Forestry Local 629 April Meeting Minutes

On Saturday, April 26, 2014 the Forestry Local held a statewide meeting in Salem.  It was a full agenda and we completed our work by about 2:30 pm.

Agenda items:

State of Our Local:

Our Local officers, David Wells, Brandon Ferguson and Jim Neuman were sworn in as President, Vice President and Secretary respectively.  Tim Seitz our Treasurer could not attend do to a family commitment. Each of the officers had a chance to share their goals for the next two years.  Brandon looks to focus on both the employee and public safety and improve employee relationships within the bargaining group and greater community. Jim’s focus was on bargaining and how to improve opportunities for temporary and seasonal employees and those in the NRS series. Dave’s goal is to develop the Local’s leadership and recruit additional Stewards so no one would ever have to go alone when called into a supervisor’s office.  Ross Grami our new SEIU 503 Statewide coordinator provided an update on membership numbers and Stewards.

Steward Recruitment:

To fill out our Local’s leadership the following Steward recruitment assignments were made:

Jim- West Oregon and Astoria

Brandon- John Day and LaGrande

Dave- Salem, Grants Pass and Coos Bay

Stewards are selected from the membership where they work, following (generally) this process:

• A 10 day notice of an election for a Steward is provided in the worksite
• There is a call for nominations, you must be a member to be a Steward and to vote, you can join at the meeting
• Those present can decide how they want to vote by voice or ballot
• The results need to be announced to the membership and SEIU 503 informed
• And it is recommended that the new Steward attend training offered by SEIU on Union 101 and Contract Enforcement

Forestry Local Promotional Items:

The Local will purchase 200 baseball style caps with an Elliot State Forest theme and 300 long and short sleeved T-shirts, green with our Local’s design.

Labor/ Management Agenda Items:

Our next L/M meeting will be held June 5 in Salem.  There was a really good discussion of what will be discussed from everyone present and we now have a full agenda.

District Concerns:

The seasonal firefighter training schedule will be requested so Union orientations can be provided.  Other District concerns will be addressed more completely in separate posts.

The next meeting is tentatively scheduled for October 11, 2014 in either Sisters or Prineville.