Update

10 am — significant discussion about the lack of negotiating experience of the team members.

11,30 am — discussion still continues. Very contested issues. Assembly seems to be split 60/40 on the composition of the team.

Back in October at the APSCUF/PSEA Conference on Labor in Higher Education, Mike Gambone, Glenn Richardson, and I co-chaired the first meeting of the Strike and Political Task Force (initially Strike and Political were separate, but we decided to merge).

Those APSCUF members of the task force who were at Legislative Assembly met for almost two hours following the closing of Friday’s Assembly session.  I can say that our meeting was incredibly productive and our work will continue over the next several months.

Our next step will be coordinating with folks from PSEA and other higher education unions.  Here’s to the struggle!

A little update from assembly.

First, you should know that I left assembly early because of the huge snow storm that swept through our region on Friday into Saturday.  Turns out, I headed out into the worst of the first wave of snow.  I did make it home safely after almost five hours on the road.  Most of our delegation, however, stayed put.  In fact, they stayed put until Sunday because the roads were so bad they were advised not to leave the hotel where the conference was being held.

Second, there is the matter of the two resolutions I entered into new business.  I spent a good chunk of time talking with members of other delegations about these two resolutions, answering questions about the intent of the motions, and trying to make it clear that the main purpose of both motions was to jump start our mobilization in support of our upcoming negotiations.  Paul Quinn, our local president, agreed to speak to both motions and he and I reviewed our arguments on Friday and touched base again early Saturday morning by phone.

I am happy to report that BOTH MOTIONS PASSED!  Woo Hoo!

I’m hoping some of the other delegates will post their thoughts about assembly as too.  And I will try to pop in again over the next week or so as well.  I’ll be reviewing my notes for sure.  I will also make sure that Glenn Richardson’s Legislative Assembly notes get posted here.  He always puts together an  outstanding summary of what took place.

So, I hope you are all dug out and prepping for the next round of snow on Wednesday!

Today, I submitted two items for new business:

• Strike Committee Motion
  This motion asks for the APSCUF Strike Committee to begin work on planning for next year’s negotiations
• Motion to Invite Howard Bunsis to Speak at the April Assembly
  This motion asks APSCUF President, Exec Committee, and Negotiations Committee to invite Howard Bunsis to speak at the next Assembly  and for the Negotiations Committee to consider hiring him to go to all 14 campuses

I would be happy to discuss either of these motions (you can even comment on this blog!).  Both motions are slightly different than I had originally imagined.  I talked with members of several other delegations on Thursday night and changed the motions to attempt to gain a decent amount of support in Assembly.  Let’s hope they pass!

1. Health insurance to remain in place for retirement.  Need to be eligible (Article 21 or 65)
2. 30% of annual base salary up to $30,000 cash lump sum paid out
3. Alternative Retirement Plan retirees would be allowed to teach as temps after retirement
4. PASSHE claimed that about 800 faculty would be eligible and they are expecting about 20% (160) to accept

The State System sent APSCUF President Steve Hicks a letter requesting a “negotiating session” to address some of these issues.  We had a long discussion on the floor about whether or not APSCUF should enter into negotiations over this issue.  One of the problems with PASSHE’s request was that it did not indicate that the purpose was to discuss a retirement incentive.  In other words, if we accepted we could have inadvertently entered into contract negotiations.

APSCUF Executive Committee and Negotiations Committee considered several options.  Both Committees recommended the following:

• To enter into discussions with the State System over a retirement incentive package–and ONLY a retirement incentive package.  The results of the discussions would lead to a side letter.  In other words, there would be no opening up of the contract.  Secondly, APSCUF would ask for a contract extension in exchange for discussing a retirement incentive package.

There was a lengthly discussion of the proposal.  In the end, APSCUF Legislative Assembly passed the recommendation by overwhelming, though not unanimous, majority.

So, what this means in practice is that APSCUF President Steve Hicks and a lawyer, David O’Leary will meet with the State System next week or so.

This retrenchment will follow Article 29 of our contract.

The second moment was when another member of the Assembly moved to take the motion off the floor and move it to a committee.  Once again, the Assembly voted against sending the motion to a committee.  Why?  Well, as several members argued, Legislative Assembly is the policy-making body of APSCUF.  That is, the Assembly refused to give up its role in making policy decisions.  Put another way, the Assembly voted for affirming the democracy process of deliberation and decisions.  Hats off to all members of the Assembly.

One of the other highlights for me was our New Delegate Workshop.  The New Delegate Workshop was proposed by our current APSCUF VP, Amy Walters (SR), Seth Kahn (WC), and I a couple years back.  The whole idea was to have a formal way to welcome new delegates to the Assembly, provide some context for issues on the agenda, and answer questions about process and procedure.  Not only was it a fantastic workshop with 20 new delegates, our discussions led to a motion to have past Assembly minutes digitized [APSCUF/New Delegate Digital Archive Motion] and put on-line so that all members can read and understand more of the history of the Assembly’s work.  I am happy to report that the  motion just passed!

We’re just about to close out here, so I am going to cut it short.  A little bit more of the President’s report and then we’re out of here.

I think it would be fair to say that the sense of the body was that 1) given the current economic condition and the Chancellor’s request for “give backs” that there was no way we should open up the contract now; 2) there are already provisions–e.g. State Meet and Discuss and side letters–that could be used to address problems related to the State’s budget shortfalls; and, 3) any problems related to the budget should properly dealt with during the negotiations process.

That’s a little update for now.  I hope to write more later!