In attendance: Clint Mattox, Thomas Morrill, Kris Osterloh, Zhian Kamvar, Stephanie Parreira, Chris Mihiar, Vance Almquist; guest member Melanie Nichol from the B-Team; Ashley Bromley, Angela McClendon; special guest David Rives, AFT-OR President

Meeting called to order at 5:30 PM

Minutes from 1-19-2016 – Approved

Email Decisions – (1) Approved all-member email re: bargaining schedule, AFT-OR scholarships, and GMM. (2) Approved revised CGE survey. (3) Approved stewards & social list emails re: health insurance event.

Online Tax Payment – Approved Angela paying the annual FUTA tax online.

GMM – Happening THIS Thursday at 5:30 PM!

• Agenda: Welcome/Convention overview. AFT-OR resolutions. AFT-OR Convention delegate nominations and speeches. Friedrichs explanation & organizing through the loss of fair share. Breakout groups on organizing through loss of fair share. Bargaining update. Open floor.
• Food prep plan: Taco bar! Zhian & Kris will go shopping tomorrow at 2:30. Ashley will provide the shopping list. Kris will pick up beer & jockey box. Ashley, Thomas, Stephanie, and Vance will cook.
• Turnout: Vance will email the Stewards List tonight. Tomorrow Ashley will individually email members who haven’t RSVP’d yet. On Thursday we’ll send a quick all-member reminder email, specifically mentioning that we’ll have lots of delicious tacos available!

Howard Bunsis Event – Howard will be at OSU on February 24 to speak about OSU’s budget. The Alliance for a Socially Just University will be hosting him. AAUP is paying his speaking fee, but ASJU has asked CGE to be a non-financial co-sponsor (ie, have our name on the flyer). The EC approves this. Thomas will email the Stewards List for comment or approval.

Bargaining Debrief – Yesterday afternoon was our first bargaining session! We had pretty good turnout of CGE observers – around 17 or 18. Viki Dimick Jackson, Dave Blake, Sherm Bloomer, Brenda McComb, Lynda Ciuffetti, and Erin Frost are the OSU admin team. The admin team began the session with a 35-minute caucus (disappointing). Then each team presented their interests. They set the agenda for the next session (Friday, February 5) to talk all about health insurance. There was definite interest on both sides for improving the health insurance enrollment process. Melanie felt that there was a big difference in communication styles between the two teams. She came into the session expecting to talk about general interests and felt underprepared when pressed for details. Melanie is excited about turning out more observers to future sessions! Our scheduled bargaining tweeter had some difficulty connecting to the wifi so we only got one tweet out. We need to do better going forward. We’ll work on the technical difficulties and also plan to have more than one person tweeting next time. Stephanie will contact the Barometer about writing a guest column on what we’re bargaining about.

Health Insurance Event Debrief – Clint and Ashley participated in the info event last Wednesday with Pacific Source rep Solange and OSU SHS staffer Rachel. One of Clint’s colleagues was excited about the opportunity to ask questions. Ashley came up with the idea of inviting Solange and Rachel to come to the next Fall GMM about 30 minutes early to answer questions with people individually.

ASOSU Board of Trustees Update – Clint has co-written a resolution for ASOSU to endorse Charlene McGee for the vacant seat on the BOT. The President said she would veto it, but the members of the House feel it’s important to debate the issue. There was clear support from the Speaker of the House who says that student groups from some of the other universities have more input in the makeup of their BoTs. The second House reading is tomorrow; if the bill passes, it will go to the Senate.

Social Hour Debrief – January’s Thirsty Third Thursday was last week. Turnout was great! We had to push a bunch of tables together. Ashley proved that Social Hour can be popular, if she’s in charge. 😉

Misplaced FS Refund Request – One nonmember who has previously received FS refunds told Ashley that he thought he’d brought in a renewal of his objection back in Fall Term. Ashley and Angela have each looked a couple times and haven’t seen any such letter. Angela told him that she’d ask the officers if they remember getting the letter from him. The officers did not receive any such letter.

Board of Trustees Meeting – The various BOT committees are meeting this Thursday, in 4 sessions between 8 AM and 4:15 PM, in the MU Horizon Room. Same day as our GMM, unfortunately, so we don’t want to risk losing GMM attendance due to pushing for BOT attendance. Specifics are at https://leadership.oregonstate.edu/trustees/meetings. Nothing on the Thursday agendas looks particularly interesting to CGE. Then on Friday the full board is meeting at 9:30 AM. We’ll mention the Friday meeting in the welcome at the GMM.

AFT-Oregon Awards – We emailed the membership last week about the scholarship and award opportunities. Kris will nominate Thomas for the John Connor Memorial Award which “recognize[s] an individual member who exhibits the selfless, spirited enthusiasm and devotion to causes of the union which serves as an inspiration to fellow union activists.”

Ink Purchase – The EC approves reordering printer ink.

Button Back Purchase – The EC approves buying some more button backs.

Winter School Debrief – This was last weekend. CGE sent 7 people. The location of the event (Chinook Winds Casino Resort) was a pretty big negative. The air in the casino was really gross from cigarette smoke. The casino’s catering was unable to accommodate dietary needs (when we had been led to believe they would). Some of the training sessions were really good though. Kris observes that Winter School can be a good introduction for newer CGE members to other AFT-OR locals. Vance attended the session on racial justice and thinks it was really useful and informative. Ashley attended the session on dealing with difficult people and found it difficult. No one wants to continue having events at Chinook Winds Casino. Kris let us know that AFT-OR is exploring alternative locations.

AFT-Oregon Resolutions – CGE’s resolution committee is drafting 4 resolutions. Stephanie is working on one about mandating implicit bias training and conflict resolution training for public employees. She’s also working on one to have AFT lobby for the removal of the Congressional block on research into gun violence. Shannon is working on a resolution about funding an awareness campaign on public education as a public good. Clint is working on a resolution about AFT-OR’s accountability to its membership on resolutions that pass Convention.

Meeting adjourned at 7:30 PM