Remember that if you want to sign up for, renew, or change your health benefits during this Open Enrollment time, it is from October 2 through October 31, 2012.  If a member uses flexible spending accounts (CBA), they must renew every year. The Open Enrollment Health Fair will be held on Thursday, October 11, 2012 from 12 noon to 5:30 PM at the Berkeley Adult School multi-purpose room on 1701 San Pablo Road in Berkeley. Members should have received a packet by late September 2012. This year's packets didn't include the 10-, 11-, or 12-month employee benefits chart. You can get them at the Health Fair. The District is working on sending out the Benefits Chart via regular mail, email, or district mail.

Summaries of Negotiations updates from March 13, 2012 through September 28, 2012.

As required by the 2007 – 2010 Agreement between the Seattle Community Colleges District and AFT Seattle Community Colleges, Local 1789, a Task Force was convened in May of 2008 to review faculty workload issues. The specific charges of the Task Force were as follows:

On May 3, 2012, Joel Smith appeared before the Court of Appeals on behalf of a coalition of Anne Arundel County public safety unions.

Joel argued that a 2011 bill passed by the Anne Arundel County Council and signed by the County Executive was in clear violation of a 2002 Amendment to the Anne Arundel County Charter. The Amendment mandated binding interest arbitration to resolve disputes concerning terms and conditions of employment for certain public safety employees. In an opinion dated September 28, 2012, the Court agreed. The Court concluded that the 2002 Amendment and its implementing legislation were entirely lawful. The 2011 bill was unlawful. The opinion settles thirty-five years of case law on the issue.

This is an important win for public employees across the State of Maryland.

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LFT attorney Larry Samuel on the new tenure law: This law is a farce.  It is a sham.  It is an insult to every educator in this state. It makes a mockery of fairness. The governor and the legislatures who voted for this bill have demonstrated their intent to do nothing more than to give lip service to treating teachers with dignity. 

Information union supporters need to know about the new film "Won't Back Down", starring Viola Davis and Maggie Gyllenhaal as a parent-teacher duo who use a "parent trigger" law to take over a failing public school.

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September 28, 2012

During the final few weeks of Summer Quarter we prepared a comprehensive proposal, which we presented to the Administration on August 20^th.  They also presented us with a comprehensive proposal.  Ours consisted of proposals we had presented earlier which the administration had been unwilling to discuss, as well as counters to proposals they had presented.  They, on the other hand, had dropped a number of their original proposals (even some we offered counters to), maintained some and offered counters to some of ours. 

When voters go to the polls on Nov. 6, they'll choose from among presidential candidates who have very different views on the major issues affecting America, including education. With the election rapidly approaching, eSchool News has pulled together a summary of what each of the two major party candidates - - President Barack Obama for the Democratic Party, and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney for the Republican Party - - have said about their plans for K-12 education.

Read more on eSchool News.

Sept. 27, 2012 -- The Jefferson Parish School Board voted at a special meeting yesterday to “roll forward” millage rates on three taxes, allowing the district to collect a little more than $1 million more in property taxes due to increased property tax assessments.

The vote was 6-3.

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Welcome to UCATS, Local 3882! Since 1979, UCATS has been improving the rights, wages and benefits of the clerical and technical staff at NYU. These rights include:

-the right to earn a living wage
-the right to affordable health care and a pension
-the right to a safe, respectful and non-discriminatory workplace
-the right to job security, representation and due process