MW1 Members Present: Ken Harris, Ray Bailey, Dave Nash
Region 1 Reps: Luke Drake, Chuck Siragusa, Mark Dunlap
Meeting was called to order by Ken at 4:05 pm C/5:05pm E.
Mark) The Chapter suffered the loss of Dan Limpert. It is good to show PASS acknowledges the loss by sending flowers or money to a fund/charity in the members name. Mark has done this in their Chapter.
Ken) Ken found out from Mike it has to be a national non-profit type organization. If you have an email with the memorial information, send it to Mike Perone for approval. We will check with Paul Drobnik for Dan.
Mark) CHP MW1 was the only Chapter in Region 1 not to lose members during the March 2008 drops. Congratulations to MW1! The average loss is between 4-5% every year and we (PASS) did very well this year.
Luke, Mark & possibly Chuck want to visit Detroit and other nearby areas this June 2-4. Ken suggested Flint, Grand Rapids, and Lansing as possible visiting locations. Ken will confirm the locations for MI. If possible, they would like to have a Chapter meeting after hours and then dinner.
Luke, Mark and Chuck are also looking for 2-3 days of visiting in Wisconsin during September. Ray will contact Madison/Green bay/Marquette for interest.
Luke) Luke will be attending a quarterly meeting with Jo Tarrh in Chicago on May 8. This is the time to have any information about supervisors etc that needs to be discussed with Jo Tarrh. Please send any information ASAP to Luke so that he can bring it up with Jo Tarrh.
There will be PASS rep training in Chicago on June 17-19. Official time can be used to attend. The training and room costs will be paid for.
Luke) Contract update: The contract was accepted, and voted down by the membership, the FAA filed an unfair labor charge, then was dismissed on the 1st level of appeal, it then went before a Judge that ruled in our favor. And has been appealed again.
There is one member missing from the FLRA panel, due to one member stepping down. There is not much is moving forward at this point. With the election year, we don’t expect to get back to the bargaining table until the spring of ’09.
Organizing update: The National Executive Board has a new plan. We need to have an organizer as a member of the staff. A national organizer draft bid was put out November of last year. The qualified selections were not very good for the salary of that bid. The AFL-CIO said to go with another bid with a higher salary. This was done and National is waiting for responses. National is currently moving forward with organization strategy and working with the AFL-CIO. We can’t wait until the organizer is hired and then get started.
Mark) I sent an email to Ray and it was dispersed to all the MW1 REPs for talking to members/nonmembers for retaining members and recruiting new members.
Call Emily Edwards to get your name and password to get into the new www.pass-organizating.com database. This needs to contain current member contact information so that Regional/National members can contact individuals when needed.
Ken)
Rick White is the Region 1 Organization Committee Member.
Orv Brettman is the AGL Safety Committee Member
Ken Harris is the National Safety Committee Chair
Tom Granitto is the Region 1 Safety Committee Member
Rich Casey is a new Region1 Legislative Committee Member
Mark) The reauthorization bill, passed through the house and is stuck in the Senate, stalled in a couple committees. There are fixes in this Bill that can help us greatly. (contract dispute resolution) If it doesn’t move soon, it will be have to be re-introduced again next year
We need to get more members in the PAC fund. This year our goal is 150 new members, which is progressing well. Mark will send PAC info to Ken and Ray to disperse in our geographic areas.
Luke) Tom Brantley will be in front of Congress next week to testify for the flight inspector work force, AF staffing issues, MIDO manufacturing inspectors, and 6100 AF workforce members. Tom has been in front of Congress 6 times last year for AF issues alone.
PASS is working on a sign-on type letter dealing with the 6100 AF worker force issue. They are trying to get Senator Kerry to take the lead on this. Shortly, we may need the members to contact their Legislators to get support on this issue.
Mark) We need to get Chapter members to interface with their Legislatures at the State level in networking with the State AFL-CIO’s
PASS Region 1 is looking for input as to what the Chapter members want etc. to help increase activity within the Chapter.
Luke) Ensure that the PASS boards are refreshed with information, post the telcons minutes on the boards and educate the members with what PASS is doing.
Dave) We need to instill belief in the PASS members, if there is no belief in PASS, the members are not going to be there for PASS.
Luke) Rich Casey is our first line to work with us to draft a letter to send to our Legislators. Also Emily Edwards and Mark are good resources.
Dave) We need to have different approaches when we talk to non-members.
Mark) Give Luke, Mark, or Chuck a call if we need help with issues, they will contact who is necessary to get the answers.
Meeting was adjourned at 5:30E/ 6:30C
MW1 PASS Quarterly Telcon
MW1 Members Present: Ken Harris, Ray Bailey, Joe Garrity, Paul Drobnik
Meeting was called to order by Ken @ 4:10 pm C/5:10pm E.
Paul) Schools in OKC are getting into this EHOT program. Example, the MK20 school has gone from 2 weeks to 8 weeks of school and getting the OJT in OKC. This is taking away OJT training opportunities in the field. OJT pay opportunities are gone.
Ken) I helped negotiate on the contract and knew that would be an issue. This was brought up to PASS National on this EHOT deal. Ken has not heard of the results of this but thinks PASS National said that management has the right to assign work to who ever they want. And it was decided to assign that work to the academy rather than the ATSS’, that’s their prerogative. If grievances were filed and brought it up in front of an arbitrator, management is just giving work to someone else, that’s our right to do that. Will get verification/clarification of my interpretation for these minutes.
Ken) Luke, Mark, Chuck to visit Michigan, first week of June, 2nd – 4th. Land in Detroit, Muskegon, Grand Rapids, Lansing, Flint – visit/tour tower and maybe their new ASR-11. They want to do something similar in Wisconsin within the next 6 months.
I Want to make sure everyone knows who their reps are. Paul is the new rep for Green Bay, Dave Robertson became the new rep for Lansing and Grand Rapids. I want to make sure everyone knows difference between the SMO and District configuration and how it effects the PASS reps. Are there any questions on that? Anyone have any questions oh who your district rep is now that we are in the district configuration? (No questions asked)
In recent emails, 6100 technicians in the technical workforce was an issue we got in front of the senate, Senator Kerry’s initiative. We got 33 Senators to sign on. Hopefully we will get some national attention in our budget process that the senate bills and eventually the law will say the FAA technical workforce will remain 6100 and FAA management can’t change it. Please contact your senator(s). Keep the effort moving. We want the majority of the Senators to push this bill forward. It’s a Senate bill right now and the effort is to make it a Senate and House bill. If both the House and Senate approve it, and we have a majority, we can have a law that the President can’t veto. We will have a law that 6100 is the minimum staffing for the technical workforce. National believes that getting 6100 as a law voted by the Senate and then the House and with 2/3 majority and not being able to veto by the President is a lot more stronger message as a law than contract language. Send emails to your Senators for Thanks on supporting the 6100 Senator Kerry bill! Go to senate.gov and there are links to all of their web sites and find “contact me…” and send them a message.
Our official name for PASS has changed to Professional Aviation Safety Specialist.
AVN FSDO & MIDO didn’t feel they were part of the PASS organization by having Professional Airways System Specialist as a name. Over the last 3 conventions there was enough convincing and it went through and was voted by all the members.
Every member has an official email account at the PASS National website. A message was forwarded out alerting everyone of this. Another message also was sent out alerting everyone to go back in after May 19 at 2am EST and reset up your forwarding email address. This was done to clean up all the emails that were bouncing back.
Chapter issues, we have quite a bit of money. Possibility of a Brewers baseball night, Milwaukee Zoo, Wisconsin Dells, approximately $500 and event.. Also want to do something in Michigan. Send Ken our ideas.
There are annual report requirements to keep from being put into an inactive status. These things are: maintain a safety, legislative, and a membership committees, send your bylaws to PASS National, regular quarterly meetings, and send in a list of members in your Chapter. Recently Emily mailed and said National needed a copy of our bylaws. Ken is sending her a copy of our bylaws. The committees are chaired by:
Safety Robert Baker (Milwaukee)
Legislative Gil Alfario (Detroit)
Membership Ken Harris (Detroit)(acting-looking for a permanent committee
chair)
Paul) When being hired on, bosses make promises and do not keep them. This happened to another person in our SSC. People in school have also had this happened. Has this been brought up anywhere?
Ken) Yes, for a fact, an employee transferred from the Department of Energy to the FAA about 5 years ago and was promised he would get a 4% pay raise if he came to the FAA. It ended up that the person’s cost of living was part of the pay raise. The cost of living became part of the base pay and they lost their cost of living. In the Detroit area, the cost of living is approximately 21%. The cost of living was used as an offset for the promotion that was promised. A grievance was filed but now has transferred. He did get something but did not cover the full loss.
The grievance is supposed to be filed within 21 days of the occurrence. However if the district rep were to learn about it today, then the district rep can file within 21 days from today.
Paul) Same boss did the same thing to the other guy. Decisions were made on the information/promises given at the time of hire in.
Next Pass meeting is scheduled for August 20 and November 12, 4pm C/ 5pm E.
Meeting adjourned approximately 5:15pm C/ 6:15pm E.
MW1 PASS Quarterly Telcon
MW1 Members Present: Dave Robertson, Gil Alfaro, Kevin Hyder
Meeting was called to order by Ray @ 4:10pm C/5:10pm E.
Ray) The minutes of the last meeting were read. There were no questions on the minutes.
Ken Harris is in travel status from DFW and can’t make this telcon. Mark Dunlap, Chuck Siragusa and Luke Drake will join in if they have cell coverage. They are also traveling in Maine.
Ken wanted to address that there is going to be legislative rep training in Lansing on, Oct 2 & 3 2008. Ken is looking for confirmations of those that had or were volunteered for this training.
Gil) Mark Dunlap and someone from National are coming for the training. There are about 25-30 people on the list.
Ray) Ken asked me to send them personnel invite to this telcon. I did and there are about 8 or so that we don’t have email address for. Ken and I need to check on the addresses.
Ken said on October 2nd, training is from 2-7pm and October 3rd is the visitation day with their elected officials. Everyone would have to take about a day and a half of A/L for this training event.
Ken’s next item is this Labor Day parade in Pittsburgh. Ken is thinking the Chapter can pay for 3-5 people to make the event. This number depends on whether some can car pool together vs. traveling by themselves. You get 58 cents a mile. The Chapter will pay for the mileage and the room. It is on a first-come, first-served basis. We are limited by the budget. You can bring your family. Saturday would be a travel day, Sunday there is a picnic, and Monday would be the parade. Return travel would be after the parade.
Opened the telcon for discussions/questions. I will take questions and get answers from Ken if I don’t have the answer. We will put the answers in the minutes, then distribute the minutes.
Gil) This is an LMR thing, with all the message traffic that’s come out now concerning the changes in drug testing. In direct connection with Mike Derby’s letter in trying to get the language removed on disclosing ourselves physically to the testing person. This is when you are being retested after a positive test. If we have somebody in that situation of being asked to expose themselves, there wasn’t anything in the message traffic mentioning if we are to be filing grievances or what. Directions usually are given if this happens to anybody, to file a grievance and forward it up to the National Office. Ask Ken what we are supposed to do out in the filed in the mean time until they get that language removed.
Has there been anything put out on the Lansing Legislative Rep training for reimbursements? Are there any values that have been put on the event? Are we going to have to call the hotel, use my charge card, get money when we get there, are we supposed to pay for our own food, use my charge card, etc. Ken had mentioned that the hotel rooms were going to be booked and paid for by PASS. Not everyone lives in the Lansing area so others will be traveling. Questions on the MI&E type stuff.
Ray) When Ken was setting up the Legislative Rep training for Michigan, I put the word out to see if there was any interest in Wisconsin. There were no responses in Wisconsin.
Gil) Legislative Rep training question. When I did this in DC, the National Office setup the appointments for most of us. Is that what they are doing here or are we to contact our legislative district reps and set up the appointments ourselves?
Ray) When we had our training here in Milwaukee, we set them up ourselves.
Gil) Have Ken let us know if we are to make the appointments for the visits. We will need to be making them within the next couple weeks, 2-3 weeks in advance of October 3rd.
Ray) Check in your respective areas to see if there is anyone that is interested in going to the Labor Day parade in Pittsburgh. Have them contact Ken or myself. It is on a first-come, first-serve basis. We want to keep track of our funds so we don’t over extend ourselves. Also if you have any thoughts for utilizing some of our funds, please advise Ken or myself. We are still looking for opportunities in this area.
Our next telcon is November 12, 2008 at 4pm C/ 5pm E. Ken and I are working out the dates for next year’s quarterly telcons.
Meeting was adjourned at 4:33 pm C/ 5:33 pm E.
MW1 Quarterly Telecon
MW1 Members present: Mike Prieur, Randy Grant, Kevin Hyder, Ken Harris, Dave Nash, Henry Yonan, Hector Martinez, and Russell Jacques
Meeting called to order at 4:05 CST/ 5:05 EST by Ken Harris
Ken} Dave, please talk about the website-
Dave} It's up and running. I sent an email to everybody about it, but there hasn't been a lot of feedback.
Hector} seems to be pretty good
Mike} first I heard about it - will check it out
Randy} seen it, no comments
Kevin} has not seen it, will look at it and comment tonight
Russell} seen it - looks fine
Ken} not looking for negative feedback, but looking for any issues..
Ken} Looking for Volunteers for Legislative, Safety and Organizing members....National Constitution requires us to have these committees at the chapter level.
Legislation that we would like to put before congress - keep current on issues - trying to change direction of proposed bills, meeting with elected officials, direct link to officials.
Safety - any workplace issues that need to be addressed that are not being resolved through workplace process - we would work with legislative people to resolve these issues.
Organizing committee - ( membership ) organizing the interested people, discussing issues relevant to work place - tries to increase union membership
Mike} Interested in Safety will consider it...
Ken} I would like to talk about Legislative workshop..Dave & Kevin, can you give your perspective
Kevin} went into Dingle's office - was basically a meet and greet- the staffer requested information to justify the lack of #’s & examples of the impacts that makes on the NAS.
Dave} Went to Walberg's office, talked about staffing with Walberg's staffer (Boeskool) - Walberg has been voted out, so will have to start all over with new Rep.
Mike} We are having staffing issues, people retiring, people moving, as a coordinator have more technician duties thanever before.
Minutes of the last meeting were read - there were no questions on the minutes
Ken} We have had some safety issues that we need to enforce, ie, manning for safely climbing, high voltage etc. ( talked about member who fell from Comm tower.
Kevin} 12 hour notification to MOCC has been a new problem lately
Ken} You can't be malicious, but we need to show the impact and push back where we need to.
Ken} We are also looking for anyone that is interested in the Vice President position - Ray Bailey is retiring in January.
Ken} Safety committee does not get official time - EOSH does
Next telcon meeting is January 14, 2009 @ 4:00 pm Central / 5:00pm Eastern
