ALL UNION MEMBERSHIP MEETING IN REVIEW- 10/11/11

Good afternoon,

       At lunchtime today, over 200 union members from all the unions were represented at the membership meeting (proud to say the majority were USA) and here is a review of that meeting for those who could not attend:

• We have two issues here- one is that other state workers received a contract extension and two-we feel we have met the contractual triggers stating that if the state revenues meet or exceed 19.95 billion dollars in FY11 we will receive some back one time pay. The Department of Revenue states we had 20.50 billion in FY 11 and the Legislature just put 300 million in the rainy day fund.
• We prefer the contract extension offer as this would add the monies to our base salaries as opposed to the triggers which would give us one time retro pay not on our base.
• UMass staff and faculty have the right to consider a contract offer that over 30,000 other state workers were offered and approved early this year.  The offer would extend our contract through 2014, giving us 3% increases in each of the next three years.
• UMass is responding to the revenue triggers by saying that the language in the contract states that revenue increases shall not include revenues from additional taxes that are implemented as part of the effort to balance the budget.  They feel that the increase in the income tax that happened in 2009 is part of this, even though we signed the contract in 2010. We feel logically this would mean anything that was implemented after the date we signed.
• No other state union has had the burden of proof of the origin of the state revenues.
• Governor Deval Patrick has directed UMass and the state and community colleges to present this offer to the unions (and has said that they will not fund it).
• The UMass President refuses to comply.  Not only do they refuse to comply but after a letter was sent asking for a meeting with all unions, we were told that he would only meet with the faculty.  We responded that we were all showing up. We did and the staff was denied access by the building security.  Representatives from PSU, USA, CSU, and the VP of MTA, Tim Sullivan, were forced to remain in the lobby.  A representative from the President's Office, Mark Preble, came down and spoke to us briefly and said the President misunderstood who the meeting was supposed to be with.  Believe me, there was NO misunderstanding.  The faculty that went to the meeting let the President know that his elitist ways would not work here at UMass.  He has offered to meet with all of us on October 27th. 
• Mark Preble and David Gray from the President's Office have agreed to meet with us on October 21, 2011 to discuss the new contract proposal, but were quick to add that they did not wish to put this on the table because the Governor is not of the mind to fund this.  So we have some work to do and the following resolution was made and passed unanimously at the all-union meeting:

              UMass Labor demands that the UMass President's office and the UMass Board of Trustees extend to UMass workers a contract offer comparable to that provided other Ma state employees. 

     The next Resolution made and passed unanimously was:

UMass Labor will engage in actions required to achieve Resolution 1.

We then talked a bit about how this could be accomplished and the first thing we did was to distribute pen and paper to everyone at the meeting and asked everyone to write a letter to President Caret using these talking points:

• we expect to be offered what other unions have been offered.
• we expect to be treated fairly.
• we always make sure our contract is enforced and we would rather work than fight, but we will fight if we have to.

So now I ask those of you that were not at the meeting to write your own letter and send a copy of that letter to me at the USA office.  You can mail your original letter to:

           President Robert Caret

           225 Franklin Street 33rd Floor

           Boston, Ma.  02110

 In the upcoming days and weeks I will be back to you about additional actions we will be taking- including the following:

• Legal actions/grievances
• meetings with the President and his rep's
• actions at the Chancellor Search Committee meetings
• actions with the Governor
• actions with the Legislature
• getting more membership involved
• doing email campaigns
• having call in days
• media campaigns
• coffee breaks and lunch stand outs

These actions are just to name a few. If you have any good suggestions send them to me and I will pass them along to the coalition but please note that we will expect your participation in making these things happen.  If you have any questions or concerns feel free to contact me directly at djohnson@english.umass.edu .  I hope to see you at the next action event.  Thanks to all of you that came out today and as I stated in today's meeting, this, my friends, is the fight we have to fight and we have to do it together because United we stand, Divided we fall, all of us.

PHOTO GALLERY

In solidarity,

Donna Johnson

President USA

413-545-4862