</Minutes2006.shtml>

Present: Thandabantu Iverson, Steve Schnapp, Sally Alvarez, Bob Ginsburg, Greg Murray, Joan Hill, Bruce Nissen, Dennis Serrette, Dawn Addy, Tess Ewing, Skip Turner, Verlene Wilder

Dennis called the meeting to order at 10:00 am

An agenda was put together, consisting of the following items:

• 2007 Conference

• Site for 2008 Conference

• Immigration Task Force proposal

• Communications/email list

• Proposal for survey of members

• Treasurer’s report/budget

• Labor Studies Journal

• Report on Indiana University

1.) 2007Conference/2008 Site/Immigration Task Force Proposals

Dawn gave a report divided into 3 parts:

a. Logistics for 2007 conference

b. Site for 2008 conference

c. Other

(Note from Secretary: The Immigration Task Force proposals were folded into the discussion of the Conference. Also, I have moved 2 items regarding the conference that took place later in the meeting into this section for ease of comprehension. These items are Tote Bags and Culture.)

a. LOGISTICS

* Price: The NLC charges $170 for room & board, or $107.50 pp for double occupancy. Dawn proposed bringing the price down by subsidizing members by $20, so that they pay $155, (or $92.50 for a double). We can realize further savings ($5pp per day) by going for extensive continental breakfast (includes yogurt, fruit, etc.) instead of full breakfast. Continental breakfast would be better for commuters. The cost for commuters ($30/day) includes breakfast & lunch.

* Board meeting: The Eboard would meet the evening before the conference begins

* Registration: Assuming they can do it, we will get the NLC to handle credit card payments. (Note: Dawn & Dennis talked to the NLC Tuesday, and they will handle the credit card payments.) In any case, registration forms need to be mailed or faxed to Bob Ginsburg. The registration form will be modified to reflect these changes.

* Shuttle: Dawn is trying to arrange shuttle service from the NLC to Metro or other locations.

* Tote Bags: Dawn proposed that we buy Tote bags for the conference. She passed around details and photos of some suggested models. We agreed to get the inexpensive model, with long handles and if possible a zipper. It should just have the UALE logo so that it can be used in future years. We will get it in a variety of colors.

b. SITES for 2008 conference.

Dawn reported on 3 possible sites for 2008: Chicago, Detroit and Minneapolis. Prices in Chicago are too high, so it is being dropped. She has found union hotels in Detroit and Minneapolis that are possibilities. The Detroit site would only be available in February. Skip mentioned another union hotel in Detroit. Dawn says she will keep looking and let the hotels bid against each other.

c. OTHER

* Plenaries: Tess gave report from Immigration Task Force. The Task Force made proposals for an opening and a closing plenary. The Task Force proposed David Bacon for the lead-off speaker, and there would be 2-3 others to address different aspects of immigration and labor education. The proposal for the second plenary was less fleshed out, but would be interactive. The Task Force requested that the closing plenary not take place over lunch.

Discussion ensued. Verlene wanted to make sure the opening plenary connects the issues of immigrant workers to other diversity issues. Thandabantu wanted it to be done in a way that does not turn off whites. Greg wanted to make sure that it connects to organizing.

Tess moved that we approve the basic idea of the First plenary, with the changes discussed. Motion seconded and passed.

Dawn proposed that the second plenary be moved to the time slot before lunch, and that we invite in a “big name” closing speaker—since we will be in DC, it will be cheaper than usual to get a well-known person to come. Motion seconded and passed

* Speakers

During discussion of plenary, Dennis had brought up Larry Cohen’s new plan for an Army of 500,000 stewards. We decided this might be a good topic for the Union Directors’ session. Thandabantu proposed a session about working with the NLRB. He has been in discussion with someone from the Midwest office who would be a good presenter. Someone from American Rights at Work—optimally Bonior—could also contribute to this discussion. Dawn suggested this could be a Saturday night “general session” like the one we did last year on the war in Iraq. Various possible speakers were mentioned Sally proposed having someone speak about the war. Greg cautioned that we should not come off as not supporting our troops. Helmets to Hardhats was proposed. No final decision on speakers was made. We agreed we should try to get someone local. Dennis will work on this.

Tess requested that we pay transportation and lodging for David Bacon.

Sally moved that we pay travel expenses and 2 nights. Motion seconded and passed.

Thandabantu requested a similar arrangement for Lisa Friedheim-Weiss, of Midwest NLRB. Motion made, seconded and passed to pay for travel and 1 night for her.

* LSJ sessions: Bruce asked for 2 sessions for LSJ papers. Dawn agreed.

* Workshops on Immigration: Tess passed out list of proposed workshops /panels and papers on immigration, and gave update based on phone call earlier that day. 10 workshops and 2 papers are being proposed as far as we know. The Immigration Task Force requests an immigration “track” so that those interested in the topic can attend as many sessions as possible. Dawn says she will try to do that, but is not sure it will be possible given the large number of proposals on the topic.

* Culture: Dawn asked for suggestions for performers for the conference. Various names were suggested, including Joe Uehein and the Bones of Contention, the Jones Brothers, the DC Labor Chorus and Pam Parker.

Skip moved that we accept Dawn’s proposals in toto. Motion seconded and passed unanimously

2.) Communications/email list

There have been some problems in getting email notices out to people. It seems that some messages are not getting out, and/or people have been dropped from the list. Also, the project to put together a communications plan fell apart when the grad student hired to do a survey of members needs quit UMass without finishing the job.

Bob moved to move the web site and email to the new server being used by UALEITF, and Tess should control it. Motion seconded and passed.

3.) Proposal for Survey

Sally made a proposal on behalf of herself and Michelle Kaminski, to conduct a survey among our members to describe the current state of careers in labor education and identify how people became labor educators, and by implication, learn about how to recruit new labor educators into the field. Motion seconded and passed.

4.) LSJ

Bruce gave a report on the move from WVU to Sage. The first volume from Sage will be thus year. Sage guarantees a $5K profit for us, plus will give us $500 per year for Editorial Board expenses.

Bruce proposed that the $5K guaranteed by Sage be available to Editor to hire an Editorial Assistant. Motion seconded and passed.

5.) Treasurer’s Report/Budget

Bob went over the Treasurer’s report, including draft budget for 2007 that he had sent out previously. He noted that he had left in the money that had been allocated to pay the grad student for the now defunct communications plan.

Bruce noted that the communications plan was originally meant to be one part of a larger strategic planning process, and that we might consider hiring someone with expertise to lead us in such a process. Dawn suggested Elise Bryant, who is studying organizational development. Sally supported Dawn’s suggestion, and further noted that if Elise is not available she could recommend someone else. Discussion ensued as to how the planning process might take place and the timeline. Consensus was reached that we could have a preliminary meeting the day before the conference, but that the whole process would take longer. However it should be done soon, as a new EBoard will be elected next year.

A motion was made that Dawn would approach Elise to see if she would be willing to take on herself, or recommend someone else to take on, the following limited job to get the strategic planning process started:

1.) Do preliminary investigation

2.) Facilitate a session with the EBoard the day before the conference

3.) Write up a report, including a proposal of some options the Board could choose from to carry out the rest of the process

The amount to be paid for this job is left to the President and Treasurer to negotiate with the person we hire. Motion was seconded and passed unanimously.

Dawn made a motion to accept the Treasurer’s report as presented. Motion seconded and passed.

6.) Indiana U.

Thandabantu gave a report on what has been happening at Indiana University. The Labor Studies program has been under attack for 2.5 to 3 years. The all-faculty council now supports Labor Studies. The program would like to get support from UALE and other institutions.

Tess moved that Dennis write and send a letter of support on behalf of UALE; that Thandabantu put together a draft letter or talking points and send it to us, that we all request our own organizations to send letters of support, and that we publicize this among UALE members and others. Motion seconded and passed.

7.) New Business: Translation of Brochure

Steve moved that we get our brochure translated into Spanish. He volunteered t hat he could get the actual translation done for free, if UALE would pay for printing. Motion seconded and passed.

8.) Announcements

* Labor’s Voices conference MEDIA FOR A NEW WORKERS' MOVEMENT

April 26-28, 2007 at CUNY Graduate Center, New York City. Info available at www.laborsvoices.org

* “Sisters on the Frontline: Organizing Women, Building Power” Mar 30, 31 & Apr 1, 2007 in New York City. Info available at <www.ilr.cornell.edu/iww/>

9.) Minutes of Oct. 26 Conference Call were approved as submitted.

Meeting adjourned

Respectfully submitted,

Tess Ewing, Secretary

Draft Minutes of the UALE EBoard Meeting

June 26, 2006

UALE EBoard Conference Call

June 26, 2006

Present: Dennis Serrette, Dawn Addy, Bob Ginsburg, Tess Ewing, Damone Richardson, Skip Turner, Betsy McConnell-Gutierrez, Howard Kling, Gregory Murray, Steve Schnapp, Bruce Nissen. (Verlene Jones called in at the end.)

The Minutes from the last meeting were accepted without amendment.

We discussed the resignation of Cyndi Hack from the Board. The UALE Constitution calls for the remaining EBoard members to find a replacement. Two people were nominated, and Dennis will contact them to see if either is willing to serve as Southern Regional Rep.

Dawn Addy reported on progress toward next year’s conference. It will take place at the Meany Center, which gave us the best price. They are looking into setting up shuttles into downtown DC, since a number of people had expressed concern about the isolated location of the NLC.

Bob Ginsburg gave the Treasurer’s report. In the interim since he sent out his report by email, several things have happened:

1.) Tess has begun transferring the money to him. He has opened the account and sent the checks to the women’s summer schools.

2.) Cyndi Hack’s resignation has brought up the question of whether we need to reprint the stationery and brochures, which were just printed.

A motion was made, seconded and passed to reprint the letterhead but not the brochures. Meanwhile, Bob will send out the uncorrected new stationery to EBoard members, which we will use until the new batch gets printed.

3.) WVU has sent us our annual bill, and it is for $14,252.61-- far more than we had expected or budgeted for.

Bruce Nissen moved that we contest the portion of the bill that was for going over the number of pages that we contract for. WVU never notified us that we would require more pages, nor gave us the opportunity to make changes that might have kept us within the page limit. Motion seconded and passed. Bruce will email Bob with his objection to that portion of the bill, and Bob will send those concerns to WVU along with the payment for the rest.

Motion made, seconded and passed to accept Bob’s report, including his proposals regarding past bills and investment of UALE funds. (See attached report)

Tess gave Secretary’s Report.

The final accounting for the Conference shows that we came out $7, 366 in the black.

Two people who had been unable to attend asked for refunds of their registrations. After careful consideration of each case, we decided to send them both refunds. We also decided to put our refund policy on the registration form and other conference publicity next year.

Bob Ginsburg brought up the proposal from the Immigration Task Force. They have requested $1,000 for setting up an interactive website to network with labor educators working on immigration issues, post events on immigration, and share curriculum and research. Steve Schnapp proposed that the Task Force be asked to reach out to immigrant workers who are doing labor education, to include them in the task force. Dennis proposed that we ask them to give us a progress report in time for our next EBoard meeting.

Motion made, seconded and passed unanimously to fund the proposal with the 2 amendments above.

We set the date for our Fall meeting. It will take place at the CWA headquarters in Washington DC on Monday, December 11, time to be announced. Dennis will send out information on hotels.

EBoard members should send in agenda items beforehand to Dennis and Tess, so that the agenda can be prepared ahead of time.

Dennis noted that we may also have one or more conference calls in the interim, if the need arises.

Meeting adjourned at 2:10 pm.

Respectfully submitted,

Tess Ewing,

Secretary

Treasurer’s Report

1. I should have UALE checks by the end of the week and will send out checks for the Women's schools and travel reimbursements to those that applied. We have a new PO Box (Box 64509, Chicago, IL 60664-0509) and somebody even sent in to it a new member registration and check as well!

2. We now have new letterhead. Please let me know how much (if any) you want and I will send it out. Northland is printing the new brochure so let me know how many of those you want as well.

3. As soon as Tess finishes entering all the annual meeting registration and memberships she will completely transfer the financial records and membership lists to me (and then be very happy). I have done this before but Tess has made the transition incredibly smooth and easy.

4. After everything is entered, we will then get the Eboard a final report on the annual meeting costs, etc. At this point it looks like we have pretty much broken even on the annual meeting.

PAST EXPENSES

At the last Eboard meeting I was asked to make some recommendations/reports on several past expenses:

1. Organizing Task Force ($7500): I have not heard anything about plans for this amount of money and I would suggest that we start with a clean slate. If the Organizing Task Force comes up with a plan they can resubmit it to the Eboard. This way we can wipe it off the books for last year.

2. Communications Intern ($5000) I have tried unsuccessfully to reach the intern and Tom Juravich. I would propose leaving this as an outstanding payable from last year. However, before paying anything to UMass or the intern, I would come back to the Board with the details and get approval. If nothing is completed, we would not pay anything and would have to come up with a new proposal/plan.

3. I propose we pay the affiliation fees for 2years ($1200) to IFWEA.

INVESTING/SPENDING STRATEGY

In our budget we have $3000 for interest. After paying the Women's Schools we should have approximately $150,000 in our checking and savings accounts. I would propose putting $60,000 into 6 month CDs which pay about 5.4% which is 1% more than even the best Money Market accounts over the Internet. Longer CDs do not pay much more interest and 6 months provide UALE with sufficient flexibility since we don't need to move that quickly on any spending issue. I think that we should consider the $60,000 as our long term reserves. The interest (5.4%) on $60,000 would meet our budget. The remainder of the money would be in a combination Savings/Checking account which is guaranteed to pay between 2.5% and 3.5% and is totally liquid.

CLC/State Fed Task Force Meeting

May 17, 2006

UALE Conference,

May 17, 2006

Seattle, Washington

Meeting Summary

David Reynolds and Barbara Byrd, Task Force Co-Chairs, opened the meeting by describing the purpose and recent activities of the

Task Force. Its goal is to pull together labor educators and unionists who are working with Central Labor Councils and state organizations in order to share ideas and best practices. The Task Force also serves as a network of labor and community activists and academics who are interested in local power-building work. During the past year, some members of the task force have participated in the AFL-CIO's Leadership Institutes and regional CLC conferences. Others have conducted research on power-building work in a number of regions across the country, some of which have been published. This latter work can be reviewed on the Wayne State University web site that David Reynolds maintains -- http://www.laborstudies.wayne.edu/power.html or http://powerbuilding.wayne.edu

Participants shared information about their on-going work with CLCs and state feds. The Labor Center at the University of Washington trains students to assist with labor research. Florida International University's new institute, directed by Bruce Nissen, conducts research and publishes reports on crucial labor issues, including a "state of unions in Florida" annual report. In North Carolina, the Triangle Labor Group has gotten a grant from the Reynolds Foundation to work with displaced workers and Latino immigrants, and to help build a public employee bargaining coalition. Other centers have assisted with strategic planning facilitation and education programs.

Barbara pointed out that there are several national organizations working now with labor/community coalitions -- Amy Dean's Building Partnerships; the Partnership for Working Families directed by John Goldstein (http://www.californiapartnership.org/); and Good Jobs First, directed by Greg LeRoy (http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/). Dave Reynolds maintains a web site for the Building Regional Power Project -- http://www.laborstudies.wayne.edu/power.html or http://powerbuilding.wayne.edu.

Participants discussed the role that labor educators can play in assisting CLCs and state federations, as well as community-labor coalitions. Kent Wong suggested that labor educators' role should include movement building, leadership development among immigrant workers, facilitating connections between workers' centers and labor, and recruiting and training student activists. Steve Pitts urged labor educators to more systematically analyze the value of their work and to write up their stories of work with CLCs. Sally Alvarez described a program they run at Cornell for training people to step outside their traditional roles and engage in community benefit agreement coalitions. The goal is to move them from union leaders to labor movement leaders. Participants also discussed the impact of the split on our work. On the plus side, it opens up opportunities for labor educators to play new roles and take more of a leadership role. Hassan Crocket pointed out the importance of training materials and delivery of training by academic partners. Amanda Tattersall argued for the need to analyze and generalize from our case studies, to make comparisons between different geographic regions and environments.

It was agreed that we ought to write something for the Labor Studies Journal's Innovations section on how labor educators are working with CLCs, state feds, and labor-community power-building coalitions. (Anyone interested in contributing ideas or writing should contact Dave Reynolds.) Cathy Howell pointed out that with the decrease in the number of AFL-CIO field reps available to assist CLCS and state feds, labor educators might be able to step in to facilitate strategic planning and other activities. (Again, anyone interested should contact Cathy or one of the other Task Force co-chairs.) Finally, David urged participants to consider writing up case studies. The research network provides introductions to local leaders and is seeking grants to pay for expenses and to cover some time. And it can help in getting the case study published. The next case study available is in Virginia where the state federation is 6 years into a 12 year plan to change the balance of power in the legislature,

Barbara Byrd, University of Oregon Labor Education and Research Center

David Reynolds, Wayne State University Labor Studies Center

Cathy Howell, AFL-CIO

Draft Minutes of the UALE Business Meeting

May 18, 2006

Minutes of the May 18, 2006 UALE Business Meeting

After opening remarks by President Serrette, Charlie Micallef read the Nominations Committee Report:

Nominees were: -

President – Dennis Serrette

Vice President, University – Dawn Addy

Vice President, Union – Verlene Jones

Secretary – Tess Ewing

Treasurer – Bob Ginsburg

Eastern Region –

Midwestern Region – Maurice “Skip” Turner

Southern Region – Cindy Hack

Western Region – Betsy McConnell Guterez

University and College - Chuck Hodell

Union Based -.Tony Picarazzi

Community Based Steve Schnapp

At large – Mike Wisniewski

Greg Murray

Thandbantu Iverson

Labor Studies Journal – Bruce Nissen

Nominations from the floor were:

Eastern Region – Damone Richardson

University and College – Sally Alvarez

At Large – Howard Kling

The uncontested races were elected by acclamation

Sally Alvarez was elected to the University and College position.

Howard Kling, Greg Murray and Thandabantu Iverson were elected to the At Large positions.

Tess Ewing gave the treasurer’s report which included the budget. The report was approved.

The following amendment to the constitution was presented by Diane Thomas-Holiday:-

Art XII- Meetings.
F. Prior to submission to the general membership for approval, requests for expenditures from the UALE budget must be submitted to the Executive Board for recommendation 15 days prior to the annual meeting.

The amendment was unanimously adopted.

In debate over the amendment it was noted that it is the intention of the executive board to bring all requests covered by the amendment to the floor of the next business meeting with a recommendation for a vote by the membership.

Dawn Addy gave the conference report.

There are 2 possible locations for next year.

Atlanta and The Meany Center.

The members were asked to include their comments about the conference on the evaluation form.

New Business

A motion was made to establish a task force on immigration issues and that that task force would create a page on the UALE web site.

The motion passed.

The meeting was adjourned.

UALE Women's Caucus of UALE

May 18, 2006

Women’s Caucus Meeting

May 18, 2006

Seattle WA

Things to Over Come

It was recommended that we share information and coordinate how each school is structured.

Are facilitators compensated for their room and board or other expenses?
Number of days for each school
How are the UALE funding support used?

California has a packet of best practices that they will make available for other schools.

Reports from 2005

Reports were handed out but they were incomplete.
Verlene will make sure everyone gets the complete reports emailed as soon as possible.
Except for a few small glitches all the 2005 schools were a success.
The student participation ranged form 120 to 140 participants.
The Western Region School had some money left over and forwarded to the 2006 school in Hawaii.

Building support for the Southern Schools

The Southern School for 2006 has been cancelled.
Funding for this school will be distributed among the other 2006 schools.
The Southern School has always struggled to accomplish the summer schools and have been the smallest. It is also difficult for union sisters in the south to get the funding support from their unions to attend.
Funding needs to be made available for more scholarship support to assist union sisters in the south so that they can attend.
It has been a challenge to get the sponsoring schools to provide the necessary resources and support to make the school possible.
It was suggested to use the AFL-CIO and Change to Win unions to recruit funding support, participants and encourage union participation.
If there are schools that are still in need of facilitators please consider contacting our sisters in the southern region. Some of them can get the funding support need to teach in other regions.

Funding

The $12,000.00 allocated by UALE for 2005 will be divided by the three schools in the Midwest, East and Western regions.
By consensus the caucus agreed to forward any funds not used by the Southern School into the next year in the future to make the school a success.
Tess and Verlene will request the funding from UALE be increased from $12,000.00 per year to $16,000.00 per year. This would give each school an allocation of $4000.00.
It was suggested that all the schools reach out to the AFL-CIO unions and the Change to Win unions for scholarship support.

2007 Summer Schools Commitments

It was suggested to change the name from the Summer Institute for Union Women to Union Women Leadership School. This would give the regions flexibility to arrange the schools at a time during the years that best fits the hosting school in each region.
It was agreed on by consensus to change the name.
Midwest School will be hosted by Iowa
Southern School will be hosted by Florida
Northeast School will be hosted by Stoney Brook in New York
Western School will rotate to either Canada or Northern California. Barbara Byrd and Adrianne Valdez will do the follow up.
It was suggested that each school focus on the immigration issues. Katarina Thompson SEIU 660 in California has teaching materials that can be shared.

Women’s Caucus Co-Chairs

Verlene and Helena have been co-chairs for several years. Its time to share this wonderful opportunity with other sisters.
Patricia (P.J.) Dousing-Buie of AFSCME has volunteered for the union co-chair
Deborah Rosenstein was nominated for the University co-chair. Dawn and Dale will ask her.

Helena and I thank you for your support and will be available to assist in ensuring the transition is successful.

Immigration Task Force Meeting

May 19, 2006

IMMIGRATION TASK FORCE MEETING

DECISIONS

Friday May 19

(About eight attended. We apologize to any of you that we didn't reach in time and notify about this meeting, which was set up at the last minute.)

Our first project is to collect and develop curriculum, especially curriculum that deals with anti-immigrant sentiments. We need to put out a call, find out what's there, and link to it. We need a page on UALE's website with a form for collecting information / categories that will let us organize curriculum into a logical order, so people can find what they want.

We also want to collect fact sheets, maybe via Kent Wong, Roberta Till-Retz, and the Labor Immigrant Allies Caucus that was set up at Labor Notes two weeks ago.

We want an online way to collect feedback/modifications/improvements on curriculum.
It'd be ideal to have a university host the web archive for materials we collect.

Mike will contact the Labor Notes group, see what they want to do, and discuss division of labor with them. Will also check out a program that allows you to post a document (like curriculum) and collect comments on it.

Monique will set up categories for the curriculum. (note: Jeff Bigelow had ideas too.)

Veronica will talk to Victor Narro about setting up blackboards for curriculum development.

(And to Kent about UCLA hosting the archive?)

We will have a June 9 conference call for the Task Force.

TASK FORCE LIST

Judy Ancel AncelJ@umkc.edu

Jeff Bigelow jbig@verizon.net

Veronica Carrizales vcarrizales@berkeley.edu

Tess Ewing tess.ewing@umb.edu

Jackie Gabriel jgabriel@lamar.colostate.edu

Fernando Gapasin fgapasin@earthlink.net

Bob Ginsburg rginsburg@igc.org