STOP “FAST TRACK” DEAD IN ITS TRACKS

A bill to “fast track” all trade deals in the next four years, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement—the biggest trade deal in the history of the United States—has been introduced in Congress.

This bill would limit Congress and our ability to fight for trade policy that benefits working people by virtually guaranteeing all trade agreements, no matter how much they increase corporate influence over the economy, push down wages or offshore manufacturing jobs.

Sign the petition to tell Congress you oppose the “fast track” scheme. (CLICK HERE)

Will the NLRB be Able to Protect Workers’ Rights?

The workplace rights of millions of working people will be at risk if the U.S. Senate does not approve President Obama’s five bipartisan nominees to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). This morning, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka joined Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) for a discussion of the NLRB’s role as an advocate for all U.S. workers, how the board can function in the face of Republican attempts to prevent it from doing its job and potential Senate rule changes to end the obstructionism that’s blocking NLRB nominees. The discussion was held at the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C.

Stay tuned for a video of the discussion!

AFL-CIO Blog

Interesting issue?  

Read more about the politicians who want to diminish workers rights: CLICK HERE ! !

ELECTION UPDATE

President D'Amico is on the right and
1st Vice President Gibbons is on the left.

The election is over the work begins. New Unit Officers hit the road running. The New Unit Officers are as follows:

PRESIDENT:  Jim D'Amico
1st Vice President:  Sean Gibbons
2nd Vice President:  Donna Miller
3rd Vice President: Julia Wagner
Secretary: Roland Gray
Treasurer: Sue Perkins

If you need to reach any of the NEW Unit Officers, please call the Union Office at (585) 328-5250

Monroe County Employees CSEA Unit 7400 UPDATE

SURVEY 

 A big thank you to everyone who filled out and returned the contract survey. The survey is the tool we use to ensure the union proposal made to the County accurately reflects the wishes of our members.

NEGOTIATIONS

Your CSEA Negotiation Team is headed to the bargaining table. We meet with the County for our initial session on May 13^th.  We expect these negotiations to be tough but your negotiation team is tougher. We enter these negotiation with cautious optimism confident that if the County is fair, we can reach an agreement everyone can be proud of. Please check back here for frequent updates on the progress we make in negotiations.

COLLECTIVE BARGAINING AGREEMENT

Your unit officers and stewards are working to get every single member a copy of the new collective bargaining agreement by and between CSEA and Monroe County. In addition your union contract is now online. To access your collective bargaining agreement CLICK HERE!

CSEA MONROE COUNTY LOCAL & UNIT OFFICES MOVING TO BUFFALO ROAD

ATTENTION:
MEMBERS OF CSEA MONROE COUNTY LOCAL 828 & MONROE COUNTY EMPLOYEES UNIT 7400

Rochester, N.Y.-- The offices of Civil Service Employees Association Monroe County Local 828 and Monroe County Employees Unit 7400 will be moving effective March 11, 2013.

The new address will be:

1354 Buffalo Road, Suite #6 (close to Howard Rd.)
Rochester, New York 14624 (CLICK HERE)

All contact information will remain the same. For any questions or concerns, please feel free to call our office anytime. If we are temporarily unavailable please leave a short message with your phone number and we will get back to you as soon as we can.



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OR  CLICK HERE!!!

This week in Albany

CSEA Pushes Back Against Budget Plans

The Senate and Assembly held joint budget hearings throughout the past month to examine Governor Cuomo’s proposed budget. On February 27th, CSEA Director of Legislative and Political Action Francine Turner testified before the Senate Finance Committee and the Assembly Ways and Means Committee regarding workforce development contained in the proposed budget.

The main focus of the testimony was explaining to legislators that this budget presents us with a choice.  We can either take the route presented by Governor Cuomo, which reduces and privatizes public services and has resulted in the loss of 50,000 public sector jobs across the state since 2010, or we can embrace our commitment to good jobs with good wages and benefits. 

We strongly urge you to call your legislators to reject the further erosion of our communities and reject the trend of balancing budgets by dismantling the public workforce.

Read our full testimony here.

Additionally, CSEA joined the Public Employees Federation and the New York State Sheriff’s Association to call on the Governor to release a specific plan for changes to the mental health system in the state. As currently proposed, the 2013-14 budget provides vague language that will downsize state services without a plan in place for where new services will be made available. The Executive Budget calls for only a small amount of the promised savings to be reinvested into the community.

We have created a series of video discussions with Legislative and Political Action Director Francine Turner that go over the areas of the budget that are most important to CSEA members.Click here to see the videos.

Sequestration Takes Effect

As of this writing, President Obama and Congress have failed to reach a deal to avert $85 billion in federal spending cuts, resulting in the loss of $275 million in federal aid to New York this fiscal year. The cuts will hit the state hardest in education, public health, public safety, environmental protection, and job assistance programs.

Please call your Congressional Representative today at 888-659-9401 to tell them to reverse this plan.

Week Ahead

Don’t forget the annual CSEA/AFSCME lobby day is on March 5, 2013 from 11AM – 3:30 PM at the Empire State Plaza Convention Center. 
 

CSEA Fights to save your Pension Benefits

“CSEA has no hesitation in saying that the proposal for a new public employee pension tier is an assault on the middle class and a cheap shot at public employees. It will provide no short-term savings and will mean people will have to work longer, pay more and gain less benefit. Simply put, the Tier VI provisions would be onerous on working people and undermine middle class security and the governor ought to be more concerned about that. 

Public Sector Overtime Costs Caused by Chronic Short Staffing

Mainstream news media like to sensationalize overtime use in public sector employment.  The media broadcasts that statewide “nearly 300 state employees” made over $50,000 in overtime last year.  The media presents this like the public sector employees who worked the overtime are getting away with something. What the media conveniently forgets is that much of that overtime money is due in large part to draconian cuts in the number of public sector workers. The big users of overtime in the Monroe County area are the Rochester Psychiatric Center and the Finger Lakes DDSO. Both these state facilities provide quality care for the mentally ill and developmentally disabled folks in our community. With the state and local government cutting back on employees, the work still needs to be done and these folks need support and care on their road to independence (short staff or not).

What the news media does not share is much of the overtime is “mandatory” overtime.  While some overtime is welcome, the amount of mandation is chilling. The only reason public employees are mandated to work overtime, is due to short staffing. Most of these employees would prefer to be home with their families after putting in 40 hours per week of tough grueling work.