7/13/11 Local 404 General Membership Meeting Minutes

Present: Matt Stenger, Ann Sullivan (Recorder), Jeremy Tubbs, Jill Gorman, Connie Anderson, Jason Scrabeck, Charles Johnson, Paul Schwichtenberg, Douglas H. Kampen, Shelly Maas, Annie Thelen, Molly Kennedy, John Knobbe, Gus Grau, Nathan Herme, Jon Schoeb, Thyrone Wilking

1.Secretaries Report: June 2011 meeting minutes- Additions or Corrections? Motion to accept subject to review by Molly Kennedy second by John Knobbe then carried.
Correspondence Review
a) AFSCME Family Picnic Sunday August 14th Maplewood MN- all members invited
b) Presidents Meeting at Council 5- August 15th- A motion was made by Jeremy Tubbs to pay mileage and per diem. Second by Paul Schwichtenberg then carried.
c) C5 Exec Board Minutes May 2011
d) Appeal to Arbitration Letters (3)
e) Basic Steward Training – Brainerd Sept 15th and 16th
f) April 2011 First report of Injury Notice
g) June Per Cap and PEOPLE Report
2.Presidents Report:
a) FD M&C - Minutes will be posted- Any questions, please see Chuck Carlson or John Knobbe
b) CBHH Meeting – Cancelled due to Shutdown
c) Forensic Division Joint Labor Management- Cancelled due to shutdown
d) MSOP Meet & Confer – Any questions please see Molly Kennedy
e) Council 5 Presidents Meeting June 24th – Centered on shutdown planning and political action on the shutdown. John Knobbe and Chuck were in attendance.
3. Old Business:
1. The Kitchen- AFSCME Local 404 staffed “The Kitchen”- The free community meal- on June 27, 2011. A thank you is due to Jill Gatzke and the following members: Pat Vandenberg, Ann Sullivan, Kelly Woelpern, Molly Kennedy and Ben, Jill Gorman, Mary Wolfe, Lynn Whipple, Randy Glaser and Muggs and Tersia Gondreau. AFSCME will be volunteering at least 2 more times this year. Dates will be announced.

2. Parades – Local 404 had an entry in the St Peter and Nicollet parades over the Four of July weekend. Thank you to Michelle Rodning, Chad Cabanilla, and Molly Kennedy and all the members that volunteered their time for preparation of the float and attending the parade. A special thank you goes to Lagers Motors of St Peter for providing the tow vehicle for the second year.
3. Rallies at the Capital June 27th and July 6th – The June rally was attended by 404 members as well as the July 6th event.

4. New Business
1. State shut down - started July 1st- impact on the Local MMB has refused to release a list of affected members to the Local unions or Council 5 as of July 13th. Management has taken the shutdown as license to ignore the contract and contract rights of employees. We can expect numerous individual as well as class action grievances will have to be processed after the shutdown ends. Members are encouraged to check bereadymn.com and the AFSCME Council 5 website daily for updates.
5. Items from the membership- There was layoff discussion and discussion about on call pay for those still working. Laid off AFSCME members Paul S., Shelly, Thyrone, and Doug were present at this meeting.
Social Committee – A card was sent around that will be sent to Scott Grefe whose sister passed away earlier this week. Our condolences go out to Scott.
Officers Reports:
VP-John Knobbe: “This has been an unusual month. Most of the focus has been on layoff and recall. Our local has participated in 3 different rallies @ the capital which helps show solidarity. We continue to gather info about the mistakes made in the layoffs and when we are all back to work we’ll file the grievances in mass. If people have specific issues keep everyone informed.
In Solidarity,
W. John Knobbe”
VP- Molly Kennedy “In MSOP we are currently working on things with the government shutdown. We had a small group of SC take salary saving leave and central office HR said that it would have to be time without pay. We are going to file a grievance on those people who were unable to keep their accruals. If your time book indicates ETL and not LSS then contact Jeremy Tubbs and say how many hours you took ETL. We will be having MSOP meet and confer on July 21st. Please see www.union404.com for meeting minutes. Also I sent out the schedule for the meetings for the rest of the year so there will no longer be a mass e-mail notification. Our meetings are the second Thursday of the month and they are a 4:30pm, 4:30pm, 10:30pm rotation.
In Solidarity,
Molly Kennedy”

Treasurer-Connie Anderson:
STATEMENT OF INCOME AND EXPENSES FOR MONTH ENDING June, 2011
CASH BALANCE BEGINNING OF MONTH: $ 44600.26
INCOME FOR THE MONTH: $ 5135.30
EXPENSES FOR THE MONTH: $ 3887.88
CASH BALANCE ENDING OF MONTH: $ 45847.68
SUBMITTED BY: _______CONNIE ANDERSON_____ on _July 14__, 2011__
Accepted subject to audit motion by John Knobbe second by Nathan Herme then carried.
CS MSH/Transition: John Collins: Nothing new to report.
CS-AMH/CARE: Kevin Graves: Nothing new to report.
CS- NOCs/CRP: Jeremy Tubbs: “Chief Steward Report
MSOP- Over the last month we have filed and presented five step 3 grievances. I am happy to report that all five were approved and settled! The State Shutdown has been the main topic over the last month. We have many AFSCME members still out on lay off. We only have three that are still out in MSOP. We had more but the Managers were able to come back because the MSOP fund is helping to fund their salaries, whatever that is. No mind has been paid to the AFCME members that are still out at this time.
There have been many issues that have been handled without grievance through continued dialogue with HR and management. Some of these were temp. Reassignments being done outside of seniority and irregular nocs bump letters to employees.
One big issue that comes to mind that is a result of this shutdown is leave time. Since the shutdown all vacation requests are being denied, that includes SNV to. At first management approved legislative leave (Leave without pay but does not affect accruals). They pulled back on this and stated, “It looks bad” to have employees with jobs not working when they can. We countered with it, looks bad to not allow people to have some time off from a stressful environment, they did not agree. After they began to deny AFSCME members time off, members began to notice that managers were able to use “flex time” to get time off. This was brought to management’s attention and they countered that they deserve it due to the hours they put in.
If you notice that management is violating the contract, please contact a steward so it can be addressed. Also, I would like to thanks all stewards for their hard work on grievances and issues that arise.
CS – Facilities and Forensic Nursing Home: Jill Gorman: “Not much to report as most of my area has been laid off”
CS – MSOP: Matt Stenger: Nothing new to report.

EB-Anne Mehltretter: “I have just sat multiple tardy/ forgotten badge disciplines over the last month. Nothing else.
EB-Charles Johnson: Conducted a pre-grievance investigation for overtime distribution in which management provided a list for overtime sign up and the members called. It was helpful to see that this list is accessible as I have had limited experience in this area since schedule anywhere’s inception. The end result is for members to remember to list a phone number when signing up for overtime. On 6-13-11 I attended a Webinar titled “Building on treatment community with in a secure environment” I found the material to be insightful and informative.
On 6-20-11 I sat an investigation and have yet to hear any follow up.
Charles Johnson
.EB- Eric Ridout: “The only thing I have to report is I did some investigations for the north shop staff. Oh yeah and that I am awesome and people should be more like me.”
Good and Welfare: Jesse Miller, Matt Uecker, Tom Eustice, Mike Keech, Lori Nielsen, Kara Lehman, and Sarah Kerich
CLU delegate report- Jill Gorman attended- see her with any questions.
Council 5 Field Representative Scott Grefe- Absent
Message to Members: “We want to work, Support our Governor!”

Door Prize Winners- Everybody Wins!

Progressive Drawing- Sept 2011
Meeting adjourned at 5:14pm