October 5, 2010

FSU EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 10/5/10

Members Present: John Hess   Catherine Lynde   Kathy Kogan   Peggy Walsh   Xiaogang Deng

Others Present: Mickey Gallagher, MTA Consultant   Lorenzo Nencioli, FSU Membership Coordinator

Announcements

Newsletter- The newsletter is completed (all that remains is the final proof) and should be sent out by email before the end of the week. The hard copy should be sent out next week.

10/7/10 Rally­- Members of the CSU, PSU, and FSU have been planning the logistics for the 10/7 PHENOM rally.  So far, there are 40 or so confirmed attendees with more likely to come.

Elizabeth Mock Retirement Party- The planning for this event is all set and the party is set to happen on the 13th.

Contract Funding- The omnibus spending bill in the House that contains our contract funding passed (Polito, candidate for state Treasurer who had opposed the bill, was not present for the vote due to traffic).  The bill still needs to pass a Senate vote before it can be enacted.

Meeting with Provost- Catherine, CSU President Shauna Manning, and PSU President Tom Goodkind met with Ellen O’Connor, the Vice Chancellor of A and F. They indicated to Ellen O’Connor that there were problems with contract administration and that HR needed to improve upon its functionality.

Updates

Labor/Management Committees- Catherine met with the Provost and notified him that the remaining L/M committees need to be reconvened. The Phased Retirement Committee and the Research Intensive Semester Committee have finished their reports. It was suggested that the FSU find a way to publicize this work (as well as the work of the other committees when they are finished). A number of faculty members will receive money in their next paychecks resulting from the work of the 09-10 Salary Anomaly Adjustment Committee. The Distance Learning Committee needs to be reconvened. The Non Tenure Track Faculty Committee is close to finishing its report (it will create a report on best practices re NTT) but Kathy indicated that more work needs to be done on analyzing departmental constitutions. Hopefully, their report can be finished by the last week of October.

Grievance Committee- The GC is set to meet for the first time this semester on October 26th pending enough RSVP’s from GC members. Mickey Gallagher gave a summary of pending grievances. Lorenzo Nencioli summarized a meeting he had with HR staffers to address administrative matters related to improper implementation of the contract. He and Grievance Officer will be meeting with HR staffers later this month to address in detail ways in which contract administering can be improved upon with the goal of preventing grievances related to underpayment, etc.

Lecturer Caucus- Many members of the caucus are hoping that the FSU can organize orientations for NTT to better inform them of their contractual rights (see below).

ORP/SERS Class Action- 16 of the 50 or so of the effected lecturers have not yet responded with authorizations to be switched from ORP to SERS. Lorenzo Nencioli has attempted to contact the remaining 16 in person to seek authorizations. The deadline for authorizations is Friday, October 8th. After that, the FSU will bring the list of names to ORP and SERS administrators. There was also discussion of the proposed bill in the legislature that would allow ALL higher faculty to switch from ORP to SERS during a determined period of time. That bill failed to pass. It will likely be re-submitted next legislative section.

Discussion: Hiring someone to do member outreach

There was discussion of the idea of hiring an additional FSU staffer to engage in outreach work to members. This suggestion is an outgrowth of the FSU retreat from August in which soliciting member participation in union activities was deemed a priority. An additional staffer would allow the FSU to focus more time on outreach/member mobilization efforts. Catherine spoke with the FSU accountant and it was determined that the FSU could afford to hire someone on a half or one-third time basis. It was suggested that this topic be placed on the agenda for the next Ex Com meeting when,  hopefully, more members will be present.  Ex Com members are asked to think about the desirability/feasibility of this possibility.  

Discussion: Website Changes

Kathy Kogan, Mickey Gallagher, Catherine Lynde, and Lorenzo Nencioli met to discuss an upgrade to the FSU website. They decided that the MCC website contained the best visual and structural model for the FSU website while the MSP website contained the best content model. There was discussion of what content the reconfigured FSU website should have. There was also discussion of who could be hired to design the website. It was suggested that grad students in CS or design be hired to build the site. Ex Com members are asked to think about what content and/or visuals they would like the FSU website to have.

Other

MTA Phone Banking- Kathy Kogan, Catherine Lynde, and FSU member Amy Todd participated in an MTA sponsored phone banking campaign to urge MTA members to vote no on Questions 1 and 3 to vote for Deval Patrick for governor. Peggy Walsh volunteered to help at the next phone banking session. Ex Com members who are interested in phone banking should contact the FSU office.

Tabling for Question 3- Members wondered if the FSU was planning on a tabling drive for the No on Question 3 campaign. Lorenzo Nencioli will ask PHENOM and MSU (Mass Students Uniting) if they are planning such a drive. The FSU will plan its involvement in this issue accordingly.

New Faculty Orientations- There was extensive discussion of the need for the FSU to have orientation meetings for new members, particularly new NTT members. It was suggested that the FSU have one orientation for both TT and NTT on two days. At those meetings, NTT attendees will be asked if they would like a union rep to come to their department to speak with the department’s NTT members. John Hess noted that this departmental model for orientations has worked very well for the English department. It was suggested that the orientation occur near the end of the semester (future orientations will be earlier). It was decided that the orientations will occur on 12/6 at 3PM and 12/7 at 11:30AM.