Minutes from chapter’s Executive Committee Meeting – 10/12/17

• Planning for upcoming meetings at SPS – Susan – 20 min
  • Gerry will publicize, Anh will make flyer
  • Jennifer will send email to EC to mobilize to attend Brown-Bag luncheon/”chapter” mtg
    • EC members who can make 10/30 12:30 mtg 119 W. 31 St.: Gerry, Andrea, Travis, Anh, Jennifer, Susan
  • Susan will draft agenda (recommitment campaign, Janus, demands & contract fight, health & safety concerns, ways to get involved)
  • Handouts: contract wins for HEOs & adjuncts
  • Sign-ups to get involved: organizing convos w/ co-workers, ConCon, MOE
  • Emails campaign: “did you know you’re not a PSC union member?”
  • Marc will attend faculty meeting for Law & Immigration department (Wed 11/8 6pm)
  • Check COCAL for resources on organizing online adjuncts (telemarketing structure?)
  • Gerry, Andrea & Susan will get together to work on video messaging, possible GC Youtube channel?
  • EC meetings in the future will reserve time to organizing SPS adjuncts until we can figure out a way to make it more rank-and-file based organizing
• Planning union meetings at Macaulay, Murphy & SPH – tabled
  • Identify activists on these campuses who are doing some sort of organizing & link them to GC organizing & ask them to be de facto EC members (Anh will follow up)
  • Staff organizers have spent some time on these campuses
• WAC Fellows grievance – Marc – 7 min
  • WAC Fellows on almost all campuses required to work 15 hrs/wk, in violation of GA-B work requirements
• Sponsoring a proposal for DA regarding membership campaign – Anh – 10 min
  • Andrea: we need to figure out how we’re currently doing to see how much need is left; want to avoid assumption implicit that PSC is not doing enough or nothing has happened, HEOs have gone door-to-door & tabled; the biggest ask w/ this proposal is hiring new ppl → need to simplify this to focus on asking ourselves “how are we doing?” rather than just saying more $$; members are not stepping up sufficiently so membership campaign falls on shoulders of staff; sending temp organizer is not as effective as someone who’s rooted & has built long-term relationships; we have to permanently function diff after Janus & this proposal may give us a false sense of security & doesn’t create a fundamental change that’s needed after Janus
  • Luke: according to data, we are doing this at the GC but it needs to happen more systematically across the campuses; we need something to start the convo; great one-time investment even if its not perfect
  • Susan: ppl hired to do this would not be outside ppl but current members (→ **clarify this on the proposal?**); allows us to build capacity among existing members; pose pay & number of hires as **“a possible example”** so that there’s flexibility w/in the proposal
  • Maya: would be helpful to hold ppl more accountable to organizing work; many feel organizing is a stressor on time so they need to be compensated; **add something about how to distribute 25 hirees**; frame it as galvanizing existing members; liaisons are not under purview of Org Dept…Will DA/EC resist on this technicality?
  • Came from Laura Kaplan, grad student in Urban Ed, adjunct at BCC & former union organizer, who couched this proposal in terms of internal organizing
  • Travis: shouldn’t exclude wider **“CUNY community members”** as potential organizers who would be assets (amend language to read “PSC members & CUNY community”
  • EC voted to endorse proposal with **amended changes** above: 6 in favor, 2 abstained
• Updates & approach toward 7k campaign – tabled
• Bargaining update & other preparations for next DA on 10/19 – Luke – 15 min
  • Bargaining demands will be voted on so we must all be there to ensure quorum to vote on new EC position and demands
  • BT has never spoken about what info can be shared w/ members so need to find out
  • Proposal that our chapter EC members who are on the BT release demands to be voted on well before DA
  • CUNY DSA spoke about working w/ PSC on contract demand for 7k → will reach out to Luke to ask Qs & get plugged in
• Other concerns, announcements & updates – everyone – 3 min
  • How do we follow up on L-M promises? Can we do more than just asking at the following L-M what has happened?
    • Marc, Anh, etc. will come up with a plan for EC to discuss next month