closing out the first assembly of the 09-10 season

Well, it’s been a pretty good Assembly.  The discussion yesterday about a provision in the by-laws to open up the contract was engaged, lively, and for the most part principled.  My favorite moments of that debate had more to do with our process than specific arguments that were made.  The first moment was when, early in the discussion, one member moved to close debate.  Under Robert’s Rules a 2/3 majority vote is required.  The 2/3 (not simple majority) is required to make sure that a slim majority cannot suppress debate.  Embedded in the 2/3 principle is the importance of open discussion and debate for any democratic organization.  I was pleased that the assembly did NOT vote to close debate.

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.

debate over opening the contract

This morning we had a long discussion about the possibility of adding a provision to our by-laws that would allow us to open up our contract outside of negotiations.  There was a pretty engaged and lively discussion of the issues involved.  In the end, the motion to add a provision to our bylaws to open up the contract failed.  And it failed pretty significantly.

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!