General Membership Meeting This Wednesday!
Don’t forget, we have an important General Membership Meeting this Wednesday, October 21st at 5:30 PM in the Memorial Union (TITU). We’ll have some light food and beverage, fellow grads, and hot union business. Attending and participating in a GMM is one part of union democracy. At our GMMs, we handle some of the big decisions of the union. So we invite you to join us at the GMM this Wednesday evening. Any question, be in touch with our Co-Presidents Peter Rickman and Katie Lindstrom.
Here is the tentative agenda for Wednesday’s meeting:
1. Adopt Agenda (5 minutes)
2. Committee Updates (10 minutes)
3. Bargaining Update (40 minutes)
4. Constitution & Bylaws Non-Discrimination Provision (10 minutes)
5. AFT-Wisconsin Convention Endorsements (20 minutes)
6. Election Balloting (5 minutes)
Here’s a quick summary of what you can expect, by agenda item number:
2. Committee Updates
Chairs of committees will provide updates, as the item name suggests, on the work of those committees. This is a good opportunity to hear about much of the day-to-day work of what’s going on in the union. It’s also an opportunity to find out how you can get involved in the work of any of our committees.
3. Bargaining Update
Members of the Bargaining Team and our bargaining staffer will go over an update on our 2007-2009 contract being ratified as well as, very importantly, what is going on with the bargaining of our 2009-2011 contract. This will include some level-setting information and education about our collective bargaining process as well as some serious discussion of our strategy in bargaining this contract. There are some big issues that we’ll need to handle as a general membership that have implications for us as grad student workers and for us collectively as a union. This item will have education, discussion, and some voting.
4. Constitution & Bylaws Non-Discrimination Provision
In our union Constitution’s provision on non-discrimination, there are some potential changes to be made. During this item, we will hear the background, discuss action to take, and then vote on a proposal to alter our non-discrimination provision.
5. AFT-Wisconsin Convention Endorsements
As part of a larger state federation of professional worker unions in AFT-Wisconsin, we have a role to play in what our state fed does. At the 2009 convention, the state fed will make big decisions on some leadership and policy. There are implications for organizing, political action, and the future of our state fed, which impacts us as workers and as a union. This topic will have some education, discussion, and voting (on endorsing resolutions and candidates for state fed office).
6. Election Balloting
We need to formally elect some people to committees. This won’t be an item for much in the way of discussion, but attendees at the GMM will vote by ballot on some committee membership candidates (note: only some committees have elected members, most are by volunteering).