March 11, 2002

Greetings to all!

I cannot help but note that six months have now passed since the day that our way of life suddenly became fragile. This time has taught us perspective, and also a resolve to move ahead with our daily lives.

There are several items of news about our lives here at UAW Legal Services that we need to pass along. We unfortunately were unsuccessful in our real estate practice arbitration. For those of you who were not familiar with this situation, one of our attorneys had also practiced on an occasional basis as a real estate agent for many years. She had never had a conflict but the Plan was concerned about potential conflicts with clients. They were able to convince the arbitrator that this ban was permissible under the management rights clause in the contract. Our grievant was expecting this result, and was nevertheless appreciative of the Local's efforts.

This does not affect other outside involvements that our attorneys may have; they will be each viewed on a case by case basis. If anyone has an outside activity that they have been told that they cannot continue, it is a contract issue and a grievance should be considered. We never need to presume that the Plan's position is going to be the prevailing one. We hope to get a copy of the decision on our website once we acquiring the scanner enhancement software necessary to do so.

We have another arbitration request pending, this regarding the Plan providing coverage for LASIK surgery. This is based on the fact that a number of our members and other Plan employees received full coverage for this procedure under our previous health insurance coverage with Mass Mutual and Unicare. Since the Plan is now self- insured with Great West being the service provider, they are taking the position that it is not covered unless medically necessary. The others were paid by "mistake" according to the Plan, including coverage for one of our members recently under Great West. We will keep you apprised of how this matter proceeds on the website and in future newsletters.

If anyone has a possible grievance on any matter, feel free to contact Grievance Chair Roger White in the Arlington, Texas office.

It is not too early to think of the 2004 collective bargaining agreement negotiations; we are already close to being half way through with this contract. We are looking to get an earlier than ever jump on this and will be meeting with the Michigan Local for a planning session in the very near future. We will be in touch with all of the membership on this, in that we will need your input on what attainable benefits are important to you. If any member has a future contract issue that they wish the executive committee to address, feel free to contact us through the web site, email, or by telephone.

We are looking forward to this being a fertile topic of discussion at our annual meeting, to be held this year the weekend of October 19th in Las Vegas. More can be found regarding the meeting elsewhere on the website. Be sure and check on regular updates on our web site.

Ralph Johnson
President, AFSCME 3357

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November 1, 2001

2001 Membership Annual Meeting

I want to first thank everyone who is here for being here. I know that we have lost several of our intended attendees, but am glad to see that we still have a very good turnout. In these sensitive times, it is good to try and continue with what we have planned to do.

I want to make special welcome to our Michigan members who have come for this meeting.

I especially want to thank the other members of the executive committee for their commitment to building our organizational framework.

I want to recognize Vice President Tim Holder, who unfortunately could not be here due to some health issues, and who has been engaged in several special projects, including the CBA pocket printing, of which you and the rest of the membership recently received, and for his work on an arbitration originally scheduled to be heard in July and rescheduled to next week. Also Secretary Cindy Tuczynski, for her dedicated work in getting membership and dues lists coordinated, as well as playing a large role in keeping the membership informed. And Treasurer Paul Colavecchio for doing a superb job of keeping the books and timely making sure things get paid that should get paid. Also Roger White for his work on the always difficult job of representing our peers as Grievance Chair, and special mention to Field Captain Coordinator/Webmaster John Suda who has taken us way beyond where we've been before with our web site. The fact that I have had this group to work with is largely why this year as President has been a rewarding rather than draining experience. We should recognize that all on the executive committee are doing this volunteer work that amounts to the equivalent of a part time job.

What have we accomplished since our last meeting? Foremost on my agenda was strengthening our organizational structure. I think that we have made strides toward that; all of us are in roles that should survive our involvement if we truly are an organization. Today's technology, and our web site in particular, gives us communication tools well beyond what was available to us 10 and even 5 years ago. These communication tools are especially critical with our group, which is truly a unique Local, both in AFSCME and Union organizing in general. We cover numerous communities and states, and we are represented as such here today. Keeping things together is obviously a tremendous challenge.

Second, I think that we have needed to deepen the involvement of our membership in Union activities. I think that we have succeeded in increasing the participation of the membership to some extent, although there is still work to be done. Again, this challenge has much to do with our logistics. I especially think that we need to continue to make strides in making sure that every new hire and new member for us receives information about our Union Local. Certainly the contract printing will help make sure to let new hires know that we are the best resource available about their position as new employees.

Third, we want to develop credibility with the Plan management with our activity. This is obviously perceptual, but I believe that we have made strides in that area. Our relationship with them is far more professional and less adversarial than with their predecessors. Where as years ago the management team in Detroit tended to try and bully us and viewed us as a threat, this management group has a different philosophy and encourages rather than feels threatened by our organizing. That does not make it any easier to extract concessions from them, and in some ways more difficult. We used to rely on their mistakes for leverage, and cannot count on that any longer. But I am convinced that developing a more professional relationship is to our advantage and that we should continue to strive to this end. We still need to flush out unprofessional management behavior.

There is much work to be done to further these objectives. First and foremost, I believe that we need to recognize that our demographics are changing. We have included in the meeting packet the Seniority list for all of our members. From that list we can see the breakdown of who we are insofar as to how long we have been with the Plan. There is obviously a senior core group that still make up nearly half of our membership, and that have been with us for 10 years or more. There is also an increasing number of our members who have been with us for 3 years or less. This is the group that we need to reach.

And last but certainly not least, we need to start thinking about our next contract negotiations. It has been pointed out that we need to make preliminary contact as much as a year prior to the expiration of our contract; that is when the UAW Contract is negotiated, and that is when the Plan Management asks for the money that becomes their authorization pay us what they offer.

It is not too early to look at the issues we need to address in 2004. In fact, if we wait, it will be too late to make a difference. I think that one of the perceptions of all of us who have participated in contract negotiations is that the money that we get is predetermined. We need to intervene earlier than ever to impact that process, and it is our pledge to do that.

For further information, please feel free to check out our web site at www.afscme3357.org/MeetingInfo.html.

Dear fellow Staff Attorneys of Local 3357:

Greetings! I have had the opportunity to talk with more of you over the past several months, especially recently in St. Louis where I was asked by the Plan to help teach their litigation seminar.

Several things strike me as common chords these days. First, it is obvious that many offices have problems with their support staff. The Plan does not pay enough in many locations to keep up with the market. Frequent turnover and lack of training seems to be crippling some of our attorneys.

Second, it is obvious that some offices continue to flounder with workload problems. We continue to hear about this on a regular basis. It is good that we hear about it, too; we will only improve our ability to leverage this by using the remedies we have available to us.

Third, there is a common belief that our health insurance benefits are being eroded. This needs to be halted. To this end, the Local will soon be sending a survey with an eye toward future grievances.

Stay tuned! There is more to report in the coming months with grievance arbitrations and the annual meeting in October.

Sincerely,

Ralph Johnson
President, AFSCME 3357

Greetings:

I have several bits of news.
The entire membership will soon be getting a mailing that includes a pocket size copy of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, a notification of the proposed constitutional amendment, and an invitation and reminder about this web site.

This site is a marvelous resource beyond anything ever seen by this group. We hope that this will develop as an important tool to engage the membership.

You have already seen notice that we are taking a grievance to arbitration; the hearing is scheduled for the week of July 23rd, so we should have the decision by the time of the annual meeting in October.

We have several discipline grievances winding their way through the grievance process. These grievances are always very difficult to resolve in that the Plan never believes that one is issued without just cause and therefore is unlikely to back down short of arbitration. If anyone feels compelled to file a grievance, contact your steward, area rep, or Grievance Chair Roger White.

Otherwise, we have several difficult workload issues that we are working on. In particular, the newest Plan office in Florida has had all sorts of problems with workload and office management issues. Working conditions are not good there right now, and we must do what we can to improve them.

I am struck by my dealings with various offices that there is a wide discrepancy in working conditions. Some offices have poor work environments due to workload issues, some because of abusive local management issues. We certainly consider it our responsibility to confront and/or present to upper management such poor work environments.

It almost goes without saying that the better offices are those that are more collegial and flexible in allowing the attorneys to manage their own workload. We need to convince management of what I believe is true, that these “better offices” are also good business with fewer client complaints or practice errors.

Ralph Johnson
President, AFSCME 3357

Welcome To the Local's new web site. Thanks to the efforts of former Local President and current webmaster John Suda, the Local has arrived in the 21st century in style. We hope that this site will engage our members.

In my role as elected Union President, the Plan according to the contract is required to send me regularly updated Seniority lists of all Union Attorneys. Through those lists, we have discovered several non dues payers. Let us assure you that this is being rectified; it is obviously not fair to the rest of the membership.

The Plan also sends me copies of all disciplinary notices sent to our membership. I believe that the Plan is paying more attention to issuing these notices since the computer systems are now established and all of the Collective Bargaining Agreements have been negotiated and ratified.

Because any disciplinary notice is a Collective Bargaining Agreement issue, I would urge anyone who receives one to at least consider filing a grievance. In the past we have often gotten such disciplines mitigated if not removed. Any questions or grievance filing information should go to Grievance Chair Roger White. You can find out how to contact Roger elsewhere in this web site. We do not assume that there is just cause for discipline just because the Managing Attorney, Assistant Director, or Personnel Administrator Elaine Eizelman says there is.

We have elected to arbitrate the refusal of the Plan to allow a Staff Attorney who is licensed as a realtor to utilize her license under any circumstances. The Attorney is willing to accept any terms to avoid time conflict or representation conflicts, but the Plan does not accept this. We expect to prevail on this if it has to go to hearing. What any of us do outside of practicing law on our time is our own business!

We have had success recently in two grievances where the Staff Attorney took sick leave to care for family members. The Plan attempted to impose the use of vacation leave instead. They did back down, however, and allow the sick leave to be used. Thanks to Roger White, who handled these two cases for Union.

For those who have accrued significant amount of sick leave, this is important. What good is it if you cannot use it?

More news later; we'll do our best to keep you posted.

Sincerely,

Ralph Johnson

President, AFSCME 3357