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ANCHORAGE CHAPTER’S PRESIDENT’S LETTER
Hello Anchorage!
We won a new contract!!
We did a good job. There is no doubt about it. The $54/month increase in health care cost was defeated due to our outrage. 84% of the voters authorized a strike. The message was clear. We had reached our limit.
The pay raises in this contract are better than the last few three year contracts. We really had gone backwards for 15 years and had gone through almost a year of stalling by the Administration and then the Legislature. This contract does not make up for those losses. It does probably keep us from going backwards. Let’s make the next one be at least as good. This contract can be a turning of the tide.
Between now & the end of this contract we have two years of potential battles with the legislature over funding each year. Don’t drop your guard. Be ready.
WE did very good. Be proud of the work we did. Remember. Be ready to do it again if necessary.
The tentative agreement was reached and our members voted to ratify this agreement. After some tense moments the contract was funded by the legislature. They did the right thing in the end.
For those of you who were on the Anchorage area strike committees, thank you for your time and participation in these committees. We needed to be ready if our contract was not funded.
Strike Planning Committees were created in each region of the state. They prepared plans to move forward with a strike. They established their mission statements and developed list of tasks with timelines. We got ready by preparing a work plan that would immediately go into effect if a strike was called. That work was important.
The Strike Planning Committee chairpersons in the Anchorage area were:
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With another month that has gone by, an important ASEA ballot issue is pending. It is the election for Statewide Executive Board members. The Statewide Executive Board is elected to be in charge of all 19 Chapters in this organization of General Government workers. The votes you were asked to cast on this issue were for President and (depending on the type of work you do) either a Class 1, Professional, or Technical representative. Ballots were due by March 29th . The count resulted in a new President (Ernie Thomas) and a new technical representative (Toya Winton). Congratulations to both.
Protests have been filed on the elections which resulted in a review and investigation by the Statewide Elections Committee. The Elections Committee has released their report which calls for a re-run of elections for the positions of President, Technical Representative, and the Fairbanks Judicial Panel seat. There is a run-off election for Class 1 representative in which the votes will be counted on May 24th.
On lighter news, congratulations to the following people who won prizes in our union’s raffle:
Raffle Results
Our chapter scholarship program is named in honor of Linda Laflamme…a fine lady who passed away several years ago. Linda was a good friend of our union who was always there volunteering her time through “thick and thin” to better our union. We could always count on Linda to help out no matter how difficult the task. She will be missed by those of us who remember her….but will always be remembered through “The Linda Laflamme Scholarship Program”.
Finally, it has been suggested that we have a Summer picnic in July or August to celebrate. Watch for the details. Hmmm… I guess we need another committee. Volunteers?!
Take advantage of Spring. Get involved. Get informed. Get what you deserve.
In Solidarity,
Patrick W. Morrow
President, Anchorage Chapter
ASEA/AFSCME Local 52
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A Word From Our Retirement Chapter/ AARC52 of Alaska
The newly formed Alaska AFSCME Retiree Chapter 52 (AARC52) is a membership of individuals who are receiving retirement compensation from any State of Alaska retirement system and is a chapter chartered by and affiliated with the AFSCME Retiree Program of AFSCME International, AFL-CIO (Association of Federal, State, County, and Municipal Employees), an international organization that is 190,000 retiree members strong. A relatively new program, the AFSCME Retiree Program started in 1980. At 19 years old it is one of the newer programs and departments at AFSCME Headquarters in Washington D.C. Before the Program was started, all the people that were founders of AFSCME were retired and they essentially left the Union with no vehicle with which to continue their involvement with the International Union and its affiliates on a state level. These are people of skill and energy, activists that built the Union in many parts of the country and they still had a contribution that they wanted to make, being the same people that they were prior to retirement. The AFSCME Retiree Program is also in recognition of these people and their past contributions. It was seen that the retirees were taking the brunt from all sides, now as in 1980, with soaring medical costs and threats to senior programs and Medicare. There also existed the need to improve benefits in the public sector arena.
There was also seen a mutual need, that by and large those elected officials at state and national levels that were sympathetic to union issues are likewise sympathetic to senior citizen issues. Retirees are a tremendous force and resource for political action. One-third of all voters are age 55 and older. Consistently 75 percent of senior citizens vote and 95 percent are registered to vote and vote in much larger numbers than younger citizens.
The AFSCME Retiree Program has grown very rapidly over the 19 years,
by 1990, 130,000; 1992, 150,000; 1999, over 190,000 -- 10,500 per year
for the last 19 years. Part of that growth is a testament to the
resources that the leadership of AFSCME International has provided to allow
this growth.
