CGE Executive Council Meeting Minutes – August 14, 2013
In attendance: Mindy Crandall, Araby Belcher, Eric Coker, Lizz Hardardt, Thomas Morrill, Shannon Andrews; guest members Sean McGregor and Daniel Holder; Ashley Bromley, Angela McClendon
Meeting called to order at 3:00 PM
Minutes from 7-31-13 meeting – Approved
Email Decisions – (1) Approved online tax payment. (2) Shannon (and Matt Loewen) would start up the Tuesday social hour since Ashley was in a meeting. (3) Scheduled a lunch with Brenda McComb.
OSU Institutional Board – Sean is willing to be CGE’s nominee for the student position on the board! We hope he will be appointed. Ashley will follow up with David Rives to see what we can do to push for it. Sean will work with Ashley to put together a letter endorsing him and we’ll send it early next week.
Dues Committee – Sean has now been informed that he’s in charge of this committee and that he has an official August goal to “develop a process for the dues committee.” Ashley will email him soon.
CLC “Strong Voice” Update – Daniel would like to meet with Eric & Ashley soon so he can pass along his knowledge. The latest CLC meeting (in July) was rather brief because it was the first “Strong Voice” brainstorm session as well. He’ll try to get some information from the OR AFL-CIO that was presented there.
Bargaining Update – We’ve had two bargaining sessions since the last EC meeting (August 1 and August 5). Unfortunately the admin team cancelled a couple of the upcoming sessions and haven’t been able to agree on make-up dates. Currently, the next session is scheduled for next Monday, August 19 (again 1 PM here at Westm).
SEIU Barometer Article – We were emailed by a reporter from the Barometer who had a lot of questions about CGE vis-à-vis SEIU’s troubles in negotiation with OUS. Ashley, Mindy, and Lizz crafted a very thorough and careful response, which the reporter totally ignored in the article (published this morning). The EC agrees to write a letter to the editor in reply, to clarify our position.
Ron Wyden Breakfast – We have a ticket for a CGE member to attend, in Portland next Monday at 8 AM. Shannon is willing to do it – hooray!
AGEL Workshare – We still have not heard from anyone about this. Today was our deadline for making a decision about it, so now we will not be spending money on this (if it should ever happen). It’s also unclear whether the fall AGEL conference will be happening.
OR AFL-CIO Convention – This is in Bend the last weekend of September. CGE is allowed to send 4 delegates; we need to determine whether we’ll send folks. Because we won’t be spending anything on the AGEL workshare, we have funds available for this. We’ll include a call in the next all-member email as well as on the reps list.
State Fair Labor Booth – Araby will take a shift. Ashley will let AFT-OR folks know she’ll be there.
Strategic Goals Meetings – Ashley would like to meet with each goal leader to discuss making things happen. Expect an email soon for scheduling!
More on Meal Reimbursement – Last meeting, we discussed amounts for meals; now we’ll decide our policy for which meals to pay for. Because we’re generally a low-budget organization, we’ve decided to cover meals during full-day transit but not part-day transit. Ashley will draft up an official policy document about this.
CGEU Recap – Lizz learned a lot! For example, there was a cool guy from the “Iowa policy project” who talked about socioeconomic stratification and how it relates to unions, healthcare, racism, etc. There was also an update about Chicago public schools. There’s been a lot of trouble but a bunch of groups have gotten organized into action through it. There was a great talk about using media from Jim at GEO. There was also a big discussion about the future of CGEU as an organization, its affiliations, and upcoming conferences. Lizz put us forward as an interested host for a west-coast contingent conference, where some parts of CGEU are happening at McGill in Montreal (west-coasters participating via video chat) and other parts happen independently here.
Second ID from Shannon – She brought it – we’ll copy it – the bank should be happy.
Ed Ray Meeting – We’ve got it scheduled! Tuesday, September 3 at 10 AM. Currently looks like Mindy, Thomas, Shannon, and Béatrice will attend.
Brenda Meeting: Lauren’s Request – Lauren Atwell asked to come along to the lunch meeting in order to discuss an improvement to campus job listings. Mindy will reply to Lauren that she’s welcome to come along with the understanding that this is meant to be a casual, get-to-know-you meeting where we don’t have a strict agenda. Side note: Ashley just had a flash of brilliance and would like to invite Courtney Everson to the lunch.
Fall EC Meeting Schedule – We’d like to start trying to schedule these. Please send Ashley your best guesses for classes, recitations, etc, so she can start compiling.
All-Member Email – Include a call for Brew-Off brewers (now confirmed for Saturday, November 9!).
Grad School Collab – Courtney asked if we’d like to co-host a welcome picnic for new grads (and returning grads) on Monday, September 16. Yep! She also mentioned the Grad School will be putting together a big calendar for grad-focused events and we’re invited to have our big events on it. We’d like to have an “open house” in our office; we’ll aim for Friday, October 4, from around 3 to 7. Ashley will get back to Courtney.
Meeting adjourned at 4:52 PM – Don’t forget to be here again next week!