General Membership Meeting 3/21/01 - Minutes
Attending: Local Board members: Francoise Van Horn, Mary Ann Stewart,
Chris Benoit, Allan Crosthwaite, Rita Skinner; Local Bargaining Rep:
Connie McGrath; CUE members
Francoise announced that local activist, Dione Shastid, had designed a new
CUE t-shirt that reads "CUE - UC WORKS BECAUSE WE DO". Chris Benoit
modeled the shirt. CUE activists wore the t-shirts at the last Statewide
Executive Board meeting and were asked by various other campuses if they
could order some from us. We will be ordering a supply of the new t-shirts
and will ask clericals for a donation of $5.00 if they want a shirt and we
will sell shirts to other campuses as requested.
Francoise then introduced Chris Benoit as the new Statewide Lead Negotiator
and Connie McGrath as our local bargaining representative. Chris indicated
that the Statewide Chief Negotiator will be Margy Wilkinson, one of the
founding members of CUE, and Chris will act as associate to the Chief
Negotiator in bargaining. Margy and Chris both have extensive experience
in negotiating, both for CUE and for other unions.
Allan presented some of the results of the CUE survey currently on the CUE
website. There have currently been approximately 1200 responses to the
survey, with Riverside clericals making up about 7% of the responses. This
is impressive, since Riverside clericals make up only 5% of the clericals
Statewide. Allan stated that anyone can go to the CUE website and see the
results of the survey. There are many, many written opinions and
statements from clericals. These opinions are very important to CUE as the
Statewide Executive Board develops a bargaining platform. Rita stated that
the Executive Board recently voted to send the bargaining platform to
members to vote for approval.
Francoise announced that the Coalition of Unions meeting had been
rescheduled to March 30th. CUE is working with other unions in areas
affecting all workers at UC.
Francoise announced that CUE Riverside is # 2 in percent of clericals who are
CUE members Statewide with approximately 40% membership. Only LBL exceeds
us. We will be having a membership drive to try to reach at least 50%
membership prior to the start of bargaining. It was emphasized how
important our membership numbers, both at Riverside and Statewide, are in
our strength at the bargaining table. Chris stated that hardly a
bargaining session went by for the last contract, that UC didn't make some
reference to our low membership. Our membership numbers have a large
affect at the bargaining table in the attitude of UC.
It is important that we educate non-members of this importance and how
approximately 50 cents a month more to become a members would translate to
more money at the table and strength in our bargaining position. It is
also important to educate clericals at UC that paying "CUE agency fees" is
NOT membership. It was suggested that members talk to fellow clericals and
pass this information on.
It was also suggested that we send out a message to non-members on the next
payday to look at their paystubs and see if its says "CUE Agency fees" or
"CUE Member dues" so non-members are aware that they are not actually
members yet. There was a feeling that many of these non-members think that
since money is going to CUE from their paycheck, that they are already
members.
Also suggested, that we send an email the day the retroactive check is
distributed saying something to the affect "Do you like your retro.
check? Join CUE and support our next bargaining efforts."
Some slogans suggested: "For Less than 50 cents, you can be a Member";
"How about Deferred Maintenance on Staff Salaries"; "Be a friend to CUE";
"Membership is our (Bargaining) Power (Clout, Strength, etc.)"
Rita