomas hosted this on Saturday, and three other people came.
CEOA S Meeting Debrief– Esteban, Daniel, and Ashley had a pizza lunch meeting/orientation make-up with the grads from CEOAS. About 15-20 people attended. Ashley felt it went quite well, and it was good for Esteban in developing as a steward. The grads brought up several issues related to international students, especially a SEVIS fee, which is mandated to pay for ICE monitoring students and exchange visitors. Some other grad unions have bargained for remission of this fee.
Gelser Canvassing – Ashley and Kevin volunteered for this on Saturday. It wasn’t too bad. 4 hours was a long time, but they did get lunch afterward. There were a lot of SEIU members there.
CLC Meeting – Alisha attended this last Wednesday. They talked about some budget things and their sponsorship of a Thanksgiving “turkey run” food assistance donation. There’s a labor law conference in Portland in January and the CLC would like to send Alisha. Thomas is interested in attending as well. (Registration deadline is in December.)
AFT-OR Conversation with Lizz – (1) The communications coordinator position has now been filled. The new hire’s name is Justin and he’s from Washington. Ashley heard that his first assignment will be to cover the Brew-Off. Lizz suggests that Justin would be a great person for CGE to contact with feedback about getting earlier notification of AFT-OR meetings and events. (2) Lizz thinks our request to AFT-OR for some sponsorship of the Brew-Off is a great idea and likely to be supported.
AFT-OR Presidents Conference – Shannon and Kris will be there, and we have a 3rd place open because Drew is now unable to go. Gloria will go instead – yay! AFT-OR really wanted staff to attend this year, so Ashley will be there as well. AFT-OR got us several rooms, so Ashley encourages as many officers to come participate as would like.
Ed Ray Meeting – This is scheduled for 10 AM on Monday, November 10th. Shannon, Kris, Drew, and Thomas will attend. Agenda: Kris will come up with some talking points for asbestos tiles. Thomas will collect some information about a request he received for CGE help on environmental issues. We will bring up the issue of grads being classified as “fellows” when they’re doing the same work as GTAs or GRAs and should be in the BU. We need to talk about all the problems in implementing the new contract terms and the health insurance updates. Ashley will circulate an agenda in email.
Contract Roll-Out Issues – The GTAs in Anthropology have finally been paid and/or FTE-adjusted correctly. We’ve been told that today is the day everything with fees will be fixed. Shannon will check her account to see if it’s been updated and send a screenshot to Ashley for reference.
Tuition Equality Initiative – We were contacted by a grad here about supporting “the proposed OUS Graduate Tuition Equality Initiative- a means by which fully-enrolled graduate students in Oregon have the opportunity to obtain state residency during the duration of their degrees.” This is directly impactful on our members. We’ll put this on our list of potential AFT-OR resolutions.
Social Hour – Ashley will be anchoring this next Wednesday, the 5th.
Trivia Night – This is next Thursday, the 6th! Gloria will advertise tomorrow. Ashley will send a reminder next Wednesday. We’ll take some leftover snacks and sodas. Shannon and Gloria are both working on questions.
Meeting adjourned at 11:20 AM