Minutes from chapter’s Executive Committee Meeting – 2/1/2018
- Discussion: “Taking Stock & Moving Forward” – 40 min – everyone
- What have we been doing well? What haven’t we been doing that we need to start doing?
- What are other groups doing around campus? How do we link up?
- What are this semester’s immediate goals & strategies for the contract campaign? The budget campaign? The membership campaign?
- Updates & reflections on working groups: HEO, stewards, GC chapter meeting planning, internal organizing?, Science Fellows
- Science Fellows want to meet with PSC officer as next step to explain unique set of probs faced by Science Fellows & brainstorm how to deal with Research Foundation
- HEO committee: spreading info about salary differentials, recommitments, getting info from HR about new hires, will show up at HEOs orientations
- Decentralization of work has had positive & negative outcomes
- Negative: lack of communication about events
- Solidarity committee merged into wider/fluid working group around campaign to reinstate Marisa Holmes, supporting Chelsea Manning & Oscar Lopez Rivera → drew in more 1st year involvement
- Internal organizing/membership: signed up a lot of new members in beginning of semester, but momentum has not continued throughout semester
- How to make membership/recommitment campaign exciting?
- Tag-teaming with 2 people
- Not ideal to ask activists to figure out fee payer’s schedules
- Phone-banking rather than walk-arounds
- Competition among departments
- Generally easier to sign up fee payers than re-commitments, but fee payers should be priority before Janus
- “Recommitment” on part of stewards needed
- Most difficult to get excitement around collecting cards
- Explore floor-wide meetings rather than department meetings
- Do we have updated fee payer list?
- Get student lists from APOs? Do classroom visits
- Hard to find new ppl in new depts → focus internal organizing on departments with lowest coverage
- Keep asks small & specific
- Map the faculty!
- Classroom visits are best for sharing events, not necessarily getting membership sign-ups
- How to make membership/recommitment campaign exciting?
- Let’s regularize steward involvement in EC or at least increase communication between EC & stewards
- Adjunct organizing has also become coalitional in nature at chapter level & has regular meetings focus on building for specific actions
- PSC organizers have mapped out class times by using CUNY 1st → catching adjuncts after they teach is a good method
- Updating & following up on Spring semester chapter organizing plan – 25 min – everyone
- Need to come up with organizing plan for ASRC
- EC attendance spreadsheet – 5 min – Anh
- Membership data management, communications & protecting privacy – 10 min – Marc
- PSC uses Constant Contact to manage member data → should check to see what is in contract between PSC & Constant Contact as to what Constant Contact can do with our info → Marc will check in with Naomi Z. about this contract
- We need to invest in integrated, streamlined database BEFORE Janus → get working group to investigate options → Marc will ask Naomi Z.
- UPDATE EC ON EVENTS – 5 min – Gerry
- Plans or resolutions for next DA meeting on Feb. 15 – 5 min – everyone
- Marc’s resolution on implementing pilot adjunct seniority system → is DA the best space? Or just start organizing with buy-in from PSC Vice Presidents? Or could be a CAP project?
- PSC has attempted seniority syst organizing in past → need to ask to Steve London