More updates from James/mailmanjp

[Postaltexan]

All of these posts are copied from another board with JP's permission

Tuesday

I will skip over all the ritual and ceremony and get to what I consider the highlight of the day: the budget report from Clifford Dailing. After turning a profit the previous 4 years, we lost almost $1 million last year. We spent almost $1.9 million on the national convention in Lexington, KY. The finance committee recommended that instead of a dues increase, we pass biennial conventions. Opponents of this will no doubt come up with a dues increase. (I suspect there was much discussion of this in the bars last night.) I am hoping that we finally pass biennial conventions. I believe it is wrong to raise dues on the membership when they have been hit hard on the last 2 counts just so we can line the pockets of 1% of us. Hopefully the red ink will switch the votes to get the needed 2/3 to pass it.


I should have included this in the initial thread. Everyone reading this needs is encouraged to write their Congressmen AT THEIR HOME OFFICE, NOT THEIR WASHINGTON ADDRESS, and ask them to either amend S1507 to remove the "arbitrator amendment" (the one that says the arbitrator must take the PO's financial position into consideration on any arbitration award) or vote it down. I know how to contact my home state of Virginia's Senators, I encourage everyone to get in touch with someone who knows their home addresses for your state. The reason that you are discouraged from contacting them at their DC address are 1) the mail is run through a machine and pretty much destroyed thanks to the anthrax scare and 2) they are more likely to read mail and listen to us when they are outside the beltway.

[Postaltexan]

All of these posts are copied from another board with JP's permission

Wednesday Morning


I decided to split today in 2 parts because it was a long day. The big events this morning were speeches by PMG Potter and our legal counsel, Michael Gan.

Potter showed guts, I'll give him that much. He showed up in person instead of teleconferencing and took some tough questions from the audience. I still don't like him, but I'll be fair about that. He applauded us for the hard work we do, talked about ideas for growth, downsizing, and change, then told us why he still favors 5 day delivery. We booed him, he persisted. What he DIDN'T talk about were the time standards for FSS, his 39% pay raise, or the things we do for free. After his speech, Cantriel got up and said that they would be talking more next week about the things carriers brought up in their Q and A. Potter also said that he prefers rebuilding routes back up and is more focused on the employees that we have now rather than the number we may have down the road. Questions were raised about local management incompetence, opposition to 5 day delivery, the possibility of delivering on the 5 Monday holidays that only banks and gov't bldngs close among others. I still want him out the door, and the delegates didn't change his mind on 5 day delivery, but he at least took the initiative to talk to us and listen.

Gan's speech was also interesting. He reported to us that we are on average 5 hours under our evaluation nationwide, compared to 3 when we got killed on the Wells award. He called on the PO to not mess with the evaluated system and save it so that we won't need to go hourly, but if we lose the DPS review or get a fair time standard for FSS flats then we will need to go hourly.  Whereas in good times it's the carriers anxious for the next count, it's now the PO who is anxious for the next mail count. The goal for the NRLCA is that 80% of our routes be under evaluation, while the PO wants 50/50 with no incentive. The PO wants an FSS time standard of 69 per minute, we are prepared to prove our request for 17 per minute. Gan asked everyone to remember that our pay is based on the PO 603 and not the contract, which is why the DPS review grievance is such a big deal. He refuted Potter's claims about 5 day delivery, stating that will cause customers to leave for competitors and never come back, and that subs would be gone to.

You guys can decide what you think, but that's what they said.


Wednesday Afternoon

We finally got down to business after lunch. Although in my opinion we didn't do right by the people who elected us. Biennial conventions failed, although it was at least close enough to the needed 2/3 for Cantriel to ask for a second, standing vote on it. My guess is on Friday we will vote on a dues increase.

Also failing to pass: (these are my numbers to simplify things)

1) the creation of "active retired" and "social retired" meaning that retirees who want to attend meetings and vote would have to pay extra dues

2)proposed changes in how long a carrier who goes into management and returns would have to wait before becoming eligible for elected or appointed positions in the NRLCA

3) A proposed Constitution change allowing the state steward to define what is or isnt a management function

4)creation of 2 additional board members

5)2 year terms for the President, VIce President, Secretary-Treasurer, Director of Steward Operations, and Director of Labor Relations.

6) Term limits for the board.

7) A proposal requiring all amendments submitted during New Business waiting for next year's convention

8) Cutting the number of delegates in half

9) several proposed amendments on changes to the finance and appeals committees

10) giving state stewards the authority to decertify a local steward for just cause.

11) language attempting to clarify stewards acting as managers

12) An amendment to add "In God We Trust" at the end of the constitution was withdrawn by the maker

What PASSED:

1) cosmetic changes relating to the dissolution of QWL/EI, combination of the Credentials and the Mileage and PerDiem committees

2) an amendment pushed for by the board calling for all arrangements and costs of the convention be borne by national instead of the host state (this was passed because states who have hosted it and are in the process of getting ready for it said it needed to be done.)

All in all, lots of silly questions and comments, and the body choosing not to save money by passing biennial conventions. I am sad to say that a dues increase is on the horizon.

[Postaltexan]

More from JP

Thursday

I just got back to my room a few minutes ago, which is why this is so late getting up. Thursday was an extremely frustrating day. Frankly, I am embarassed for those of you who paid your dues for this and the ones who cared enough to mail in their ballots. But if you are in VA and you voted for me, you can rest assured that I voted the way I told you I'd vote.

We started with binding resolutions. All but one failed. The one that passed was one calling for the National Board to resume funding of the Business Travel Accident Insurance. Clifford explained in tonights caucus that the reason national asked the states to take over funding in the first place was because it was too cost prohibitive after 9/11 for national to do it. I didn't know that, and I'm not sure how many delegates knew that, but it passed.

Some of the ones that failed were: (my numbering not theirs)

1) allowing people on OWCP status to perform their duties within the medical limitations.

2) looking for another insurance company to replace GMAC auto insurance

3) insurance proposals for RCA's (I feel like we missed a good recruitment tool by not passing this one)

4) limiting recognition of past national officers to standing ovations only and not letting them speak

5) requiring gifts to delegates be American made, and preferably union made

6) requiring the national board to pick up all costs for national level meetings of state officers and stewards

7) annual reproduction of recruitment books similar to last year's

8) encrypting pages of NRLCA website with personal info

9) requiring the board to post new EMA rates within 2 days

10) a resolution calling for no more banquets at national convention

11) a resolution hiring an advisor to assist with retirement planning, similar to the OWCP specialist

12) requiring the board to make available MP3 audio files of agreements and manuals

 

Next came non-binding resolutions. Rightly or wrongly (I believe wrongly) the membership voted to suspend the rules and pass all 223 at once. While I acknowledge that non-binding resolutions are advisory in nature and the board can do what they wish with them, I still believe that it is the job of the elected delegates to debate them and express to our leaders how we, speaking for the members that elected us, feel about them. We didn't do that, and now the board will have to sift through them and we all have to hope that they don't decide to like something that shoudn't have been passed. Picklesimer did convince the body to suspend the rules, reopen, and vote down, #127 which said that the NRLCA should embrace 5 day delivery. For the remainder of the day, various members tried to do the same with other resolutions, as well as introduce new contitution changes, binding, and non-binding resolutions. Only one received 51% of the vote to be considered. That was a non-binding resolution, again by Picklesimer, that we use less expensive entertainment at the banquet. This was a result of comments made from Jeanette Dwyer at the mic when eliminating banquets altogether earlier in the day. She said that we can't meet at the Holiday Inn, we're too big, and we have to agree to buy a certain amount of food to get the meeting rooms we need at a reasonable price. A member of the finance committee reported that we paid the Oak Ridge Boys $75,000 for last year's banquet. Concern was raised that if we went with local talent, fewer tickets would be sold. That carrier almost switched votes to red until he said he'd rather have the banquet than give food to the homeless (which I was told happened one year when the banquet didn't sell enough tickets). That one passed. Nothing else anyone wanted to propose got 51% to be brought to the floor for consideration. The rest of the day consisted of going over what parts of tomorrow's business could be brought up today, arguing over what time the past national officers would be recognized, whether we would consider Constitution changes before or after resolutions, and a huge debate over having a single caucus in the afternoon. That would have passed if it weren;t for the fact that we were still going to be charged for unused rooms Thursday night, and the fact that some states had planned meals for the evening and would eat the costs of those too. All in all a frustrating day. The sad part is, we chose to continue to do a convention every year, then we leave at 230 in the afternoon after dumping everything on the board.

Due to the length of this report, I will just say that nothing surprising came out of caucus night. Ver Valin, Picklesimer, and McDonald are still longshots at best to unseat the incumbents


One thing I left out. Because two of the resolutions would result in slashing time standards, a motion from PA was introduced asking that we not publish all the binding resolutions that passed out of fear that the PO would use it against us. That was amended to exclude the amendment that called for the NRLCA to embrace 5 day delivery, so that the PO WOULD see that we are not embracing that. That resolution passed as amended.

        8992.4 in reply to 8992.3

I'm glad someone agrees with me that we should be debating the non-binding resolutions instead of just passing them all and dumping them in the board's lap. Maybe it's me Ron; the only 2 conventions I have been fortunate enough to get elected to were Grand Rapids and this one; maybe I have some sort of jinx that comes out when non-binding resolutions come up.

Cantriel was asked about what we did and didn't have to print. Someone proposed that we just put summaries of what happened in the magazine. Cantriel said that was out of order, but that because the body moved to suspend the rules and not print the non-binding resolutions, that they wouldn't be printed but the transcripts saying what we did and why still had to be.

Elections won't go to multiple ballots. I'll be shocked if the challengers get 200 votes. And since there's only 2 proposed sites for 2014, that should only need one vote.

I am frustrated and embarassed about what has happened this week. I know many of you disagree with my opinions that biennial conventions should be passed and the evaluated system should be fixed instead of thrown away, but I believe that I have tried to vote the right way and I believe most of you reading this would be frustrated too if you were here watching this. Maybe there will be some outrage from the body when they find out that the delegates ignored the fact thati we are in the red, we still didn't pass biennial conventions and transferred costs from state to national.

[gjtrisa]

I agree with you about the biennial conventions.  I see no reason to gather each and every year for this sort of formallity.  If they wanted to have training seminars on the opposite year without all of the costs that are associated with a full blown convention I would support that too.

 

BTW Thank you for taking the time to issue synopsis of the happenings.


-----Original Message-----
From: Postaltexan (via Nabble) <[hidden email]>
Sent: Fri, Aug 21, 2009 5:53 am
Subject: Re: More updates from James/mailmanjp

More from JP

Thursday

I just got back to my room a few minutes ago, which is why this is so late getting up. Thursday was an extremely frustrating day. Frankly, I am embarassed for those of you who paid your dues for this and the ones who cared enough to mail in their ballots. But if you are in VA and you voted for me, you can rest assured that I voted the way I told you I'd vote.

We started with binding resolutions. All but one failed. The one that passed was one calling for the National Board to resume funding of the Business Travel Accident Insurance. Clifford explained in tonights caucus that the reason national asked the states to take over funding in the first place was because it was too cost prohibitive after 9/11 for national to do it. I didn't know that, and I'm not sure how many delegates knew that, but it passed.

Some of the ones that failed were: (my numbering not theirs)

1) allowing people on OWCP status to perform their duties within the medical limitations.

2) looking for another insurance company to replace GMAC auto insurance

3) insurance proposals for RCA's (I feel like we missed a good recruitment tool by not passing this one)

4) limiting recognition of past national officers to standing ovations only and not letting them speak

5) requiring gifts to delegates be American made, and preferably union made

6) requiring the national board to pick up all costs for national level meetings of state officers and stewards

7) annual reproduction of recruitment books similar to last year's

8) encrypting pages of NRLCA website with personal info

9) requiring the board to post new EMA rates within 2 days

10) a resolution calling for no more banquets at national convention

11) a resolution hiring an advisor to assist with retirement planning, similar to the OWCP specialist

12) requiring the board to make available MP3 audio files of agreements and manuals

 

Next came non-binding resolutions. Rightly or wrongly (I believe wrongly) the membership voted to suspend the rules and pass all 223 at once. While I acknowledge that non-binding resolutions are advisory in nature and the board can do what they wish with them, I still believe that it is the job of the elected delegates to debate them and express to our leaders how we, speaking for the members that elected us, feel about them. We didn't do that, and now the board will have to sift through them and we all have to hope that they don't decide to like something that shoudn't have been passed. Picklesimer did convince the body to suspend the rules, reopen, and vote down, #127 which said that the NRLCA should embrace 5 day delivery. For the remainder of the day, various members tried to do the same with other resolutions, as well as introduce new contitution changes, binding, and non-binding resolutions. Only one received 51% of the vote to be considered. That was a non-binding resolution, again by Picklesimer, that we use less expensive entertainment at the banquet. This was a result of comments made from Jeanette Dwyer at the mic when eliminating banquets altogether earlier in the day. She said that we can't meet at the Holiday Inn, we're too big, and we have to agree to buy a certain amount of food to get the meeting rooms we need at a reasonable price. A member of the finance committee reported that we paid the Oak Ridge Boys $75,000 for last year's banquet. Concern was raised that if we went with local talent, fewer tickets would be sold. That carrier almost switched votes to red until he said he'd rather have the banquet than give food to the homeless (which I was told happened one year when the banquet didn't sell enough tickets). That one passed. Nothing else anyone wanted to propose got 51% to be brought to the floor for consideration. The rest of the day consisted of going over what parts of tomorrow's business could be brought up today, arguing over what time the past national officers would be recognized, w hether we would consider Constitution changes before or after resolutions, and a huge debate over having a single caucus in the afternoon. That would have passed if it weren;t for the fact that we were still going to be charged for unused rooms Thursday night, and the fact that some states had planned meals for the evening and would eat the costs of those too. All in all a frustrating day. The sad part is, we chose to continue to do a convention every year, then we leave at 230 in the afternoon after dumping everything on the board.

Due to the length of this report, I will just say that nothing surprising came out of caucus night. Ver Valin, Picklesimer, and McDonald are still longshots at best to unseat the incumbents


One thing I left out. Because two of the resolutions would result in slashing time standards, a motion from PA was introduced asking that we not publish all the binding resolutions that passed out of fear that the PO would use it against us. That was amended to exclude the amendment that called for the NRLCA to embrace 5 day delivery, so that the PO WOULD see that we are not embracing that. That resolution passed as amended.

        8992.4 in reply to 8992.3

I'm glad someone agrees with me that we should be debating the non-binding resolutions instead of just passing them all and dumping them in the board's lap. Maybe it's me Ron; the only 2 conventions I have been fortunate enough to get elected to were Grand Rapids and this one; maybe I have some sort of jinx that comes out when non-binding resolutions come up.

Cantriel was asked about what we did and didn't have to print. Someone proposed that we just put summaries of what happened in the magazine. Cantriel said that was out of order, but that because the body moved to suspend the rules and not print the non-binding resolutions, that they wouldn't be printed but the transcripts saying what we did and why still had to be.

Elections won't go to multiple ballots. I'll be shocked if the challengers get 200 votes. And since there's only 2 proposed sites for 2014, that should only need one vote.

I am frustrated and embarassed about what has happened this week. I know many of you disagree with my opinions that biennial conventions should be passed and the evaluated system should be fixed instead of thrown away, but I believe that I have tried to vote the right way and I believe most of you reading this would be frustrated too if you were here watching this. Maybe there will be some outrage from the body when they find out that the delegates ignored the fact thati we are in the red, we still didn't pass biennial conventions and transferred costs from state to national.

[Postaltexan]

More from JP

Friday

        8993.1

We did NOT pass a dues increase! I was extremely surprised by this, given that we lost money last year and voted to shift the costs of the national convention and the business travel accident insurance from the states to the national. It's going to be a very difficult year for this association financially I fear.

Elections:

President.... Cantriel 1006, Ver Valin 147, 2 thrown out that had other names

Jeanette Dwyer, Joey Johnson, and Ronnie Stutts were all re-elected to their positions without oppositions. Ronnie went unopposed because earlier in the day Picklesimer withdrew his nomination for Director of Steward Operations and announced that he would make it a 3 way battle for Executive Committeeman instead.

Secretary- Treasurer: Larry Gunnell was nominated at the last minute to challenge Clifford Dailing. The vote was 768 for Dailing, 383 for Gunnell, 2 thrown out that had other names on them. I know very little about Mr. Gunnell and since he didn't declare until Friday morning no one got the chance to ask him questions during Thursday night caucuses. I was surprised at how many votes he recieved.

Executive Committeeman... Horne 763, Picklesimer 345, McDonald 48.  Picklesimer went a long way toward repairing his image with the delegates at this convention. There were groans at the beginning of the week when he took the mic, but he didn't take it as much this week, said a lot of things the delegates agreed with, and even got applause several times from the delegates. McDonald also gave an emotional concession speech that got a standing ovation when it was over.  

Convention Site for 2014: Grapevine 657, Houston 503, 5 illegal ballots. Gaylord Texan is a great hotel, they knew what they needed to do to get it back from listening to the delegates all week, and they got it done.

New Business: sprinkled in between the above elections were lots of PAC updates, personal privaledges, people wanting to get things on record, and people making idiots of themselves at the mic. But we also heard several proposed Constitutional Amendments, Binding Resolutions, and Non-Binding resolutions. The only 2 that passed were a Constitutional Amendment putting "In God We Trust" in our Constitution and a non-binding resolution (changed to binding on the floor and then passed) that said the NRLCA will "emphatically reject" 5 day delivery and "embrace" 6 day delivery. The first one was the one Bobby McDonald withdrew. Several people complained about possible lawsuits despite the fact that McDonald included in his initial submitting of the amendment that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that using "In God We Trust" is an expression of patriotism and ceremonial character. Delegates still cried foul over this, the Constitution Committee once again assured everyone that they had consulted with Michael Gan and he said we would be ok putting it in there. After lenghty debate, it passed. The resolution to embrace 6 day delivery didn't get debated nearly as much; in fact, Minnesota never did get to explain why they had sent the resolution saying we should embrace 5 day delivery in the first place. Regrettably all attempts to stop future conventions from passing all non-binding resolutions at once without debating them failed to make it to the floor for a vote.

APPEALS COMMITTEE: (I am going to leave out the names to protect the innocent) A total of 3 appeals were heard. 2 were from carriers in MN who were unhappy that they had to choose between giving up the Driver Safety Instructor position or giving up their rights to be stewards, officers, and delegates. The debate centered around what exactly the role of the DSI is. The charged parties said that they don't give pass or fail grades and their recommendations have no bearing on the future of rural carriers. Ronnie Stutts took the mic and disagreed, saying that he received documentation from people not being hired, people being fired,  and people being disciplined and ordered to retake driver safety training because of recommendations by the rural DSI, which is why they made the decision in the first place. The membership voted to accept the Committees report that their charges were without merit. The third appeal involved a local steward who was decertified. (I think it's best not to put anymore details on here than that on this one) The appeals committee found no merit in the case and the membership after some debate accepted the report.

Someone told Cantriel on the verge of adjournment that there were delegates acting as DSI's who had not gotten the memo that they had to either give the position up or be ineligible to be a delegate. He chose to handle it by stating publicly that they were ineligible in the future to be delegates to national unless they resigned as DSI's.

We are adjourned. I go home tomorrow.

[delegatetoo]

I believe that the reason the delegation passed all the non-binding resolutions without debating each one individually was that we are tired of endless debate on resolutions that are ill conceived and narrow in scope.  The states need to better review the resolutions they send to national.  The rubber stamp approach of many state in sending resolutions forward does nothing but frustrate delegates who want to spend their time debating intelligent ideas.

[rr704062]

Non- binding resolutions can not be amended.  Many are passed without objection by a simple drop of the gavel.  A change in the standing rules can limit debate on the others to 5minutes each.  This would give the objector and the maker time to make their points.  The board should have a polling of the membership (represented by the delegation) as to how much weight to give the resolution in negotiations.
   The resolutions were passed en masse for one reason only--many of the delegates didn't want to waste their paid vacation time on doing the business they were paid to do.  That is also the reason they don't want a biennial convention-- They would only have their vacation paid for once every two years.  I am sick to death of hearing how "this is a family association"  There was a constitutional change proposed to change the word "Association" to "union" wherever is appeared alone in the constitution.  It failed.  When will these people get real.

[rrr9273]

what is the location of the 2010 National Convention and the name of the host hotel

[UnionR]

Since when can "non-binding" resolutions NOT be amended??

[dona]

So few of us take the time to submit resolutions that when someone does, it should be given respectful consideration.  That is what our process is supposed to be.  Let the majority decide its fate.  the convention rules were established for a reason.

[west of nowhere]

I have been a delegate at National and agree too many repeat delegates are there for vacation. They want to finish business sessions early to have time to get ready for banquet, partying or what ever. They should also cut the time allowed for former officer recognition. Friday the business was rushed too many want to catch the early flight home or start a few days vacation. Biannual  conventions and more focus on business only.

[*SUPERsub*]

spokane washington..dont know the hotel name at this time...dang it...

[*SUPERsub*]

they cant be ammended now..when they are passed en-mass!! BAD idea that...
some delegates need to be smacked!!! if they didnt want to listen to the debate and work..they shouldnt have been there is my thoughts on it!!!