General Membership Meeting Minutes

Meeting was called to order at 7:05 PM at 918 Benjamin NE, Grand Rapids.
Meeting was opened with the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance and Invocation.

Roll Call of Officers:

Present:

Steve Austin, President
Jennifer Amos, Recording Secretary
Orv Glombowski, AO Director
Bill Scutt, Clerk Craft Director
Jim Sweeney, Special Delivery Craft Director
Larry Niece, Mailhandler Craft Director
Ronda Payne, Sergeant at Arms
Jim Smith, Maintenance Craft Director
Catherine Beemblossom, Executive Vice-President
Absent:
Karen Hodges, Treasurer
Vacant:
MVS Craft Director

The April General Membership Meeting minutes were accepted as corrected. The corrections were: Entry in “Bills Accepted” was omitted: Orv Glombowski, $41.01 for supplies. Total = $164.29.

Applications for Membership:

Clerks, Grand Rapids:

Xuaulan Nguyen-- Bruce Hunter --Patricia Kingsbury

Sandra Partridge --Keith Williams --Shawn Sandee

Erica Toliver --Pricilla Clementson --Scott Achterhoff

Jason Robinson --Karen Goosen --Yolanda Moore

Douglas Karas --Michael Parker --Thomas Rockhill

Maintenance, Northwest Station:

Arthur Eggerding

Bills Accepted by Majority Vote:

$ 79.47 -- Orv Glombowski, Mileage & Postage

58.29 --Mark Juczynski, Postage for step 3s

37.03 --Karen Hodges, Supplies
$174.79

Maintenance Report: Smith -- Maintenance positions will be taken from Grand Rapids installation and moved to AOs. This constitutes excessing in my opinion. Getting any type of leave on the weekend is still a problem. Supervisors have weekends off. Management trying to deal with this problem by rotating supervisor’s days off. Thanks to new maintenance stewards.

Associate Office Report: Glombowski -- Information requests still coming in. Postmasters admitting to doing craft work. FAA audit hitting the AOs hard. Failure to postmark target mail got a new clerk a seven day suspension. The fight continues.

Clerk Craft Report: Scutt -- FAA mail going through AOs have to come through Grand Rapids, as well. I am trying to reduce discipline for these incidents. Information requests -- am using different procedures to get better results. PTF preference -- Al Smith is unwilling to recognize this part of the contract. We will pursue this in the grievance procedure. Sally Murphy’s son very ill due to car accident -- keep her family in your prayers. Food poisoning at annex -- annex employees got sick after eating sub sandwiches management provided. Confrontation with Ken Peek due to my concern over the well-being of the annex employees prompted my administrative leave. Mr. Peek is on administrative leave, as well. Murry Weatherall is making it difficult for me to meet with people and proceed with union business.

Special Delivery Report: Sweeney -- New manager at AMF. New messenger in Special Delivery. It took eight months to get the position filled.

Executive Vice-President Report: Beemblossom -- Training by Orv Glombowski on Article 28 went well. Orv did an excellent job. John Clark, NBA, will teach a class on Article 37 -- June 27th from 11:00 am-5:00 pm at the union hall.

President Report: Austin -- Managers leaving -- It is rumored a few managers will be taking new positions, leaving vacancies here in this office. This may cause us some difficulty in the future with negotiations. Article in paper about the food poisoning at the annex -- there may a follow up. National day of picketing, May 27 -- found air time for advertising on B-93. Tentatively, advertising about the picketing will be heard during the day, then DJs would serve coffee later on the picket line. Will be sending letters to other unions to ask for help on the picket line.

COMMITTEE REPORTS:

POWER Committee -- Catherine Beemblossom: “Won’t work for food” T-shirts are still on sale. $10 for WMAL members, $15 for others. $2 of each sale goes to COPA. Support the NALC food drive this month.

Convention Committee -- Catherine Beemblossom: Donations still needed for door prizes for convention. Many volunteers still needed for State Convention.

Cans for COPA -- Catherine Beemblossom: $13.00 for COPA.

Retirement Committee -- George Hendricks: Ceremony to “Celebrate The Value Of Public Service” on April 19, 1998. Articles from “the paper” and other sources concerning political issues. (These articles were passed around the room)

Correspondence: Thank you note from the United Farm Workers of America. A UFW flag was sent, it is displayed in the union office at the MPO.

Old Business:

Constitutional Change submitted at the April general membership meeting was not posted in accordance with the local constitution. This has been corrected. The vote will take place at the June General Membership meeting.

New Business: Board recommendation to install America Online on the computer at the MPO at an approx. Cost of $20 per month. Discussion. Defeated.

Board recommendation to purchase a locking computer desk at a cost of no more than $260. Discussion. President yielded chair to Secretary. Secretary yielded chair to Vice-President. Defeated.

Vice-President yielded chair to President.

Motion by Scutt for local to purchase flowers for Sally Murphy’s son at a cost of $25 to be delivered by Beemblossom. 2nd-Beemblossom. Carried.

Motion by Niece for local to donate $50 to Benefit Golf Tournament for Gloria Palazzolo. 2nd-Beemblossom. Carried.

Motion by Cindy Cunningham to rescind motion by Missy Grose for the local to pay for six rooms for the State Convention Committee members at the state convention from May 27-30 for a total of four nights at approx. $100 per room per night totaling approx $2400. [Motion made at April General Membership Meeting] 2nd-Novakoski. Discussion. Defeated.

Motion by Phil Stritzinger to table above motion until later in meeting. 2nd-Smith. Discussion. Defeated.

Motion by Phil Stritzinger to take a recess while researching the motion to rescind [using Robert’s Rules of Order]. 2nd-Ed Cunningham. Discussion. Call for question. Defeated.

Motion by Scutt to approve expenditures by the local to obtain legal representation for Scutt, if necessary. Discussion. Carried.

Motion by Novakoski to amend above motion to add the words “up to $500, initially”. Discussion. Carried.

Motion by Beemblossom to extend meeting until end of business. 2nd-Sweeney. Defeated.

Meeting adjourned at 9:02 p.m.

Respectfully Submitted

Jennifer Amos
Recording Secretary

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