UPTE has issued its agency fee notice for the period July 1, 2005 through June 30, 2006. It is a 48 paged blue-bordered pamphlet entitled UPTE-CWA Annual Report and Audit. I would suggest that you send me your objection letter, if you haven't already done so. I cannot guarantee that I can forward any letter received after Saturday July 16, 2005. It will take me time to collate, copy and organize all the letters. You can also write one and send it directly to UPTE. I cannot guarantee that UPTE will not play some devious trick with the letters that I forward.
UPTE asks for your social security number, employee I.D. number, your work location, job title, campus and department. Can they ask for this? Yes. Can they deny your objection as invalid if you do not submit all this? Yes. Can they make it stick when they are charged with an Unfair Practice Charge and do they want to pay their lawyers to defend hundreds of charges? We shall see. If you want to play it safe and comply with their demands, it's your decision. I for one will definitely not provide my social security number, I don't want it sold or used for identity theft. I'm not telling them what department I work in or my job title, they just use this to come by and recruit people.
There are a number of flaws in this notice. They have left themselves open for several Unfair Practice Charges. Once I have them prepared, I will be happy to provide everyone with a template for the charges where you will have to simply fill in your name, address and phone number. Last year, most of those who filed charges got back about $120 and may get more on appeal. Many of these people have been kind enough to give me part or all of their refund so that I may speak on their behalf about union abuses of the agency fee payers. I thank you all. This has allowed me to mail templates of objection letters to about 1,000 agency fee payers this year. If you would like to exercise your right of free speech against the union and its policies, I ask that you send me a small gift from the money that the union owes you and eventually gets around to giving it when they feel like it. If you want to keep all the money, you're welcome to it.I exercised the right of free speech on your behalf on June 9 when I attended a public meeting of the California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) in Sacramento. I welcomed our new Board member and once again asked the Board to provide justice for all agency fee payers. The Board now only has one former union official on it so we may see an end to decisions based on a union point of view. The Board will hold a workshop in September 8 of this year. These workshops are important to agency fee payers but few have the time and money to attend. It is vital that the Board hear the point of view of the agency fee payers from someone like me. I suspect that they generally only hear the viewpoint of the union. The unions can well afford free speech and get a free ride using your money. I would like to attend but I have to be judicious in the use of the gifts of money from UPTE that agency fee payers send me. It is very important for me to conserve cash so that I can use it to set up non-profit status for my organization.The Board is still mulling over about 300 charges against UPTE. A Board agent did issue about 50 complaints against UPTE in what I felt was just a sop to agency fee payers. The Board agent also dismissed what was the heart of the charges of these 50 so I simply appealed this partial dismissal. You may think that your individual charge doesn't mean much but if you are patient and persistent, the Board will start to take notice of your charge and those of 299 others with more to come. Every charge added makes an impact and the Board cannot ignore the weight and gravity of the situation. I hope that one day the Board will provide "justice for all".
I often get questions on the status of what (if any) raises we will get. This is something I have no definitive answer to. Raises are subject to negotiations between the Union and the University. The University offer seems straightforward enough, 2% for 2005-2006, 3% for 2006-2007 and 4% for 2007-2008. See the University proposal for their offer. The UPTE proposal, see Article 06-Compensation 5/25/05 04 is rather complex. I cannot tell you if I personally would benefit more by the union's proposal, I'd have to have my lawyer read it. It seems that UPTE asks that some special favored people will receive an extra 5%. Take a close look at what both sides propose and decide for yourself. I cannot guarantee the accuracy of my information, contact UPTE and the University as the information may be changed and/or updated at any time.
Finally, let me express my gratitude to those who support my efforts with even a simple thank you note. I do what I do not for money, I am not on a quixotic quest nor do I need to win to be effective.
Werner