Today was the big day for seminars. I had attended the State Officer's Seminar (it's open to delegates provided they have room) and the legislative seminar.
First off was the State Officer's seminar. Very informative. So if this ends up being a bit long to read, I apologize right now.
Boosters- The National Board will try to assign a National Officer to the fall boosters. The Board has decided to send no National officer to a Booster between Jan 1 - Aug 31. Reason being that with all the area conferences starting in Jan and all the State Conventions starting in April, it gets difficult to get National Officers to boosters since there are only 9 people to cover the entire Nation.
Latch key/Nursery- National does not recommended that Latch Key/Nursery be set up for Conventions due to liability issues. However, the final decision on the Latch Key/Nursery is up to the state hosting the meeting.
In the realm of Labor Relations:
They received a pre-Arb settlement on when the 14 day clock starts on Discipline Grievances. This agreement can also be used on some contractual grievances as well. Should be on the website after they get back to Alexandria.
Buffer MOU- This has to do with areas that are going to be introduced to FSS. (Note: We've read it already but Randy very briefly talked about it, so brief that it took all of 2 sec to talk about it)
CDS Step 4- denied, appealed to Arbitration
There was a grievance out of Min that had to do with a DPS revue and was not done correctly. This Grievance went to step 4 and was sustained. Said carrier will now get 6 hours added to their route dating back from June 2007 through April 26, 2008.
Count Grievance is still at step 4. They are going through all the information from the field as well as a bunch of info from the PO.
They are in the process of filling the vacancies on the area arbitration panels, so far this has been a smooth transition. There are 6 panels. 4 are complete, 2 still need one more person on it.
Director Of Steward Operations:
Task Force I is looking at and updating local steward Certification and enhancement training. They are also helping to put together a combined analysis for the new contract.
Also, they are still working on the steward database. The grievance portion is complete, they are working on the rest of the database.
National will no longer be rubber stamping State and Assistant State steward Certification. They now have to go to a 2 day training and pass a test to get certified. To date, 98 people have gone through the training.
National Steward System- They have appointed a committee to look into a National Steward System.
National Website- They do not have a person who is assigned to work on the website for 4 to 8 hours per day. Also, The website was more for the steward reference guide than anything else. The what's new page was for stories that National thought that everybody should be aware of. (Note: please don't blast me on this, I'm just the messenger)
Finance Committee- they are proposing 2 Constitution changes this year:
1. They are looking to change the number of national paid delegates. As of right now, each state gets 1 National paid delegate for every 800 members. They want to change that for 1 for every 1000 members. Reason for the change, more National paid delegates than there are committee assignments.
2. Biennial Convention- Yep it's back, but now the push is on the cost savings to the states. On average, the states pay $43,000 for state and National Convention (holding a state Convention and sending delegates to national)
Michael Gan:
DPS reviews- Let me say this, what you are about to read is a brief overview. He will go more into detail when he gives his report on Wed. As we all know, the PO changed the language in the PO603 concerning DPS reviews. Not only was this appealed to Arbitration but also an unfair labor practice charges was filed.
The charges covered 2 areas. The 3 sections having to do with unilateral action and one on discrimination due to union action. Now in cases like these, the NRLB usually will end up deferring to our Arbitration process. Gan has stated that he does not want that to happen. He wants to have it tried through the NRLB system. There looks like there will be some activity on this next week with an agenda meeting scheduled at the end of Aug.
Also, there is in the works an Affiliation agreement with the National Auxiliary. This is an agreement that would define that they are separate organizations and yet they support each other financially. This will reduce liability to the union.
The IRS Reformed the Form 990. They are looking for enhanced Financial transparency and good corporate governance policies.
Now onto the Legislative Seminar:
Fuel tax- They are looking into putting together a bill to exempt rural carriers who drive POV's from state gas taxes. Also, there is a letter written by Rep Filner to PMG Potter asking him to raise our EMA. To date, only 20 people have signed the letter. Write your Congressman to get them to also sign this letter.
CDS- The GAO has released it's report on contracting out services from the PO on July 24, 2008. The results are unknown if it will save the PO money by outsourcing because the PO can not track that data. Now in the recommendations, the GAO asked the PO to track those costs and report it out in it's annual operations report to congress. The PO agreed to track the costs, but they refused to have it included in their annual operations report to congress.
Do not mail lists: so far, every state that put a do not mail list on their legislative agenda has failed. For info on this, you can go to www.mailmovesamerica.org
Kingston Amendment- As we all know, the Kingston amendment is the amendment that orders the PO to do a study on 5 day delivery for fuel savings and other cost savings. The senate passed a bill that did not have this amendment attached to it. It is in conference. If this language survives the conference process, it is likely to be killed in the senate via a filibuster.
FERS sick leave- This originally was a bill put together by Rep Moran. The original bill has been killed. However, it is attached to HR 1108. This Bill would put tobacco under the control of the FDA. What the new language entails is that FERS sick leave gets handled like CSRS. In other words, the remaining sick leave balance you have after you retire will be tacked onto your annuity. This may get vetoed by the white house due to the tobacco issue.
USO/Postal Monopoly- PRC will have it's study done by Dec of this year.
Tomorrow will be the start of the business sessions. Let the beatings commence
80% of success is just showing up - Woody Allen
