Friday, June 19, 2020 – Google Hangouts

Present

APA Statewide:

• Sherry Horeanopoulos, President and Fitchburg State President
• Charlie Cianfarini, Vice President
• Mark Powers, Secretary
• Liz Novak, Web Manager
• Alan Jackson, APA Representative to Health & Welfare
• Catherine Santiago, MTA Field Representative

APA Chapter Presidents:

• Seth Bean, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts
• Brian Cahillane, Westfield State University
• Jane Decatur, Framingham State University
• Susan McNeil, Massachusetts College of Art & Design
• Mike Pelletier, Salem State University
• Mike Storey, Bridgewater State University
• Edward Vacha, Massachusetts Maritime Academy
• Maribeth Wrobel, Worcester State University

Absent

APA Statewide:

• Aaron Childs, Membership Coordinator
• Maria Brunelle, Treasurer

Call to Order

10:13am

Approval of Minutes

Friday, May 15, 2020

• Amendments: None
• Motion to approve membership report as presented/amended made: by: S. McNeil 2nd by: M. Wrobel
• Vote: 9-0-0 Action: Motion Carries

Public Comments

None

President’s Report – Sherry Horeanopoulos

Contract updates

• Monday, June 22 Initial Bargaining Meeting via Zoom 
  • Draft Proposal w/Ground rules 
  • Use Google drive to maintain documents and give access to principal negotiators to make new versions each time a document is updated. 
  • Include Evergreen Clause in the proposal 
• What do we want from Bargaining? 
  • Telework Policy 
  • Are we proposing a one-year extension due to COVID-19 or just a new 3-three contract?

From C. Santiago

• Discussion of Draft of rules for Collective Bargaining
• Evergreen Clause Proposal Status
• MTA Annual Summer Workshops – Online
• Complaint filed for PFLA postponed to Fall 

Treasurer’s Report – Maria Brunelle

Payroll due on Monday, June 22, 2020 by 12:00pm.

Approval of May report

• Amendments: None
• Motion to approve membership report as presented/amended made: by: C. Cianfarini 2nd by: M. Storey
• Vote: 10-0-0 Action: Motion Carries

Membership and Data – Aaron Childs

• Report postponed to next meeting
• Overall membership since May 2020
• Dues paying members: a decline of since May 2020.
• Non-dues paying members: a decline since May 2020. 

Website – Liz Novak

• Security – updated site to Drupal 8.9.1
• Edited main menu
• Say their names story added
• Weingarten page added
• April minutes added
• May minutes added just now after approval
• Stats
  • 606 page views over the last month
  • Most popular page is benefits
  • 68.8% of our viewers use desktop
  • 12.2% are returning visitors – low amount – maybe people grabbing one bit of information they need. I suppose it isn’t a website someone would visit super regularly.
• Gave pages friendly URLs

Health and Welfare Report – Alan Jackson 

June 11, 2020 meeting – MTA Higher Education Health & Welfare Fund: 

• Attached is the Trustee report the meeting. Included in this report is the Met Life renewal. The original “Pre-Covid” renewal included a 2% increase. 2. John Nicholas working with Mike Abela to have that reduced to a rate hold. As the pandemic started to take hold, I went back to Met Life and pushed for further rate relief. 3. Our Fund was one of the first, if not the first, in the Country to seek relief from Met Life. The original response was that the demand would be pent up and claims would increase significantly after the stay at home orders were loosened. 4. Met started to see that their reserves were growing exponentially and they came up with a national rate relief program for all of their customers. 5. We will be taking advantage of that (a premium credit of 25% for March and April), as well as a reduced renewal rate (-4%). John and Mike talked about a “shared risk” arrangement which would be more flexible in determining the correct premium rates. 6. Met Life is proposing such an arrangement in their “Post-Covid” renewal letter.

Committee Reports – Reports postponed to next meeting

Budget Committee – Mike Storey

Employee Relations Working Group – Mark Powers

Professional Development – Edward Vacha

Negotiations – Sherry Horeanopoulos

• See notes under Presidents remarks.

Old/New Business

• FAQ of the Month for the Website for June – Contract Negotiations 
• Salem State University – Furlough Proposal from Management

Institutional Issues

Announcements

Friday Check-In meetings via Google Hangouts

Adjournment

• Motion to Adjourn made at 12:24pm
• by: B Cahillane. 2nd by M. Storey
• Vote: Unanimous Action: Motion Carries
• Next Meeting: 10:00 – June 19, 2020 (Google Hangouts)