PASS Chapter IM3 Iowa and Missouri

June 2007

On May 24^th, I met with the PASS National E-Board while they were in town to hold one of their regularly scheduled meetings. All members were invited to attend. Some of the items discussed are listed below:

Chapter VP: The previous IM3 VP, Buddy McDonald, took a manager's position in KC, leaving a vacancy within our chapter. Tess will be working with Dave Spero to help address that issue. We would like to see someone from the KC area fill this position. Anyone interested please contact Tess at 314-890-4552.

National Convention: The convention is being held in Chicago this year, Aug 5-8th. We are sending three individuals, but would like to have sent more. Raffle tickets are available, please contact Tess.

Local Reps: A letter has been circulating throughout the St. Louis SSC's from CSA Jeff Merrow. Some of the rep. positions need nominations. The names on the letter have some out of date reps and new ones need to be elected. Spero is working the issue.

CSA Reps: For Iowa and Missouri, minus the St. Louis area, your Contract rep is Susie Lewis out of ZKC. For the St. Louis areas, your Contract rep is Jeff Merrow out of ZND.

Contract Update: Tom Brantley briefed us on the latest contract update. There was a hearing in March with the FLRA Judge concerning the ULP filed against PASS. The judge stated that the Union has the right to tell it's members when a contract is bad and to vote no, but states that there is only an issue because we were too successful in doing so. A briefing was due at the end of May, with a late summer ruling on the ULP.

We, PASS, are ready to negotiate, but the FAA only wants “offline” discussion. Those types of discussions would not be beneficial nor would anything that they agreed upon hold up.

While some members still see the lack of negotiations as a lack of progress, they need to be reminded that the FAA is still bound by the current agreement and cannot state or try to manipulate our members otherwise. All current articles within the contract are not only enforceable but also binding. Please advice National if management tries to say otherwise. This has already happened in other locations, one such occasion was trying to enforce a dress code. Another is that Prime Time leave (3 consecutive weeks) is the only leave that needs to be turned in prior to that Feb 1 date.

Keep in mind that the are 4 other PASS contracts at impasse.

Unions with the FAA have no bargaining process. They, the FAA, want to make unilateral decisions for us. Congress, on the other hand, was us to have a process.

Congressman Costello, out of Illinois is a big supporter of PASS.

New Bill: House Bill HR2443 was introduced on May 24^th, and is very favorable to PASS and NATCA. It is called the Federal Aviation Administration Facility Consolidation Moratorium Act of 2007. This is a bipartisan bill introduced by U.S. Representatives Ted Poe, R-Texas, and Bob Filner, D-Calif., to amend title 49, United States Code, to suspend the authority of the Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration to eliminate, consolidate, deconsolidate, co-locate, or plan for the consolidation, deconsolidation, inter-facility reorganization, or co-location of, any air traffic control facility and services of the Administration.

FTI: We nee to continue to track and send all FTI issues to PASS National. Every little bit helps, because it really adds up. The IG is using this information. Just an FYI; Mica is in Harris's district.

6100 Staffing: The numbers are still not there. They need to know what work is not being done by the lack of those numbers. FAA maintains that if all the work is being completed, then there is no need for the full 6100 members. And FLRA decision states that the 6100 staffing level requirement will continue into the first 19 months of the next contract.

Other News: Blakey term ends in September. Russ Chew is already gone.

John Derado's PASS Pair is Rich Casey out of IN.

Representative training will be held the week of July 24^th in Ft. Wayne, IN. Spero would like rep training to be held in KC. This is also a training session the week of June 11^th in Tulsa.

There is a National Grievance on the SCI's.

Members need to set up Congressional visits.

Inform PASS National of any and all new equipment problems, this includes FTI and the ASDEX.

The should be NO Comp time for work performed. Work outside normal shift is overtime.

Use or lose leave must be used first, prior to comp time. Do not let management tell you otherwise.

PASS Chapter IM3 Meeting at ZKC 1/29/07

Membership

Currently PASS Region II is starting up a membership drive called the Fresh Start Campaign. Dave Spero spoke briefly on the subject. The campaign will be a proactive initiative to the annual March madness (a time when people leave the membership roles of the union). As there are many former members of PASS, this drive will reach out to those individuals in hope of regaining their support. The membership committee will be given a list of former members and asked to find out the why they left and what can we do to get them back. There will be an incentive to any member brought back. A telecon will be held on Thur. 1/31, headed by Dave Spero, Mark Esrig (PASS Nat. organizer) and Erin Trollbridge (PASS Nat. Membership). A list of comeback responses to common excuses will be discussed. Carol Bolay also said to look under Chapter Summit documents. IM3 is looking for help with the membership committee. Neal Butler volunteered to help out in the KC area. Thank you Neal!

PASS Chapter IM3 website is maintained by Bill Eichelberger. The site remains at www.passim3.org but due to an enormous amount of false hits (cause by computer hackers) to the site Bill has included an ID prompt (iowa) and password (im3). Please check the site and let us know what you think. Dave suggested that it may be possible to assign mailboxes to each member for them to retrieve union communications easily, especially for those without email addresses. I will speak with Bill about this.

Legislative

I asked Chuck Breece, the chapter's Legislative chair to speak for a few minutes. It is our philosophy that we support “union friendly” legislators, not democratic or republican, but union friendly. He would like everyone to know he is available if they need help with anything, such as writing to your congressman/woman or senator, political research, etc… please send him a message at commfixer@aol.com or call him at 314-890-4572. He would be happy to help.

IM3 is currently affiliated with the local St. Louis and Kansas City AFL-CIO offices and Iowa state AFL-CIO. Anyone interested in attending their local meeting please contact Chuck ASAP.

The only current bill up for consideration is the Military HR333 – which is a combat pay expansion. This bill affects our military members.

There is a Legislative telecon scheduled for 2/8/07 , anyone willing to help with the legislative committee or listen in please contact Chuck.

Budget

We are aggressively seeking any and all suggestions on how you would like to see our chapter funds spent. Currently, we need additional and new software to maintain the chapter website server. Some expenditure considerations so far are; The National convention is coming up this summer. Training is always nice to have. T-shirts are wanted at several locations. (Neal B. will look into a source, also image.com).

Dave discussed Texas was having it own local/state chapter summit to help get their chapter started, since the members are geographically spread out so far. With two chapter's within the Kansas City area, this idea may be just the thing we need to bring our members together.

Fraternally, Tess Borgra 314-890-4554 (wk)

PASS IM3 Chapter Pres. www.PASSIM3.org