legislative assembly blizzard

Hey all,

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!

retrenchment

OK.  I was ready to shut down my computer, but APSCUF President Steve Hicks just said something that deserves to be put up here.   Simply put, Hicks said that the Chancellor is going to retrench faculty.  According to Hicks, the Chancellor has refused to say just how many faculty are going to be retrenched.  Hicks said that the  Chancellor said that all of the retrenchment will be done through temporary faculty.

This retrenchment will follow Article 29 of our contract.

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!