SUNY Broome Community College
Representative Council Meeting
November 17, 2016
Members Present: Dave Michalak, Fred Loveland, Rob Woods, Joe Spence, Paul Cartie, Tom Grace, John Pierog, Jerry Loy (Proxy for Brian Loy), Dave Zeggert, Suzanne Hickok, Amanda Hollister, Howard Streby, Anne Uncapher (proxy for Meghan McGuinness), Suzanne Shepard, Jason Smith, and Mike Lynch (NYSUT).
Meeting called to order at 11:00 PM
New Business:
1.0 President’s Report:
1.1 Minutes of 10/27 and 11/1 passed unanimously.
1.2 Organizing Committee Update: Suzanne Shepard
- Newsletters are out
- Updated Constituent Care and Office Hours lists are out. 276 members are represented at this time. Thanks to Tera Doty-Blance for her work.
- Joe will keep files of all new member applications.
- Group texting of members is being considered.
- Welcome Information packets are ready for review. (Approved)
- The idea of potluck dinners hosted on a rotating basis by standing committees was well received and will hopefully be implemented in spring.
1.3 Action Committee: Will be working on identifying outreach coordinators for each building.
1.4 Negotiations Resource Committee: Meets December 12 at 1:00. Room TBD
2 Dave discussed extra events, including Rep Training. All Rep Council members are encouraged to send a substitute/proxy to such events when they can not attend.
2.0 Vice President’s Report:
2.1 Fred discussed a spate of administrative job creations including Associate/Assistant Deans. With the overlap of the extant job responsibilities of Staff Associates there is concern over job protection. Fred has expressed his concern and displeasure over this to Dr. Battisti. Many on Rep Council questioned the source of funding for such new positions when faculty lines go unfilled. Mike Lynch suggested that the Negotiations Resource Committee begin a forensic analysis of the college budget.
2.2 An MOU has been drafted with regard to chairs hiring Part Time instructional and non-instructional faculty. A problem has surfaced with the Director of Human Resources Director regarding the scope of required experience for part-time hires.
2.3 The College has had an agreement for the contract since August 24th. As of November 17th, the College has NOT fulfilled its obligation to provide typed copies of the Collective Bargaining Agreement (Contract) to the FA. Two documents were sent to FA President Michalak and Vice President Loveland in piecemeal fashion. Their careful review indicated that this document had elements of our BINDING CONTRACT either re-structured, added without FA’s knowledge and consent, or simply DELETED. President Drumm recalled VP Sullivan from a conference to address this issue.
A reason given by Human Resources for this “mistake” was that they were unable to convert a previous version of the document into a new format and then make the necessary edits. This went on for three months. FA President Michalak asked Professor Sandy Wright of BIT for assistance with this serious technical issue. She provided the FA with a conversion in approximately 10 minutes.
FA leadership believes that someone in Human Resources made a conscientious decision to remove things they didn’t like from the contract and replace them with their own version of the contract language.
2.4 Members have reported receiving disturbing mail from Corporate Care Management with regard to highly personal and often sensitive health issues. Much of this is related to those who have missed time from work and used sick time. FA is unsure of what this is and believes such meddling may violate our contract. Please report any suspicious health care or health insurance related correspondence to FA leadership.
The next Rep Council meeting is December 6th at 1:00 in NSC 203G.
Motion to adjourn made at 11:57 PM by D. Zeggert seconded by P. Cartie. Unanimous.
Respectfully submitted,
Joseph S. Spence
FA Secretary
SUNY Broome Community College 