1. Start with
a list of all your division members. |
The Communicator
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 CONTRACT TALK — PEF VP Ken Brynien, PS&T contract chair, talks with Region 12 members in August about the coming negotiations. — Photo by Bob Carrothers Thousands return contract surveys Members show keen interest in coming PS&T negotiations By SHERRY HALBROOK Preparations are well underway for the opening of PS&T contract negotiations in January, as thousands of PEF contract surveys pour into union headquarters in Albany. More than 3,000 surveys have been returned and more are arriving every day. “This prompt and enthusiastic response to the surveys PS&T members received in their July-August Communicators tells us how important contract issues are to them,” said PEF Vice President Ken Brynien, chair of PEF’s PS&T Contract Committee. “It’s also a strong indicator that members will take a keen interest in the negotiations and respond quickly when we mobilize around contract issues.” Brynien said the team is eager to meet with members in their regions to discuss bargaining issues — a process that got underway in August. “These meetings are a great way to hear from members about how the contract is working for them and how they would like to see it improved. And it gives us a chance to answer their questions and explain about the bargaining process and which issues the state must negotiate with us,” said PEF Director of Labor Relations Roger Scales, the union’s chief negotiator for the PS&T contract. Scales encouraged any members in the PS&T unit who still haven’t completed and returned their contract surveys to get them in soon. “We know that some choices the survey poses about priorities are difficult to answer,” Scales said. “But hard choices is what negotiations come down to eventually. That is particularly true when the economy is in a slump. It will help us tremendously to have a firm handle on which issues matter most to PEF members. We’ll do a better job of representing the members, and they will be able to give us their wholehearted support.” Brynien and Scales also reminded members to volunteer as member mobilizers and to get plugged in to the Active, Informed Member (AIM) Network by registering their home e-mail addresses with PEFOnline@pef.org so they can receive up-to-the-moment information about the negotiations and other important news and events. “As PEF President Roger Benson often reminds us, our success depends on our power, and that flows directly from the unified will and action of our members,” Brynien said. Shows how to get bills passed, signed Division 236 at Parole fully mobilized By SHERRY HALBROOK With approximately 1,400 members scattered throughout the state, the leaders of PEF Division 236 at the state Division of Parole had their work cut out for them in trying to achieve full mobilization. But in August they did it — making Division 236 the largest fully mobilized division in PEF.  “We recruited more than 200
member mobilizers,” said Division 236 Council Leader
Willis Toms.Because the members are spread over so many worksites, the division needed far more than just one mobilizer for every 10 members, Toms said. The division wasted no time in putting its mobilizer network through its paces. While Toms and Assistant Council Leader Gary Stern were still putting the final touches on their mobilizer network, they activated it to lobby for a piece of key legislation. That bill, which gives added protection to the confidentiality of parole employees’ personnel records, passed both houses of the state Legislature this year, and was signed into law by the governor. “It’s really scary how much personal information is available out there. This bill is principally for the safety and protection of our members’ personal information and to prevent parolees from getting access to it,” Toms said. “If they get to that information, it can put us and our families at tremendous risk.” “Member mobilizing is one of our most powerful tools to get key legislation passed,” said PEF Staff Director Steve Chamberlain. “In this case, PEF members pushed the bill at their own agency, which gave it traction. Once the bill started moving, they kept up the pressure all the way to the governor’s office.”  “In addition to lobbying the
lawmakers and governor for this bill, we wrote letters
and called the chairman and executive director of the
Division of Parole to enlist their support for it,”
Stern said. “It’s much easier get a bill passed
and signed if the legislators and governor know the
agency also supports it.”Toms and Stern, who are also members of the PEF Executive Board, said they see achieving full mobilization as a real boost to the efficiency and effectiveness of Division 236. “It’s a great way to get the word out fast and organize our members on all kinds of issues,” Stern said. |
More and more PEF divisions
throughout the state are reaching full mobilization. In
fact, with help from PEF’s Mobilization and
Education Department, 13 more divisions were added to the
list in just two weeks this summer. 
