FEBRUARY 2019 MINUTES

MINUTES OF MONTHLY MEETING OF NORTHEASTERN WISCONSIN AREA LOCAL #2247

Date:  Tuesday, February 24th, 2019

Place:  Denny’s

President Kelly Heaney called the meeting to order at 1900 hours.

A quorum was declared with 15 members in attendance.  

Kelly Heaney led the Pledge of Allegiance and Steve Paradise gave the Invocation.  

The following officers were present:

President Kelly Heaney, Vice President Steve Paradise, Recording Secretary Jenny Starry, Bay Breeze Editor Kelsey Helf, Clerk Craft Director Dave Kroll, and Maintenance Craft Director Lance Bouyear.  Secretary/Treasurer Robert Olson and Motor Vehicle Craft Director Jeremy Linberg were excused.

Minutes of the January 2019 were read by Recording Secretary Jenny Starry.   

The following corrections were made to the minutes; change led to gave the invocation and move ‘We still don’t have a new contract.’ to other business.  

A motion was made by Dave Kroll and seconded by Christine Bouyear to accept the minutes as changed.  Motion passed unanimously.

A motion was made by Dave Kroll and seconded by Matt Vadala to suspend the order of business to order food.  Motion was passed unanimously.

A motion was made by and seconded by Art Ciesielczyk to resume the order of business.  Motion passed unanimously.

The financial report for January 2019 was read by President Kelly Heaney.    

REPORTS

Executive Committee:  

Labor/Management:  Steve Paradise read the minutes from the labor/management meeting.  Re-bidding jobs, revised schedules, steward time, pool clerks, the floor in the break room, the parking lot among other things were discussed.  The minutes will be posted on the board.

Grievance:  Line-H maintenance grievances, improper mandation grievances, supervisors doing clerk work, and overtime bypass grievances are being filed.

Automation:     

Safety/Health:  Tell somebody if you get hurt at work.  Then you have 24 hours to file a report if you need to.  

Legislative:   Steve Paradise gave the Legislative report.  On February 14th, 2019, Bernie Sanders introduced the “Expand Social Security Act”, legislation that would expand benefits and add almost 50 years of solvency to the program.  The Equal COLA Act was re-introduced. This requires legislation to provide FERS Retirees with full cost-of-living adjustments. Stamps.com is severing their ties with the USPS.  They will just work with Amazon.

OWCP:   Steve Paradise stated that Beth Bockhop expressed interest in becoming an OWCP representative.

Constitution:  The Constitution committee presented three changes to the constitution.  These will be posted on the board, at all the stations and AO’s, on the NEWAL website and in the Bay Breeze and will be voted on at the next meeting.  The members at the meeting voted unanimously to approve posting these changes.

New Members:   Rodney Nelson, Emily Ewald, Heather Hoffman, and Amy Rayome.

Lost Members:        

Communications:     

UNFINISHED BUSINESS   

The change to the constitution that was proposed at the January 2019 meeting was voted on and passed unanimously.  See attached.

NEW BUSINESS   

OTHER BUSINESS

PSE’s being forced to wait more than 3 hours to take a break, dirty sort and PSE schedules were discussed.  

NEXT MEETING

A motion was made by Steve Paradise and seconded by Art Ciesielczyk to have the next meeting on Thursday March 21st at 11am at Denny’s.  Motion passed unanimously.   

ADJOURNMENT   

A motion was made by Christine Bouyear and seconded by Matt Vadala to adjourn the meeting.  Motion passed unanimously. NEWAL meeting adjourned.

The $10 door prize was won by Steve Paradise.

Attendees: See attached sign-in sheet.

Minutes submitted by Recording Secretary Jenny Starry.