UTILITY WORKERS UNION OF AMERICA

AFL-CIO, LOCAL 483

EXECUTIVE BOARD MEETING

JULY 30, 2005

THE HYATT

VALENCIA CALIFORNIA

 

 

Meeting called to order at 9:17 a.m. by Dennis Zukowski

 

Flag salute immediately following

 

Roll Call:       

 

            Officers:           Dennis Zukowski-President

                                    Roy Bozarth-Vice President

                                    Lisa Guidry-Secretary-Treasurer

 

Trustees:           Brian Burdick

                        Michael Minor

 

Area Officers:   Bill Kimble

                        Bruce Cline

                        Dave Brown

                        Gary Lerch

 

Absent: Robin Downs

                        Jamie Simeon

                        Dave Brown    

                        Erhard Hofmann-present for audit only

 

Secretary/Treasurers Report & Financial Update:  In May we received a letter from the National stating that we were 3 months and $9,000.00 short in per-capita taxes.  This started the investigation process with Teddi from the National and me.  We found that the August 2004 per capita was never received and never cashed by the National.  I placed a stop pay on the check and sent another one to them.  Once they received it, they issued another letter which stated that we are current.  Teddi and Gary at the National both said that the 3 months mentioned on the first letter was a mistake.  The “total cash available” in the Statement of Revenue reflects growth.   This is largely due to paying less in loss time wages.  Bill-1/Bruce-2 made the motion to accept, all approved, none opposed. 

 

Reading and Approval of minutes:  Dennis made some revisions to the minutes that were e-mailed to everyone the day prior.  Mike-1/Roy-2 made the motion to accept the minutes with the requested changes from Dennis, all approved, none opposed.

 

Trustees Report:  The trustees reported that everything was checked and looked okay.  Gary suggests that we start sending the per-capita taxes to the National using a return receipt.  This will give us a paper trail when sending payments off to them. Roy mentioned that we may not be complying when we use Bill Pay through our bank because two signatures are required on checks.  I will check with Gary Ruffner and the DOL (Department of Labor) on this issue.  Also, I was asked to look into paying the per-capita tax electronically.  Art-1/Gary-2 made the motion to accept the trustees report, all approved, none opposed.

 

Storage Safety Report by Roy:  At the Safety Congress in May, Storage held their first workshop entitled “Underground Storage Safety”.  The workshop went well and there was positive feedback.  It looks like they will be returning for a second year.  The Storage Safety Committee held a meeting and Rudy Wiebel and Lee Stewart attended.  They suggested that employees begin reporting all near misses.  Roy feels it is a good idea if it is not used as a cause of discipline.  During the meeting, Rudy said that there would be no discipline action taken.  After the meeting, Rudy sent out an e-mail which said they would investigate the near miss.  This prompted discussion with Dennis and Sue Bosworth as well as with the Joint Steering Committee.  Sue says they have no interest in using it to discipline anyone.  Needless-to-say, this is not over by a long shot.  Roy pointed out that he is adamant about the Safety Committee’s being Union run, not management run.

 

Break 10:00

 

Dennis passed out a list of open grievances that Dave Brown previously requested.  It has the employee’s name, the officer handling it, and the reason.  There is more on this below in Old Business Arbitration Update.  Jim McNabb at Honor Rancho has T&H Contractors on the premises and he wants them to train the represented employees.  Roy started the grieving process and they (the Company) have been playing games.  The two issues which are work is being contracted out and the other is Jim wants the contractor to train employees.  Montebello needed a mechanic and the company mechanic is injured so they felt justified in bringing in T&H.  There are some legitimate reasons for contracting out work, but none of the above qualifies.  This contractor has 3000 hours. 

 

Old Business: 

                        T-shirts and Caps- Art said that the vendors that he was going to suggest are not union.  Roy said he met a guy at the Organizing Training and said he would find out about the vendor he uses and will let me know.  I will check with the National for ideas.  This topic will remain open for more options.

 

                        Arbitration Update- The arbitration for “contractors doing pipeline” work was scheduled for August 19th and is now rescheduled for September 1st, 2005.  Dennis is meeting with our attorneys on Tuesday August 2nd.   The company says they used contractors because the scope of work increased.  He is prepared to show that there was sufficient union represented employees to do the work.  Dennis said he would like to see less grievances and arbitrations and more mediations when it comes to an employee that lost money due to work being contracted out.  Motion to give Dennis authority to dismiss grievances/arbitrations and negotiate mediating made by Billy-1/Mike-2, all approved, none opposed.

 

Dennis is going to be on vacation 8/5/05 through 8/16/05.

 

                        5th Region Conference Update:  The financial portion of the conference is what Brian, Mike and I attended.  Brian reported that the training was informative, and that we could have gotten the majority of it off of the website.  The Department of Labor put on a very extensive and helpful training.  Mike picked up some copies of the booklet entitled “how to conduct audits”.  We heard information on deadlines for reports required under the LMRDA and the CSRA.  Mike asked Dennis for some information on per-diem.  During negotiations someone passed out information on the per-diem rate broken down by state.  We’ll have to look further to find out the correct per-diem.

 

                        Organizing Training-    Roy found the training very informative.  There was quite a bit to learn including finding out what you can about the company and their finances, knowing that as soon as the company has knowledge that organizing is taking place, they try to fight it.  You find out where does their money lye, is the company union friendly or foe? Search and find any problem areas don’t make promises, make house calls, there is plenty of one on one contact, some people are receptive, some will reject you and what you’re trying to do, and you have to get them to sign up.  They may be looking for a 5% pay raise and the company will propose to give it to them, if they stop organizing.  Leaders from the AFL-CIO can/will help in organizing.  Roy says the toughest part for him was having to go door to door.  Roy purchased some union books on this subject. And highly recommends watching a movie called “Million Men named George”.  He’s looking forward to putting his training to use as he is obligated for one year to be utilized any place, any time.

 

Break 11:00 a.m.

 

New Business:                      

            New union laptop for president- Dennis needs a new laptop because his current one no longer meets his needs.  The E-Board asked him to consider purchasing an extended warranty and the price cap was set at $1,500.00.  The trustees will get his old laptop and it will be used to prepare the trustee report on the evening of the E-Board meeting.  

 

            PAQ- We received a list of the employees available to be interviewed.  The union will have their choice from the list and so does the company.  Dennis is going to put together a “common sense” list which will be given to everyone that is chosen prior to the interview.  Certifications count for something this time around.  The E-Board suggested the following people be interviewed; some people were already selected by management.  Dave Jurey, Robert Erdmann, Rudy (v-assignment) or Ed Lockhart, John Ortiz, Danny Butler and Sam Soto. 

 

Open Topics:     Roy requested to have a copy of all credit card statements on a monthly basis, for better recordkeeping.  Also, requested that I send all notifications to personal e-mail addresses and not company e-mails. 

 

Gary expressed concern about the aging workforce in that we are losing a lot of experienced workers.  There needs to be an apprenticeship program in place to sort of close the gap.  As it stands, when a seasoned employee retires there is hardly anyone with experience to fill in behind them.  During the same safety meeting mentioned above with Rudy and Lee, they both, seemed receptive to the idea.  The rest of the company will probably not move on anything without the buy in from these two.  Training is not available the way it should be. 

 

Area Reports:

 

Billy Kimble reported that an employee in his area was denied double time because management called someone else out instead of him.  The employee received monetary compensation. 

 

Mike Minor asked what for the criteria to be Op-qual not known, except that they have to be able to start and stop engines.  But there is no need to be op-qualed if you’re not performing that work        

 

An employee found out that the company is changing the op-qual to be renewed every 3 years instead of the DOT requirement of 5 years.  The contractor T&H is not op-qual’d.

 

Another employee feels that because he’ll be 60 next year that he is too old to be on-call.  The employee is obligated as on-call is a condition of employee for some classifications. 

 

Gary found out that when employees donate vacation to other employees, the pay is not reflected at the correct grade level.

 

Next meeting, time and place:   Roy suggests The Chumash Casino in Santa Ynez, CA.  If this does not work out, I will look for someplace in Solvang CA.  October 22, 2005.  Brian-1/Lisa-2 made a motion to have Lisa explore the above options for the next meeting place and time, all approved, none opposed.

 

Meeting adjourned at 12:54 p.m.