SEIU 888 Executive Board Meeting of May 26, 2011 52 Roland Street, Charlestown, MA

Present: Present: President Bruce Boccardy, Regina Capone, Anita Christon, Mark DelloRusso, Gerald Durkin, Rosalie Gillis, Mike Kelly, Tony Koumantzelis, Michael Krasinkiewicz, William Murray, Mary Beth Phillips, David Reno, Brenda Rodrigues, Lyn Scolamiero, Fred Simmons, and Tina Swift. Excused: Michele Durand Absent: Helen Ramirez Also Present: Paul DiMarco, Tomas Gonzalez, Eldin Villafane, Shanna Weston, Harold Jones, Antonio Nunes, Marcellus Parker, Beth Rosenblum, Gail Silva.

The meeting was called to order at 10:14 a.m. Motion: To approve the previous minutes as written. Second. Vote: All ayes.

President’s Report: The cubicles are in place in the office. Bruce will visit Teamsters 170 in Worcester (on Route 20) tomorrow and they are willing to accommodate us in opening an 888 branch there. The next branch will be on the Cape. Signage: There will be a banner on the building and an SEIU 888 sign on Roland St.

Bruce introduced Tomas Gonzalez, the new COPA hire. Tomas wishes to get members more politically engaged in order to advance the interests of the Union.

Bruce introduced three prospective new Executive Board members: Marcellus (Mark) Parker, Beth Rosenblum, and Gail Silva.

Motion: To vote Marcellus Parker as a Board Member. Second. Discussion. Mark is a Boston Police dispatcher, a 14 year union member, 13 years as a steward. He feels the EBoard has a really important job to do. He’s very optimistic about the direction of this union and would like to have a say. He’s really committed, and has worked many grievances. Vote: Mike Kelly and Lyn Scoliamero abstained. Otherwise, all ayes.

Motion: To accept Beth Rosenblum as an EBoard member. Second. Discussion. Beth works as the Conservation staff for Southborough (Town of Southborough Clerical Union); she has been a steward for six years. She comes from a family of activists and she has been very active in her own community of Ashland, Mass. She feels honored to represent Central Mass. She works in her community on community issues and political issues. She attended the Bargaining Bash here and realized that we need new ideas, mainly from the members. She has joined the Member Power Committee and is discussing regional meetings. Vote: Mike Kelly abstained, otherwise, all ayes.

Motion: To accept Gail Silva (who works for the Town of Westborough in the IT Dept.) as an EBoard member. Second. Discussion. In the past, Gail has worked for “the big banks” in the IT department. It was the old boy network, and Gail had been underpaid for many years. Because of that, Gail feels that unions really help employees get equal pay. She is now the Chapter Chair for the Town of Westborough and she has been working to get members involved. She feels that the union hierarchy needs to recognize that “the times are changing” and the union needs to change. Vote: Mike Kelly and Lyn S abstained, all ayes otherwise.

President’s remarks continued. The staff will approach the Trustees to secure funds to hire new contract negotiators. The first new hire would be for Central Mass. Western Mass. will still only have one area rep.

Atty. Harold Jones, Director of the Legal Services Department, has announced his resignation. Bruce praised Harold and said he is sad to have him move on.

Harold spoke: My last day is June 10th. The job has been posted. We will have a retainer agreement with outside counsel on a flat monthly rate. When questioned, Harold said he is leaving because he feels there is no plan for this legal department or the union to succeed. Mark DelloRusso noted that this is the third attorney who has left SEIU888. The local chapters need to tell their reps to ask Patrick and he will call the attorney on retainer. Patrick spoke, praising Harold, saying that with Harold’s performing legal triage, we saved $200,000 over last year’s legal bill. Some attorneys put in 60 hours of work for every single issue (costing more money). Atty. David Rohm will be the interim attorney. Mary Beth asked to have members involved in screening attorneys. She volunteered. Bruce said the executive staff will tell him whom they recommend and he will decide.

Bruce told the group that the House Bill has forced municipal employees into GIC and the deductibles have gone up. We advocate getting our members involved at the State House.

Eldin spoke: This bill is in the Senate, and they have been caucusing. Amendments have been submitted. They are debating municipal health reform. The coalition is proposing no more mid year changes to the GIC plan. Discussion ensued, recognizing that unions are under attack and most representatives will not vote the union way because they will surely lose their seat due to the public’s poor view of unions in general. The discussion turned to ways to inform the public of our losing our right to bargain health care plans, our costs going up (as in paying for parking at the U. of Lowell), all of which decreases our income. At this point members declared the meeting off track and they wished to get to the business at hand.

Dues Equality: The draft ballot was presented along with an informational flyer. The date on the ballot had been changed from January to February for implementation. Antonio distributed charts showing flat rate and percentage dues that are paid. Board members were angry to see that the ballot had been changed to push the implementation date to February rather than January, allowing staff to change a vote of the Executive Board. There was heated discussion, with staff saying that they were trying to help the process. Antonio said it would be three months before he could implement such a system. 12:00 Noon. William Murray resigned in protest of the date having been changed on the draft ballot from January to February for implementation of the new Dues Equality system. Shanna Weston stated that pushing this to February would cut down on the number of decertifications (rather than January). She told the group that she hopes to minimize the number of decertifications by passing this as of February. The Board did not seem to think this was a valid reason for changing the date.

Motion: To approve the draft ballot as is with the February 2012 date. Second. Discussion. Vote: 2 ayes, 9 nays, 3 abstaining. Motion fails.

Motion: To use January 1, 2012 as the implementation date for dues restructuring and each January 1st thereafter. Second. Discussion. Vote: 12 ayes, 1 nay, 3 abstain.

Lunch: 12:29 pm

Dues Equity continuation. Mark will discuss the informational flyer with Paul Dimarco at another time. Email Mark with concerns about flyer. Patrick spoke to a timeline for implementing changes in dues. He said some employers cannot or will not be able to implement the dues calculations. The question was asked: Will the employees have to pay retro dues if their payroll dept. does not implement this change in a timely fashion? Antonio said he would make a recommendation chapter by chapter. SEIU888 is made up of 9 different locals (including NAGE) which is why the flat dues fees are all different. Patrick proposed that each EBoard member talk to the leaders of 8 units to convince them to change the dues structure. It was suggested that a couple of EBoard members get together and host an informational meeting for (16) chapter leaders. By consensus, the group decided that one error on the dues structure sheets provided by Antonio was too many and put all of the information in question. (One of the dues listed was a monthly amount rather than weekly as all of the others were.) Board members wanted to know if this would increase dues collected. Patrick responded that in Year 1, there would be a negative dues impact; Year 2, we would increase dues collection by $140,000 and in Year 3, there would be a $180,000 increase in revenue. This is all projected, not taking into account possible decertifications. President Boccardy told the group he will provide direction for the campaign and the future of the union.

Motion: October 15, 2011 will be the members’ election of dues equality. Second. Vote: Unanimous. Patrick will set up informational meetings for chapter chairs.

The next meeting will be on June 16, 2011 at 10:00 a.m. Adjourned at 2:04 p.m.

Respectfully submitted, Tina Swift Recording Secretary