March 2005

Seven years ago, Jeff Benson was president of Local 552, he was promoted to supervisor. As the sitting vice president I was suddenly president of local 552 and had to lead our contract negotiations. Seven years ago, few people paid attention to their union. Seven years ago, we had to beg people to run for union office. Despite our relatively small size of 298 members, we now have one of the lowest percentages of fair shares in Council 5. We have a web site. We have provided credible testimony to the state legislature on corrections and pension issues. I am proud of AFSCME Local 552, I am proud to have been your president for the last 7 years, but these accomplishments could not have happened without the support of you, the members. For that I want to thank you. I have separated from my wife of 11 years; I am a single parent of 6 children. It would no longer serve Local 552 for me to continue as I would not be able to do the job you have all been accustomed to. So, I have returned to my former position of vice president, a job I never got to finish!

Tim Turrentine came to our local about 12 years ago from the Juvenile Detention Center where he was a steward in Teamsters Local 320. He has been a Steward in Local 552 for almost 5 years before being elected as your president last December. Won’t you join me in showing your support for Tim and your union as we head for our contract negotiations this year? We cannot accept no cost of living increases and inadequate health insurance this fall. Please attend your union meeting or ask your steward how you can help your union get a better contract this fall!

Governor Pawlenty has submitted a budget that has no money in it for cost of living increases for state employees. Why is this important to us in Hennepin County? Well, for as long as I can remember, and I have been involved in contract negotiations here in Hennepin County for about 16 years, the county has always used the state contract settlement to set the standard for our settlement. Also, the Pawlenty Administration told local governments that if they wanted to keep their local government aide, they needed to hold the line with their unions.

I was listening to MPR in late February and our governor was on the Midday show. A listener called about education spending and the governor said the problem was the union contracts the school districts have. He said that all public employees get a cost of living increase with their new contracts, (OH REALLY?!?!!?!) He also said that what the public doesn’t know is that IN ADDITION to the cost of living increase, we all get step increases. Hmm. The members of local 552 are somewhere between 2/3 and ¾ at top pay. So very few of us got any step increases. He also said that step increases were automatic. Automatic? Gee! I guess our supervisors don’t have to do performance evaluations anymore, because that step increase is automatic! We need to speak up. When the Governor is on “liberal” radio like MPR telling bald face lies, we need to call him on it. If there is some wing nut in your unit who likes to complain about the union and send letters to the Strib saying he/she hates taxes and Pawlenty is a great guy. Pull him/her aside and tell them you want a raise, and you want to keep your benefits and those things cost money!


Patrick Guernsey, President
AFSCME Local 552

This is my first newsletter as the new president of AFSCME Local 552. I wish to thank you for your support during the recent election and promise to keep working hard so that I may continue to count on your support. I need to apologize in that it’s been over two months since my election and this is the first time that I have had the opportunity to communicate with the membership. Learning this new job has been time consuming and intensive. Luckily, Pat, Cate and the rest of the E Board have been very patient with me as I try to learn this role. I also ask for your patience. At last count, Local 552 members were spread out over approximately 40 work locations. This makes it extremely difficult to get information out to the membership. I hope to increase the use of the Corrections Courier and this web site in order to get information out to everyone. However, neither of these avenues are nearly as effective as one-on-one, face-to-face contact.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that the main focus of this local and AFSCME Council 5 is a new contract for 2006-2007. We have already had multiple meetings of the Hennepin County AFSCME Local presidents to plot contract strategy. We all agreed that we will enter into contract negotiations with a wholly different approach then we’ve had in the last several years. We are calling it a “contract campaign” instead of “contract negotiations”. Contract negotiations in the past have involved a small number of individuals from the various locals who enter into lengthy and time consuming negotiations with the Hennepin County Labor Relations. The course of those negotiations were generally kept quiet and confidential within that small negotiating group and that the information would be brought back to the membership once a potential negotiation or settlement had been reached. We do not feel that this approach worked out well for us in the last contract in that our membership were not mobilized to do anything about the bottom line that the County presented us with. We got stuck with double zeros but it is also important for the membership to know that the County tried to take away our stability pay, merit increases and individual health care coverage. We managed to narrowly avoid those take backs but we should not take any pride in saving contract articles that have been in place for decades.

A “contract campaign” removes the secrecy and confidentiality from the proceedings. Our goal is to keep the membership informed every step of the way of what the proposals and counter proposals are. You need to know immediately if or when the County fails to negotiate in good faith or make proposals that would severely affect us in the long run. The first step of this contract campaign is what we call “one-on-one surveys”. In the next one to two months, we are going to try to make individual contact with each and every member to talk about what they would like out of the new contract. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that a reasonable cost of living increase and health care coverage are going to be the predominant points. However, the purpose of these one-on-one surveys is also to ask the union membership what you are willing to do to work toward avoiding take backs, getting a reasonable cost of living, and affordable health care.

My initial request of you may come naturally to some people and be completely foreign to others but the State budget crisis has created situations within Hennepin County that should make you think and act very selfishly. I want you to think about the effect that two years of no pay increases have had. I want you to think about how your health care costs have risen. I want you to think that we are now doing our jobs with approximately 38 fewer Probation/Parole Officers than we did two years ago. Caseloads and workloads are always increasing. Throw in 38 fewer positions and those workloads have become unmanageable in many sectors of our workforce. We did our part to address budget issues by accepting a Zero-Zero contract. Now is the time for Hennepin County to recognize our sacrifice and assist us in moving forward rather than forcing us to stand idle or even move backwards. In these one-on-one surveys, we are going to be asking you what are willing to do to send the message to Hennepin County that we deserve better than what we got last time. I ran for this office of president because I am more than willing to stand up and lead the fight. But, invariably, the County negotiators will question whether our membership is as concerned as I am on these contract issues. If cost of living increases, health insurance and other contract take backs are not a concern of yours, please let me know. If they are, please talk about these issues with your co-workers. Let your supervisors know that this contract better not be a repeat of the last one. If people are mad and willing to do something about it, the County will get the message and negotiations may proceed in a less adversarial manner. We will not be able to get an improved contract without the direct involvement of everybody. When you are approached about the one-on-one survey, please freely communicate your concerns and issues with your union representative. Start thinking about what you will be willing to do to assist us in sending a message to Hennepin County that we will not accept a contract like the one we had to endure for the past two years.

Once again, communication is the key. While we will be seeking out members for one-on-one interactions, please don’t hesitate to contact one of the stewards or executive board members to voice your concerns.

I anticipate that the coming contract negotiations and “contract campaign” will be long and arduous. I strongly suspect that my crash course of learning how to be a local president will last the full two years of my tenure. However, I think that if you follow my advice to act selfishly in how these contract negotiations affect you, you will understand that in order to be selfish we all must stand together to achieve our common goal.

Tim Turrentine
President
AFSCME Local 552