Present: Randy, Art, Eric, Maciej, Jim, Carol, Steven B., Elliot, Banu, Lori, Eve, Michael, Stephen M., Emma, Mickey, Christopher, Alan, Joe, Ferd, David.

(1) minutes of 9-21-11 board meeting passed

(2) vote to appoint Dave Gross as Treasurer;

            -all in favor

(3) Discussion of "triggers and contract extension"

            - Randy presented the history of communication with President Caret about the offer that the Governor instructed Caret to make to the UMass unions.

            - Caret tried to set up meeting with only the four UMass faculty union presidents.

            - HELC met on 10-3 to deal with this attempt to split the unions

                        - HELC leadership decided to have the meeting go forward but to have

                        non-faculty HELC leadership attend the meeting

            - David Gray in the President's office responded to that by cancelling the meeting unless only the faculty union presidents attend.

            - the HELC leadership will all go to Boston in a few hours (on 10/5) and see what happens

             - one topic of today's discussion will be Caret's concern about getting the possible raises funded

             - Joe: how is this different from previous salary negotiations?

            - Mickey: it's not. MA law requires that when a contract is negotiated the legislature has to pass a supplemental budget to fund it. The only difference is that the Governor has already signaled that he will not submit a supplemental budget request.

            - discussion about the details and differences between higher ed employees and other state employees

            David: will there be any press coverage?

            - discussion about just what Randy should talk about (if there is actually a meeting)

                 - what kind of pressures can we / should we use?

            - Randy: we have to remember that we must enforce our contract. They (the administration) are obliged to follow through on their earlier agreements.

- Strategy and action plan:

            - all union meeting on 10/11 at noon in Cape Cod lounge; what do we do there?

            - Eve: is turnout the key? – how do we get people there?

            - Michael: maybe a rabble-rousing, short, sharp email

            - Jim: make sure that membership knows that they're being screwed out of back pay (at a minimum) or long-term raises in their base pay (if we can get the NAGE deal)

            - Jim: make sure other unions can be there

            - Joe: what about Eve's question about is a big meeting necessary?

            - Banu: is this meeting the one that we want members to attend?

            - Steve: now that we know the president's response, we need to work out a plan of action

            - Joe: we need that plan of action now

            - Jim: given that we've called an all-union meeting, we need to have people there or else admin will see us as being weak

            - Ferd: we want dept. reps and board members to walk around their departments and physically speak with membership to get people at the meeting.

                        - action plan: call-in day to the president's office?

                        - we should be a massive presence at any meeting of the chancellor search

            - Jim: bring on the grad students

            - Eve: there are a lot of battles going on now: GEO battling over health care; post-docs battling over recognition; building trades battling over sub-contractors and "responsible employer" issues. We don't need to get everyone to the meeting over just our issues. It's about being a good employer.

            - Art: so how can we let them know what "the hard way" is?

            - Randy: grievances, press, rallies, events, letter writing to president and BofT and governor. We need to portray the governor as doing damage to higher ed in MA. And the legislature is, of course, the end game.

            - Banu: do we know what the BofT thinks about all this?

                        - Randy: No and there are 7 new board members

            - Steve: can we get the senate on board so that we can call an all-faculty meeting

            - Jim: Gov Patrick has said he's not running again. Should we be working on Tim Murray instead?

            - Mickey: right now the pressure should be on the president's office, though it will quickly move to the state level.

            - Eve: we should meet with local political leaders who can put pressure on president's office.

            - Randy: Gov and admin are very sensitive to bad press, including local press (it doesn't have to be in the Globe)

            - Jim: bring in UM Boston folks to bring their local legislators into the mix.

            - Eric: do we know where Stan Rosenberg and Ellen Story stand?

            - Randy: they know, but we don't know what they know.

            - Ferd: so even if we have angry members at the what do we want them to do?

            - Michael: prepare letters ahead of time that members can send during the meeting

            - Joe: a call-in day after the letter-writing

            - Eric: series of call-in days for each union

            - Art: let's do an all-union + student teach-in

            - Eve: we do have some fired-up students as a result of the Wisconsin teach-in

            - Jim: a series of teach-ins on each different campus so that there is a series of newspaper articles from around the state

            - Steve: do we want to link it with the "Occupy Amherst" activities this weekend?

            - Randy: yes – the 99% of us who rely on public education….

            - discussion about activating the membership asap

                        -need to know what the likely attendance numbers will be by Friday

            Eve: motion to buy lunch for meeting on 10/11; seconded.

                        -all in favor

            Ferd: will send out short, sharp, talking points email today

(4) Defer conversation on chancellor search issue.

Meeting closed at 10:05.