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General Membership Meeting This Thursday!

November 30, 2009

Our final General Membership Meeting of the semester is coming up this Thursday, December 3rd. It will be at 5:30 PM at the Pres House off of Library Mall.

If you have any questions, just shoot us an email.

Here's what the tentative agenda looks like right now:

1. Bargaining Strategy Session
2. Political Education Committee Projects & Lay of the Land
3. AFT-Wisconsin Update
4. UIUC GEO Strike Storytime
5. Constitution Revisions
6. Treasurer's Report for Fall Semester
7. Officer Stipends

Please keep in mind that the agenda could get revised, with new topics being added, or items being re-shuffled. But this is what the meeting will look like at its core.

Here's a brief description of what you can expect from each item:

1. Bargaining Strategy Session
With our 2007-2009 contract now in place, our Bargaining Team has worked hard to prepare for the 2009-2011 negotiations. After getting lots of membership input, conducting a bargaining survey of members, and preparing planks and the platform, we are getting down to business. By Thursday's GMM, we will have had two "sidebar" meetings with the UW Administration, including the Chancellor.

We have some big decisions to make as a union right now about how we approach this bargaining round. The state has offered zero percent wage increases. We have a lot of working conditions and "non-economic" issues on the table. There is an opportunity to perhaps see movement on the segregated fee issue.

As a union, we make decisions democratically on how to move forward with our contract negotiations. So this will be a very important discussion of key priorities, what we are willing to do, how we can make things happen, and the general direction of bargaining in which our membership would like to move.

VP of Bargaining Kevin Gibbons and TAA bargaining staffer Rob Henn will lead this discussion of members.

2. Political Education Committee Projects & Lay of the Land
The Political Education Committee has been working to put together a full slate of projects for the spring semester and beyond. Not the least of which is our creation and development of a new political platform. Political Education Committee chair Peter Rickman and PEC activist Jason Tatum will walk members through the process for how we will create a democratic political platform and what we are going to do with it.

3. AFT-Wisconsin Update
At our last GMM, we voted on matters going to the AFT-Wisconsin convention. We will briefly update members on what occurred at the convention with the federation of unions of which we are a part. What happens in the federation at-large impacts us on a number of levels.

One of those issues will be the organizing drive on which AFT-Wisconsin is working to unionize faculty and academic staff at UW System schools. TAA Co-President and AFT-Wisconsin delegate Peter Rickman will provide a brief update and answer any questions members have.

4. UIUC GEO Strike Storytime
A week or so ago, our brothers and sisters of the GEO at the University of Illinois went out on strike over tuition remission. We sent a staffer and multiple activists down to Urbana-Champaign to support the strike. They will report back on the full story, what happened, and their experiences.

5. Constitution Revisions
We need to perform a small revision to our governing Constitution with regard to our non-discrimination provision. At our last GMM, membership voted to create an ad hoc committee to draft up language to address these issues; at this meeting, they will present their work and membership will debate and vote on making needed changes.

6. Treasurer's Report for Fall Semester
We are going to have our Treasurer do a mid-year, fall semester report on the finances of the TAA. As many of you know, we voted in the spring of 2009 on a budget that allocated funds for increased organizing and leadership development time from our staffers. Our Treasurer, Michael Childers, will report on where our finances are at (hint: they're in good shape).

7. Officer Stipends
While our Co-Presidents and Treasurer are not paid by the union, we traditionally provide a stipend to them for each semester of work. At the final GMM of each semester, we consider stipends for these officers.

posted by Webmaster

 

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