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Anchorage Chapter’s President’s Outgoing Letter
(This is the opinion of Larry Rabideau and not that of the Chapter)
The State stole your money. We told you that. Will you get your money back? Probably. When? When the State runs out of options and appeals. They have the money in reserves, they have chosen not to use it to give you your money back. They have the decision of their own board that says they did an illegal act, but they are not done punishing you for standing up and standing together to say NO! We need and deserve our money back and they need to pay penalty pay for purposely hurting the employees while sitting on millions in reserves.
This is my last letter as President of this Chapter. My term of office is over. The Anchorage Chapter Executive Board has been replaced with new volunteers (only Gordon Glaser and Mario Ayerdis have not changed). Your new Chapter President is Patrick Morrow.
I leave office with the members having voted overwhelmingly to strike if we are forced to. I am proud of the courage this chapter showed in voting that way in numbers that have shaken the administration to their roots. Negotiations will go forward now in a positive vein because of the courage of the membership.
I leave office with members organized for the first time. We are no longer a gang of people with their own special interests, we are a force that have decided they they will no longer be abused by the State.
I am disappointed that the Governor that came asking for our support has turned out to be such a disappointment to us. The responsibility for “jerking us around” for 11 months….is his. If there is a strike, the responsibility falls directly on his lack of leadership. Promises of honoring the contract and negotiating a new one were broken daily. This is a sadness that I take with me.
I leave you with a word of warning. Now is the time that you must be more vigilant. You elected leaders that made promises of what they would do in negotiations. You elected leaders that put into effect a solid structure for negotiations. You elected Negotiators that said they would represent your wishes and stand firm on your issues. I have seen that leadership waiver. You must make sure they don’t. This is a member run organization and should remain so. Do not let any one person violate the structure of negotiations, the promise of negotiations, or deal away your issues for personal gain. The only way to make sure this does not happen is for you to stay involved.
There are some good people in the leadership of this union. Find them
and stand by them. There are some excellent people on the negotiating team.
Show them your support. Your involvement will ensure the victory we are
all waiting for. We deserve to win, we have the will to win and we will
win because of you and volunteers like your new Board. I wish you the best.
It has been an honor serving Anchorage and I appreciate your support. In
Solidarity…….Larry Rabideau.
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From Your New Anchorage Chapter President
Dear Members of the Anchorage Chapter of ASEA,
Hello Anchorage! I'm starting this letter to the members thinking that I should do the following:
When I asked our friend and newsletter editor, Larry Nakata, what should go in this letter… he said that the purpose is to inform and educate our chapter membership about developments within ASEA that have an impact on the Anchorage Chapter. He also said I should give my perspective on these matters and discuss actions that are being taken to address these matters. So that is what I will try to do in this and following letters. Forgive me if I wander a bit.
The nomination process resulted in no run-off elections being necessary for the Chapter Officer and Board positions. The following people will represent the slate of new Anchorage Chapter officers:
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I would like to tell you a little about why I am the President of your chapter. (Look out, I'm wandering.) I am your President because I was asked by many different people to run for the office; people that I admire and respect. Those people include your past President, some past ASEA officers, various people in ASEA staff and leadership roles, and several other members. My first inclination was the same as when I was asked to be the SouthCentral Area Strike Authorization Vote Coordinator. My first thought was, "No way! I've got other things that I must do." Soon after that I realized this is important and I can do the job well if I can get enough help. I will be asking for your help.
I will not be able to ask each of you individually. I don't even know all of you. I will be asking for help on some specific things. While working on the strike authorization vote I was not able to get back to some of you that offered to help. I felt bad about that. So, let me ask now that all of you start thinking about what you can and want to do to help yourselves and us as a group. If an opportunity to do that does not come up in the next couple months then take it upon yourself to make the opportunity happen. If it is a needed and reasonable thing, I expect that there will be help available.
Doing this job, President of the Anchorage Chapter, is important because we state employees do important work. And so representing you is important work. I believe that being President of your organization includes helping you explain the important work that we do. We do so much to help the citizens of our great state.
We, along with 600,000 other people, are citizens of the State. We need things to happen; roads to be maintained, runways to be cleared, health to be monitored, business to work well, citizens to be assisted, Federal Government to be responded to, etc. There is a level of Government that is essential to the continued well being of the citizens in any state or country. I believe that State Government has been cut to the point where it is very difficult, or impossible, to accomplish all that is required. In many areas of work it is difficult or impossible to get the job done because there is just too much that needs to be done. In general, we're down to about the minimum in budgets and personnel. Even so, in many cases, more work gets piled on. It's time for us to speak up and tell the other citizens of the State of Alaska what we do for them. That is one place where you can help. Talk to your neighbors. Talk to the businesses where you spend your money. Talk to them about the work you do as a State employee.
Workers that choose to serve the state should not be penalized because they choose to build their careers as public employees. We should be proud to be state employees. We provide many valuable services. I feel strongly that anyone who does not think state employees are a valuable asset to the state, just doesn't understand what we do. If you think your job is unimportant then I urge you to speak up and do what it takes to make the job be important. If the job just isn't needed then work on your resume and go get a job that is needed. Don't let anyone belittle the work that we do.
Every day I see workers and hear about other workers that put in work time that is way beyond what is, or should be, required. The public, the legislators, and the Administration never know about the extra hours we put in. Contractually we have agreed to work 37.5 hours per week. In my job I often find myself making excuses for working non-payable hours. I know others do similar things. Some people work 10 or 12 hour days just because there is too much work to do in a regular day. Some are afraid their jobs will be jeopardized if they don't put in the extra time. The reality is that when we work beyond what we should, we are cheating ourselves out of needed help to get the work done.
Our contract with the State spells out many of the details related to our pay and benefits. Our pay and benefits are now being negotiated with the administration. They should be good enough that we can live comfortably and get increases that account for inflation and reflect our increased value to the state. Our retirements should accumulate sufficiently so that we can look forward to a comfortable retirement that begins at the age we plan on. You can help with these issues by educating yourself about the details of the old contract, how we get a new contract, and by attending some of the various ASEA meetings. As a person who works under contract you need to be aware of the details in that contract.
Our recent strike authorization must have had an affect on the state's contract negotiators. This past Thursday, December 2, an entry to our web site was made that shows a proposal from the state which includes some pay increases. Take a look at the details. It is significant, but appears to be an offer that should have been made about six months ago. Instead of an end point of negotiations, it looks like a real beginning. I hope that is the case. It is definitely a positive result. For that I want to thank our negotiators and the 85% of you who voted to authorize a strike.
Even if we go on strike, we will eventually be voting on a contract.
When that happens I hope we all cast our ballots after thoughtful consideration
of the facts. The facts to consider are what our pay and benefits
are and what we think they should be. That will be another opportunity
for us to voice our opinions and then to act in solidarity. Thank you for
your support in the future…..Pat Morrow
