In attendance: Kris Osterloh, Vance Almquist, Stephanie Parreira, Thomas Morrill, and Clint Mattox; database consultants Sean McGregor and Béatrice Moissinac; Ashley Bromley, Angela McClendon, and Rodolfo Palma

Meeting called to order at 9 AM

Minutes from 7-21-2015 Meeting – Approved.

Email Decisions – (1) Thomas will represent CGE in a video OSU HR is creating “that will highlight why we work at OSU.” (2) We passed on having a meeting last Tuesday with (last year’s audit CPA) Larry Byers. (3) We transferred $51K from the checking account to the money market account so it can earn interest.

Database Options

1. Update from AFT-Oregon – Janella came down last week to talk with Sean, Béatrice, Clint, Thomas, Ashley, and Angela about the database that AFT-OR has commissioned. We asked her about allowing members to opt out of mailings from AFT-OR and/or AFT, since those are one of our main concerns about putting our member/BU data in their system. It’s highly unlikely that this kind of information sharing could be opted out of. Another significant problem is that their database won’t be ready in time for our fall term membership drive. The EC does not want to use AFT-OR’s database for our organizing platform. Ashley will communicate this to Janella, and Kris will go to AFT-OR’s planning meeting with the database people next week.
2. Introduction to Knack – Ashley has put together a sample database using Knack, the subscription database platform that we’re considering. There are three different subscription levels we can choose from; Ashley thinks the “starter” level will be sufficient for CGE’s needs for now. It’s $39/month, but we get 2 months free if we pay for a full year at once, so it will be $390. The EC likes the Knack sample Ashley created and approves Ashley buying the subscription.

Rodolfo joins us!

CGE Facebook Group Community Rules – One of our members flagged a couple of posts on our FB group from someone who doesn’t readily appear to be part of the CGE community. For now, we won’t take any actions, as the posts did not detract from civil discourse.

Auditor Selection Update – Ashley got in touch with Glenn from GTFF about their recent audit. They will be moving away from using Byers. Janella said Lauka Associates are good, thorough, but pricy. Dave Cecil at UAUO recommended another CPA firm (Jones & Roth, in Eugene). Ashley has provided some documents to and requested estimates from Teresa from Lauka and Fritz from Jones & Roth. We’re waiting on responses and then the EC will decide.

HR Meeting Debrief – Last Tuesday, Thomas and Ashley met with Dave and Viki from OSU HR. They talked about the paid sick leave. The state legislation says unused sick leave must roll over unless the employer & employees specifically agree to provide the option to cash out unused hours. [CGE’s impact B-Team is finalizing a member survey about sick leave to go out soon!] They also talked about a potential grievance where we’ve been requesting deadline extensions due to the member’s concern about retaliation; their defense has been pushed back a little anyway, and it looks now like they’ll just have a conversation with HR about the issue – to prevent it happening to future grads in their position – rather than making a formal grievance.

Organizing Task Force Call Debrief – Stephanie participated in this call on Thursday, July 23^rd. They talked about what everyone will be doing to increase membership in the event of losing fair share. They want to have a meeting in August that Stephanie will not be able to attend. There will probably be a big organizing push (which is what CGE is frequently doing anyway) across all the AFT-OR locals.

AGEL Call – The next call is this Thursday the 6^th, at 6 PM. We’d like to have a few people on the call since they’ll probably be talking about Fall AGEL. Specifically we hope Chris M can participate (Ashley will email him).

CLC Meeting – The next meeting is Wednesday, August 19^th. Clint will be unavailable but Stephanie thinks she can go. Ashley will remind us again closer to the date.

Ed Ray Meeting – We’ve been offered September 4^th at 1 PM. Clint will reply in the affirmative. Topics for conversation: Kris brings up some safety issues. [This reminds us that Stephany Chacon is currently our delegate on OSU’s safety committee, but she won’t be available to attend the meetings this coming fall. We’ll need to find someone else; Ashley suggests Laura Syron from Public Health.] At our next EC meeting, we’ll finalize our agenda for the Ed Ray meeting.

Orientations – We’ve started getting schedule information. Summer really is almost done! L

1. Public Policy – We’ve been asked to have a separate orientation meeting just for GTAs rather than attending the all-grad student meeting, because of the “confusion” that comes up when grads not on assistantship hear about what benefits grad assistants have. We’ll confirm with program director Brent Steel that we need to speak with GRAs as well, and given that, it will be fine. Angela will email Brent.
2. Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies – The program coordinator suggested we could speak at the SLCS’s school-wide orientation instead for efficiency. In general, we prefer to speak with smaller groups, because it makes it easier to have time to answer questions. If there is a program-specific orientation, we’d like to keep that one. Angela will request that specifically for WGSS.
3. Vet Clinical Sciences – The people called “grad assistants” in the vet college are quite a lot different from those elsewhere at OSU. The college doesn’t hold an orientation for grad students. We’ll ask if we can set up a meeting like last year’s, where they reserved a room for us and invited their grad students to come for an informational meeting with CGE. Clint is willing to sit there with Ashley for a while.

Policies & Procedures Handbook Update – Ashley has flagged a few sections where the language doesn’t really match what we’ve been doing. The EC approves updates to better reflect what we do. In the next day or two, Angela will revisit some of the financial stuff to update things that have changed since last summer. Then we’ll be done!

T-Shirt Design Competition – The all-member email announcement went out last Thursday. We have not yet received any submissions, although Thomas has a design just about ready. Stephanie will also post about the contest on the FB group.

AGEL Hosting Update – We’ll (pretty certainly) be hosting Fall AGEL from October 29 – November 1. Ashley has started working with folks from ASAP! to reserve rooms on campus for the Saturday workshops.

All-Member Emails – Things we need to announce: Brew-Off, change to insurance rates, impact bargaining survey, full bargaining team recruitment. The insurance premium decrease doesn’t seem urgent. Ashley has already drafted a Brew-Off email; she’ll send it over the EC list for approval. Thomas will draft an email about the two bargaining updates.

2 Towns Cider Kegs – We still have a couple of corny kegs from 2 Towns that have been sitting at Kris’s house since June. Oops! Ashley will make sure they get returned this week.

Grad School Admin Meeting – We need to follow up on our request for an introductions meeting. Kris will respond to say he’ll be available in mid-September and ask for a meeting then.

Online Tax Payment – The EC approves Angela paying our July federal payroll tax online.

Hours Tracking – Rodolfo strongly encourages grad employees to track their work hours. This is relevant to several things, like the paid sick leave changes (time off is accrued based on time worked), potential minimum wage increases, and just general contract enforcement.

Project Labor – Rodolfo expects that David Rives will be talking with us soon about the importance of having unionized labor on OSU construction projects.

Meeting adjourned at 11:20 AM. Next meeting will be Thursday, August 27^th, at 5:30 PM.