If you weren't able to attend the Union meeting, here's a quick summary:
Our union hall address is 11204 S Western. The meetings are held monthly, alternating between 6:30 PM on Tuesdays and 10:00 AM on Saturdays. If you need to ask any union rep a question, find their contact info here on the local's website.
For any mass membership meeting to be held, we need a "quorum" of 25 people. Luckily we had just enough tonight, with about 26 members in attendance. We also need to have this quorum within 15 minutes of the meeting start time. Otherwise, the meeting is canceled.
The meeting began with verbal summaries of the previous union meeting by each department chair. This is typical, and can take 10–20 minutes. Personally I think that we should be given printed meeting summaries or "minutes" so that we don't lose member interest. The summaries are very detailed, but that can be a disadvantage when you're reading to a crowd.
Then we moved on to voting on grievances...There was a pattern to many of them.
Some grievances were "untimely" which means they weren't given to the union within 30 days. This automatically makes them technically ineligible for review by an arbitrator.
Some grievances were concerning discharges, but often the previous write-ups in that same category hadn't been grieved. Our first vice president Mark Weems explained this is not ideal. When you have previous grievances, you're more likely to overturn a discharge. Please grieve all of your write-ups for this reason. Here is a link to a grievance blank.
Some grievances were asking for safety violations to be downgraded to a procedural. This is a smart tactic because you are allowed more procedurals in the corrective action guidelines booklet, and procedurals only last 1 year compared to a 2 year safety.
And some were concerning being late to work. All of these members were charged with a miss, regardless of whether they were 4 minutes or 40 minutes late. Personally, I arrive to work at least 30 minutes early. I understand that not everyone has this flexibility, but for me it's worth the job security.
If you commute by train, ask CSAs for some train delay slips in advance or know how to identify the run number on your train or bus. When you're late, you need documentation. Submit an absence consideration form to help your case. You can find the run number of a train on CTA's Train Tracker website here.
We then moved on to "new business" where any topic can be brought up to the floor. I suggested we have another Union steward class, as my peers at Howard have shown interest. These steward training classes are 1 day (unpaid) and usually held on Sundays. If you are interested in this, please respond in this poll.
There was also a good faith discussion around the Chicago Paid Sick Leave Ordinance. This was waived in our last two year union contract. I have compiled the most current version of our contact here. It is searchable with the Google Drive App. The waiver language is on the first page.
In light of the historic funding CTA received via the lobbying done by our Union, I believe we should have more time off with less restrictions on usage.
Overall the meeting felt productive. Many members had good questions and I participated more so than I have in the past. Our assistant secretary-treasurer Cassie Collins had a microphone ready for members presenting their own grievances, which helped considerably with comprehension.
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