In attendance: Gloria Ambrowiak, Shannon Andrews, Kris Osterloh, Béatrice Moissinac, Thomas Morrill; guest members Chris Mihiar, Kevin Weitemier; Ashley Bromley, Angela McClendon
Meeting called to order at 6:04 PM
Minutes from 3-10-2015 Meeting – Approved
Email Decisions – Approved email response about fair share refund request deadline.
AFT Higher Ed/AGEL Debrief – Chris, Kris, Kevin, and Ashley went to the conference last weekend in Orlando. Ashley tells us there were 700 attendees, about 30-40 of them from grad locals. Otherwise it was mostly adjuncts/faculty with a “sprinkling” of paraeducators/advisors/etc. Kevin was pleased to learn that CGE’s situation is actually pretty good compared to many other grad locals. There were several folks attending from grad locals who hadn’t come to AGEL before (like Kansas and Rutgers). We proposed hosting Fall AGEL, but so did Rutgers – competition! Chris would like to lead a CGE committee to lobby for getting Fall AGEL back in Oregon. Kris came back motivated to educate people about the good that unions do and would like to create an info sheet about historical and current achievements of the labor movement. Another key thing he learned was about the importance of pre-empting potential negative legislation by having a plan to put out positive information first.
Strike Procedure Committee Meeting – They met yesterday to finalize an amendment proposal to the CGE Bylaws related to the process of calling for a strike authorization vote. The EC approves submitting this for approval by the membership at the April GMM.
Alliance for a Socially Just University – This is sort of a follow-up to the Teach-In from February. The idea is for the groups who participated in that (AAUP, SEIU, ASAP!, MEChA, CGE) to form a coalition that would jointly host regular teach-in style events, maybe once a term, and just generally work together. The EC agrees this is a good idea and CGE will continue to participate. Kevin suggests that having this group of allies could be helpful to CGE in advocating for a grad seat on the OSU Board of Trustees.
Fair Share Challenge – Ashley will contact Tedesco’s office and respond to the challenger to say CGE has begun the process for having an arbitration. Angela will calculate the amount “reasonably in dispute” in this challenge that must be retained in the “escrow-like” Fair Share Money Market account
Board of Trustees Meeting – We’ve heard that CLA (among other colleges) has been handed a big budget cut for next year that drastically affects grad programs due to tuition-waiver losses and grads only being supported for portions of their programs. We keep hearing reassuring things from Sherm Bloomer and DOOOOM things from department heads. We’ve been told those budgets aren’t final (true) and the college and dept leadership are reacting prematurely, but no one is receiving accurate information to react to appropriately. There’s a Board of Trustees meeting tomorrow (committees) and Thursday (full board) where the overall budgets will be finalized and approved. We’d like to bring some stewards to talk to the board during the public comment period (Thursday afternoon). Shannon, Thomas, and Kris will come in CGE t-shirts. Ashley will keep working on the stewards about it.
College of Science Appointments – An issue came up through the Math department yesterday where no one had been assigned their classes to teach next term (grads or faculty). Thomas says the assignments were made this morning. The department head says it was because Math as well as Physics and Chemistry are being asked by the College leadership to cut their budgets going forward – even though we keep being told those budgets aren’t final. Thomas is in communication with other College of Science stewards to get more info. It’s something CGE/Thomas will keep an eye on.
SEIU Rally Friday – This is happening around noon this Thursday at the MU steps. Ashley shared it on the CGE fb group. Kris will post about it on the Social List.
Shirt Sponsorship – We were contacted by a company that makes shirts for high schools and gets local businesses and organizations to buy advertising on the backs (the schools then get them for free). The EC agrees that this is not something CGE is interested in spending money on.
Membership Goals – Ashley has learned that GTFF has 64% membership. CGE’s membership is currently around 61%. Béatrice and Ashley are both highly motivated by competition and would like to beat GTFF this year! They have developed a couple great membership drive ideas: (1) Having some volunteers hand-address letters to non-members who aren’t usually reached during office visits. We’ll ask the stewards to identify 100 non-members who haven’t been reached. Then we’d like to send the letters by the end of Week 1; we’ll plan to have the writing party on Thursday, April 2. The EC agrees that getting a little bit of food for the writing volunteers is a good idea and that it could come from the “Caucus and Committee Meetings” budget line, because it would be related to the Organizing Committee. (2) Having a “CGE Field Day” with prizes for athletic or “scientific” competitions and some kind of prize or recognition for teams that bring in the most new blue cards. The EC agrees this sounds fun. We’ll work on the details later.
Convention – Ashley has put together a “Percaps Primer” for our delegate meeting on April 6. The officers will read it and make comments over the email list.
Spring Break Meeting – We will meet next Tuesday, March 24 – moved forward to begin at 5:15 PM.
Steward Council Meeting – The first Spring Term meeting is Monday, March 30. Since we are meeting next week, we can postpone talking about this until then. Béatrice will send a quick email to the reps list this week reminding them of the date and time.
Spring EC Schedule – Officers will (pretty please) get their spring term schedules to Ashley ASAP.
“The Hunting Ground” Movie – Ashley will be meeting with some other people over the next couple weeks to coordinate hosting this.
Meeting ended at 7:22 PM