Well
of course you are, after all, you are a member of the Steelworkers. J
But, you could be an even bigger winner when you attend the December
meeting.
Everyone
signed in at the December meeting will have their name thrown in the
attendance jar. What is an attendance jar you ask? Well for every time you
have signed in at a monthly meeting, a work session or rally, your name gets
popped into the attendance jar. So the more active you are in your
association, the more chances you have to win. Haven’t made it to any
meetings this year? Well make this your first meeting and perhaps you will
get lucky.
During
the December meeting we will be drawing names for tons of fabulous prizes.
There will be numerous gift certificates for $100.00 each as well as Union
caps and t-shirts. What kinds of certificates do you ask? Best Buy, Barnes
and Noble, Sears, Block Buster, and Target. What kind of hats? Ummm, black,
they will be black hats and shirts, with gold lettering, Very nice. All your
friends who don’t have one will be jealous. Honest! J
Oh
and snacks. We will also have snacks. So please make plans to attend. No,
really, you need to attend. Because you must be present to win!!
So
we will see you the first Tuesday of December (
12-02-2003
)
Prizes will be drawn and snacks consumed after the business meeting starting
at
6:00
p.m.
See
you there, and good luck!! (Need a Map to get
there?)
Although
it is true that only about 20 percent of American workers are in unions,
that 20 percent sets the standards across the board in salaries, benefits
and working conditions. If you are making a decent salary in a non-union
company, you owe that to the unions. One thing that corporations do not do
is give out money out of the goodness of their hearts. - Molly Ivins
Pension
Fund Report - Short Version
The
City’s reluctance/refusal to follow through on promises made to the
Civilian Employees and the Texas Pension Review Board (PRB) has apparently
really hacked the PRB off. The meeting opened with the PRB Chair, Shari O.
Shivers questioning whether the City of
Dallas
was
possibly acting in bad faith, since it appears to have set aside a previous
agreement it had made both with the PRB and the Dallas Civilian Employees.
Shivers
also questioned a message sent to her by Mayor Miller stating that there was
not going to be anyone at today’s meeting representing the City of
Dallas
.
This was news to Mr.
Benavides, and may even have surprised many of his fourteen other bosses who
thought that they HAD hired him to represent the city.
It appeared to Shivers that the City of
Dallas
does not currently have a plan to address the pension short fall issues. She
did not seem to consider the first meeting of a new working group, to
restudying the issue, to be a viable plan of action.
The
Chairman for the City of
Dallas
Civilian Employees Pension Fund
,
Randy Stalnacker spoke briefly. He outlined the history of the problem and
the agreement that had been made between the working group, the Employees
Pension Fund, the City Council and the Texas PRB. He told them that he had
requested that the council authorize the election necessary to finalize the
agreement and that the council instead instructed the city manager to form a
panel to study the pension benefits. He finished his presentation by
assuring the board that the under funding was NOT due to the Employees
Retirement Fund increasing the pension benefits in any way over the
last ten years.
City
Manager, Ted Benavides then told them that the deal made with the PRB and
the employees had basically come unraveled since last he spoke to them in
March. Since that time, the council has been briefed and there had been a
consensus that the city should designate a five person panel to study the
plan.
The
study would include funding, governance, investment programs, legal issues,
benefits, how the plan compared to other plans, changes that could be made
to the plan and how the plan should fit into the over all composition of the
City’s benefit package.
Needless
to say, the PRB is not real happy with the City and especially not with the
memo from the Mayor that no one would be at the meeting representing the
City
Under
questioning Benavides stated that the automatic clause in the agreement
seems to have spooked the council, especially as it wrestles with the
5-5-5
Police and Fire raises.
The
PRB seemed to be pretty skeptical of the City’s hopes that the employees
would again pitch in to balance the fund, when the previous agreement was
being disregarded. They were also upset that the agreement had never been
put on the ballot. Chairperson
Shivers stated that the employees had voted on increasing their share in
good faith, but wondered what would happen in the future since it seemed the
city would always have competing interests that needed funding.
The
PRB feels that the City has drug it’s feet long enough and needs to do
something… declare bankruptcy, fund it, hold the election, or whatever.
They DO NOT want to see anymore studies as this has been going on for nine
years already.
The
PRB is going to set up another meeting in three months at which time they
want someone who can settle the problem sent to talk to them.
Please
note the following people were on council in 1999 when the original
agreement had been unanimously accepted. Salazar, Loza, Miller, Thornton Reese, Hill, Chaney, Finkelman, Greyson,
Forsythe Lill
For
a complete report please with the accompanying background info go to http://www.cityofdallasemployees.com/coderetirement.htm
Get
on the mailing list to get reports as they happen by sending your email
address to comments@ntape.com
New
Message Board - If you
would like to comment on this article please go to
http://code217.proboards23.com/index.cgi?board=general
See
the Dallas City Retired Employees
Association report go to http://www.dcrea.org/PRB_Notes.htm
If you would like to read a screamingly funny report go to Jim Schutze’s
Report on this in the Observer at http://www.dallasobserver.com/issues/2003-10-23/schutze.html/1/index.html
"If capitalism
is fair then unionism must be. If men have a right to capitalize their ideas
and the resources of their country, then that implies the right of men to
capitalize their labor." -
Frank Lloyd Wright
Scholarship
Program - Texas
AFL-CIO
As
you know, the Steelworkers are affiliate members of the AFL-CIO, and the
Dallas AFL-CIO Central Labor Council. Which means that members and children
of members are eligible to apply to win one of fifteen $1000.00 scholarships
being awarded in Texas. In
addition to being a member or dependent in an affiliate labor group, the
applicants must be high school seniors who plan to attend a university,
college or technical institute in the summer or fall term. Applications must
be in Austin
on or before
January 30 st, 2004
Each
central labor council will arrange interviews and tests for applicants.
After the interviews, councils will select semifinalists.
In
selecting, councils consider need, understanding of the labor movement as
demonstrated by the test scores and potential for leadership in service to
the community. The statewide education committee of the Texas AFL-CIO will
select 15 winners from among the semifinalists. Material on organized labor
will be sent to each applicant to prepare for a test about unions. Remember
the Deadline is January 30.
You
can call, write or email for an application, timeline and guidelines.
Ntape
- Steelworkers
500
South Ervay -
Suite
112A
Dallas
,
Texas
75201
(214)
760-7422
comments@ntape.com
Support striking and locked-out grocery workers.
More
than 90,000 grocery workers are on strike or locked-out--fighting health
care benefits, both for themselves and for their future co-workers. Their
employers--profitable grocery store super chains like Safeway-owned Vons and
Albertson's and Ralph’s--are insisting on radical cuts in pay and
especially health care benefits.
The
strike fund dollars these members receive from their union can't stretch to
cover even the basic needs of their working families.
As we approach Thanksgiving, give thanks for the stand these workers are
taking...and GIVE just a little to help support them by visiting this link. https://secure.ga3.org/08/thankgroceryworkers/nP11owGd1s1wa
As
the Mayor is fond of saying…. "What about people in private industry"…
Well, since she is stuck on that phrase, it behooves us municipal employees
to do what we can to help set the bar a little higher in the private sector.
As
we know from recent experience, health coverage is under attack here at the
city, it has become like a steam roller. Each business that succeeds in
reducing or eliminating health care from their benefit package
encourages and adds momentum to the next business attempting it. Companies
encouraging each other to post a higher profit at the expense of families
having affordable heath coverage is wrong. It needs to stop, because no
matter how bad we think we have it now, it could get worse for us if this
becomes a common idea in the private sector.
Who
knows, perhaps these workers will be the ones who stem the tide.
If they don’t, perhaps they will slow it down a bit. Regardless, they
deserve our admiration for making the attempt, and also any assistance we
can give them.
Question
about the Association
I
recently received a ‘What have you done for me lately’ email from a
member who was discouraged that there was ‘nothing on the table’.
Normally, I just answer the emails or talk to the member and things
straighten themselves out. But as we come to the end of our first year, I
though it would perhaps be better to expand upon my answer and list some of
the goals and accomplishments that we have achieved. After all, the average
member does not need assistance filing a grievance or workers comp claim. So
perhaps it is good that we are all reminded of what we have accomplished in
our first twelve months of existence, so we can start thinking about what we
want to accomplish in our second year……
Dear
Discouraged, What in particular were you looking for? While I of course wish
there was 'money' on the table, as you know, our tax base is in the toilet
right now. But rest assured when there is money; a. we will know it as
we have lots of people telling us stuff and b. we will fight for our fair
share. As far as working for you, I am not sure what 'you' particularly
wanted, but....
We helped stop the privatization of a whole department, Fleet Maintenance. -
What this means to you if you are NOT Fleet Maintenance, is that the
privatization groups will not claim a success and immediately move on to
another department/job group.
We were a main reason that Developmental Services did not become an 'at
will' department stripped of it's civil service protections. - This
means that if you were one of the people who were arbitrarily assigned to
that new department you will retain your civil service rights. If you are in
a different department, it means that you can now transfer or promote to
that department without giving these rights up.
We are working on codifying the grievance procedure which varies wildly from
department to department, and sometimes even from district to district with
in a department. This means if ever you do file a grievance, it will be
easier and less arbitrary.
We joined with the retirees to fight the increase in the deductible, trust
me the mayor was not happy with the $500.00 stipend that we will be getting
in January. While we would all wish that the deductible had been left alone,
this means that if you are a healthy, single employee, you will be gaining
$500.00. If you use your deductible or have a family, this will in a small
way offset the expense.
We
joined with others to protest the new cell phone rules, pointing out the
increased costs, unfairness and problems associated with it. It has been
pulled to be tweaked, so we have a shot at not seeing it again, or if we do,
seeing it in a form that is not so labor unfriendly.
We are watching the council and human resource actions. Notifying the
membership of problems and changes that they are trying to slip under the
radar. An example of some of the problems we notified the membership of are
the short term disability sneakiness and the problem with unauthorized
deductions to people who dropped the combined charities.
We are monitoring,
reporting and educating the employees on the changes and actions in the
pension problem. If you read the paper and then read our online report, you
saw that there was a big difference in the coverage of the problem. We have
audio tapes ordered of that meeting which will be posted as downloads for
people to listen to, so they know what is going on with something so
important to all of us.
We belong to the national/sub regional/district groups who are working for
political change especially for municipal employees. We have a Rapid
Response class that we will be sending people to in February (paid for by
the District Group, thank you very much) and in March the sub regional group
will be holding a work shop for all municipal groups in Texas. Where we will
discuss problems and goals unique to municipalities in general and Texas in
particular.
And while there are lots of
other little things we do and assist with, we also pay for, develop and
support the website (and now message board) which enable employees to be
kept informed of what is going on with the city in general, no small feat
when our employees are spread out over 387 sq miles.
So as we finish our first year, I ask all of you to think about what we have
done, and to let us know where you think we should be going. If you have
thoughts on what our goals should be for next year, please attend one of our
monthly meetings, or email me at mrfrey@cityofdallasemployees.com
Amusing Rumor
THE
MAYOR IS AN ALIEN?
Apparently,
a long time employee thinks they have discovered proof that the Mayor is not
of this world, she is a Ferengi!
This rumor seemingly sprung from someone reading the The Ferengi Bible –
Which is subtitled the "Rules of Acquisition." Anyhow the
following two rules coupled together is apparently what started this
speculation.
Rule
1 - “Once you have their money, NEVER give it back"
Rule
211 - "Employees are the rungs on the ladder of success. Don't
hesitate to step on them"
Ummm,
guys…. I don’t know which is worse, that someone actually thinks
this…. Or that someone actually read the Ferengi Bible. ;D Come on people,
that is pretty sad… :D
Of course what is worse is that I could find several Tekkie sites devoted to
this ‘Bible’ that enabled me to check this rumor out. :D
If
anyone has any other rumors, or wish to comment on this one please join us
at http://code217.proboards23.com/index.cgi?board=general
or email them to comment@cityofdallasemployees.com
