Forest Firefighting Positions Available

Oregon Department of Forestry has posted 47 announcements for Seasonal Full Time wildland firefighting positions.  The position titles are:

• Wildland Fire Dispatcher
• Forest Officer
• Wildland Fire Suppression Specialist
• Wildland Fire Suppression Specialist Entry
• Forest Lookout

More information is available here:https://www.governmentjobs.com/careers/oregon

Confront or Overlook The State of our Local

Forestry Local - President’s Message

January 9, 2016

The good of our Local is that we were able to negotiate a pretty good contract, have contact mechanisms in place like a listserv, a top 100 forestry blog and that we are financially strong.

The bad, we are on leadership and representation life support.  Even though we pay dues we are currently organized as a volunteer organization.  Leadership is composed of volunteers and our representation function is also made up of volunteers, Stewards.

• Volunteer organizations work when some of those volunteers are willing to do just a little bit more.

• Confront or overlook

Stewards are the primary mechanism where representation is provided to our fellow employees in need.  We are gasping.  There are no Stewards in half of the State, Central and Eastern Oregon.  There are no Stewards in another ¼ of the State, the South Coast and Cascades.  In the ¼ of the State with Stewards there are not enough, with vacancies in Astoria, Forest Grove and Salem.  On Tuesday a new Steward was selected at South Fork, Will Bennett.  Brandon thank you for organizing this, I happily brought pizza and pushed until there was a selection.

Our organizers, make it pretty clear that they are not here to provide representation.  Their supervisors make it pretty clear to them that they are not to provide representation services. They are not trained to provide representation services.  They are like the Red Cross and bring the volunteer Steward and the person in need together and organize training like the Red Cross first aid classes, only ours is called “contract enforcement”.

I will go a lot of places and bring pizza when a Steward will be elected, I’m not so willing to travel to represent someone, and will leave that to others or our MRC.  It is the way we are currently organized.  Maybe it should be changed, if there are not enough volunteers willing to do a little bit more, but I think the current system of handling problems locally with locals is still better than other alternatives, look at the Bundy in Malheur.  Confront or overlook, let’s do something about finding more Stewards.

We are in a leadership selection phase in our Local, the President, Vice President, Secretary and Treasurer positions are open.

Nominations open: February 1, 2016

Nominations close: at 5 pm February 26, 2016

Candidate statements are due: by 5 pm March 11, 2016

Ballots mailed: March 29, 2016

Ballots returned: by 5 pm April 22, 2016

We are on life support now.  Our Treasurer took another job, our Secretary and Vice President will not be returning and myself, wondering what is next.

Leaders are needed to step up and fill our Local’s Leadership shortage.  The same is true in our State and in our Country.  To often leaders are selected from those who did not show up, or showed up late.  I don’t think that is the way it should be done.  I would like to overlook, but on this, I am more likely to confront.  The world is run by those who care enough to show up.

Think about it, you know the election timeline now. 

Forestry Statewide on for January 9th

Our next Statewide Local meeting is on track for Saturday, January 9th at SEIU 503 Headquarters in Salem from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.. A call-in time from 10:00 to 11:00 p.m. is available for those who cannot make it in person.  The phone number is available from your Leadership or Mike Bray our SEIU 503 staff organizer.  Please register at the following link so enough food can be ordered for our lunch:


http://seiu503.seiu.org/page/s/forestry-local-629-statewide-meeting

Items on the agenda include our leadership election timeline, state of our Local and agenda items for upcoming Labor/ Management meetings.

The following is a note from Google that access to this Blog will change after January 11th:

We encourage you to tell affected readers (perhaps via a blog post), that if they use a non-Google Account to follow your blog, they need to sign up for a Google Account, and re-follow your blog. With a Google Account, they’ll get blogs added to their Reading List, making it easier for them to see the latest posts and activity of the blogs they follow.

Forestry Statewide Winter Meeting, January 9, 2016

Our next Statewide Meeting will be January 9, 2016 starting at 10:00 am at SEIU 503 Headquarters in Salem.

The agenda is still being developed, and interest is currently being sought from the membership. Please forward your ideas to any of your Forestry Leadership or our SEIU 503 Statewide coordinator, Mike Bray.

Awareness items are our Forestry elections for President, Vice President, Secretary and Treasurer and a key ring with our new Forestry Local logo is now available.

A Thank You From SEIU 503's Board of Directors

This is the season of thanks and I was reminded again of the hard and appreciated work you did this spring, summer and fall suppressing wildfires in Oregon.  Before I could speak, at the Board meeting on November 14, a thanks and enthusiastic agreement was offered recognizing ODF's firefighting and support staff during wildfire season 2015.  They knew as Oregonians what the conditions were and how their communities and homes were in harms way when the temperatures went up and winds blew.  That is why at the Board meeting with many items on the agenda, there was a hearty thank you that I wanted to pass along.

A Happy and Safe Thanksgiving to all, and I hope the new negotiated holiday, the day after Thanksgiving, will bring a little more joy into your life.

Membership, Training, Elections and Fairness

For our Union fairness is an important concept both in bargaining and treatment in the workplace. But opening and closing of recruitments, selection of the individual, assignment of work duties and location of that work are generally within the Management's Rights part of the Contract.  Management gets to make these decisions without Union input or oversight, but it still doesn't feel good when the perceived fair process of competitive interviews is sidestepped.  That brings me to membership, training and elections.

Fairness like justice isn’t always just given it has to be maintained, and sometimes fought for (Veteran’s Day comes to mind) and one of the best ways to do that is to join our Union.  There is currently a membership drive going on and many of you may be receiving a call, or perhaps a home visit asking that you move from Fairshare to Member.  Consider it, there is both a personal and group value to becoming a member, it helps in bargaining and to your work, respect beyond being a professional.

For those who want to go further, SEIU 503 offers Contract Enforcement Training.  These trainings are open to all members and cover the contract environment, creative problem solving and the grievance process.  Two sessions in November are planned, 13-14 in Salem and 20-21 in Portland.  Other sessions are also scheduled around the State and mileage and lodging are paid for those who need to travel.  Contact your Organizer or visit the SEIU 503 website to register.

One of the benefits of membership is the opportunity to run for our Local’s leadership positions and select your representatives by voting.  As a leader of of our Forestry Local you not only will work with the top leadership of the Department but also be one of the very few Union leaders who represent forestry employees.  The election timeline for the next two year term (2016-18) is; nominations open on February 1, 2016; nominations close on February 26, 2016; ballots will be mailed out March 29, 2016; and must be received by April 22, 2016. Our Union and benefits it brings is only as good as those joining, learning and leading it.

"Change, that's our world"

State Forester Doug Decker spoke at the State Forests Conference/ meeting and opened with what was one of the meetings themes "change, that's our world".  Other words of the day were, jestingly, "golden opportunity" and "prior approval".  But there was a lot of truth in all of those catch phrases as the baby boomers retire and a State Forest Management plan is developed.

One cominality for the Oregon Dept. of Forestry and our Union is leadership and leadership development.

Leadership to navigate changes, leaders to fill promotional opportunities and those to lead in the workplace.  There is a "golden opportunity" for leaders and those who want to become one.

The Department has more leadership development programs than most, seek them out, and if accepted study hard.  Our Union also has leadership positons avialable, and the front line is the workplace Steward.  In October 2014, the Forestry Local clarifed the steps to becoming a Steward and those steps can be found here in our Local's ammended by-laws:  http://forestry629.blogspot.com/2014/11/forestry-statewide-meeting-dalles.html
Being a Steward will help develop your leadership skills setting and running worksite meetings, solving problems and when necessary representing your co-workers.  There is also training available like the Contract Enforcement classes listed on the SEIU 503 website:  http://www.seiu503.org

Forestry Local leadership elections will also be in early 2016, "change, that's our world".