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Photos 2008
NLC 2nd Quarterly Meeting
April 2-4, 1998
NLC members present: Alan Clendenin, Dustin Miller, Steve Fletcher, David Benedetto, Dave Caldwell, John Fitzgerald, Art Remsik, Stacey Trigler
Not present: Rob Stephenson, Christopher Boughn, & Randy Weiland (illness).
Thursday, April 2nd
Review of NATCA constitution and bylaws for obsolete articles or changes, looking for items that need to be removed, changed, etc. Read through copies and this will be re-addressed later in the meeting. No proxy voting is allowed, it is deemed not appropriate. An attending person not on the NLC doesn’t vote but can attend. However each region should have representation, can the cost be justified to send a non-voting member to a meeting in place of the NLC member, if the original NLC member cannot attend. NLC is under the RVP, who has the ultimate decision who attends and funding issues for attendees. Vote taken to approve/disapprove the cost of sending a substitute in place of an existing NLC member that cannot attend. Proposal made: If a committee member is physically unable to attend any meetings of the committee, a designee may be sent from that region. This designee will be approved by the appropriate RVP. This designee will not have voting rights. Any expenses for said designee will be at the sole discretion of the National Chair. Proposal accepted.
Review of NATCA in Washington ’98-
Total hotel bill $124,625, we stayed close to last years figures. Total budget for this event $149,625. Approx. $12,000 was spent on Congressional Quarterly (CQ). Attendance was 279, and the no shows were 50% less than the prior year. No shows cost us approx. $7500, no shows are not allowed to attend next years lobby week. In order to reduce losses a change to next years staffing will be made. The following request will be made of the National Office: National office will provide a designated full time person to act as a room coordinator, to handle general rooming issues, cancellations of rooms, and re-combining roommates as needed. A room coordinator will be appointed 60 days prior to NATCA in Washington ‘99.
Overview -First time attendees were impressed and had positive feedback, CQ was not received well, need to book new speakers as CQ has run its course, the busses for transportation were hit & miss, Capital Hill tour was a great success, Hotel accommodations were very good. NATCA in Washington ’98 was a successful event.
Members commented they learned more about was the legislative committee does. Need to restructure regional breakout sessions and incorporate these into the day schedule on the first day. The current issues also need to have more time to be discussed and focused on with specific talking points. We should take issue to specific people not just he general attendees, certain people combined as a team to lobby a member on a specific issue.
Another idea to mix with your congressional representatives is to invite them to your region dinner, this is an excellent opportunity to get them away from the office on a casual basis. Next year make the regional dinner an organized event. A proposal was made to look into holding a congressional reception at the Capital. Stacey to explore further and present proposal at the NEB finance meeting later this month.
NATCA in Washington ’99-
Looking at two dates with two hotels, The Hyatt , March 27th – 31st @ $175 per night or the Mayflower Jan. 31st – Feb 3rd @ $155 per night, or March 14th – March 17th at $195 per night. Stacy and Alan will continue to work with the hotels to reach a final agreement.
Training plan – eliminate Congressional Quarterly and use the same funds to contract our own independent speaker, look at AFL-CIO for resources.
Dave Caldwell has proposed a voting campaign, he will head this campaign. A "register to vote" campaign will be followed by a "get out and vote" campaign. This could be done at the facilities on crew briefs as long as it remains bi-partisan. Stacey is meeting with AFL-CIO to go over polling process and information so we can determine which member are registered and which party affiliation.
Facility Rep training dates-
Fac Rep training is once a month in Las Vegas, we have 1 hour each meeting to go over our material on legislative issues and activism. The scheduled meeting are May 18-22, June 22-26, July 20-24, August 24-28, and Sept. 28- Oct. 2. Our time is 1 hour on the Thursday from 10am-11am. David Benedetto has committed to all training and will coordinate with the rest of the committee to develop others on handling the meeting and training skills.
Seattle Convention & PAC Raffle-
Ms. Cunningham will not be handling the PAC raffle this year. We need a person to run the raffle during the convention. John Fitzgerald has volunteered and will be in charge of the PAC raffle and getting info out to each region.
Dates of the Convention, Sept 6th –9th. However we will be having our 3rd quarter committee meeting on the 5th so plan on being there early, using Sept. 4th and 10th as travel days. Convention is at the Westin, Seattle. Rooms are paid for.
Pagers-
Software packages will be distributed to members for digital paging, group paging, and other benefits. New pager system will have voice messaging, group paging, text messaging. Fac Reps and RVPs are still on Skytel, until it is determined at the NEB meeting later this month if they will begin using the PageMart system. We need to be testing our new pagers to work out kinks, implementation of the new pagers will be April 6th. Alan will be following up with a list of pager #’s and pin #’s for all regions.
PAC Distribution-
$74,700 in PAC funds were sent out in March. Requests for PAC funds come direct from congressional committees and from members in the field. Until primaries are held we can’t develop a list of who we support. A support list will be developed in June. Support is given to those on the committees that we need, appropriations, transportation, etc.
Friday, April 3rd
Dates for NLC 4th quarter meeting –
November 15th – 19th, meeting beginning on the 16th –18th, with the 15th and 19th being travel days. Meeting will be held in Las Vegas, and primary topic will be the upcoming NATCA in Washington ’99.
Summer Campaign Seminars-
Object for the summer seminars is to motivate and excite members to get involved in the fall campaigns and increase our visibility. Objective to Fac Reps is to increase support on legislative issues and more support of the legislative committee.
Suggested destinations are Chicago and Denver, committee also added San Diego, Houston, and St. Louis. Discussion on destinations as far as reaching members and funding has determined that the 2 summer seminars will be in San Diego and St. Louis. These are one-day seminars and attendees will arrive the day prior. The cost of the rooms will be funded by the NLC budget all other expenses including transportation and meals must be paid for by participants. The seminar will be approx. 8 hours beginning at 8am to 4 pm. The budget for each meeting is approx. $5,000 to include hotel and meeting room. Rooms for the San Diego seminar are in the range of $85 – 95 for the Clarion and Horten and meeting space is most likely included. Dustin is checking on rates for the St. Louis area. San Diego seminar will be held in the last two weeks of July, and St. Louis will be held in the first two weeks of June. Dave Caldwell is heading up the San Diego seminar and Dustin Miller is heading up the St. Louis seminar. Houston has been chosen as an alternative site.
Outline of ides for the 8-hour campaign seminar – John Fitzgerald has prepared an outline for the seminars, with changes and additions, made by the committee. John will finalize the outline in the next week and also has volunteered to prepare all the subject material and forward it to the National office, where they will put it together for presentation. All materials should be compiled by May 23rd. We are looking to have a minimum attendance at each seminar of 30 with a maximum of 50. How do we get this info out and whom do they respond to? Each assigned regional chair will handle their own advertising and attendance forms for hotel reservations, however the National newsletter will carry bulletin on each event.
NATCA will have a list of candidates that we support so we know who to show support to and what campaigns to work on. This list is only for the NLC committee members use.
Saturday, April 4th
NEB meeting April 21-24, David Caldwell will attend this meeting and possible attendance by Alan Clendenin as well. Issues to be discussed:
1. Mid shift staffing, one-man mids should be abolished.
- Give NEB general briefing on campaign activism seminars, NEB will contact regional chairs to arrange attendance.
- All regional chairs should be invited to regional Fac Rep meetings, with lodging, meals & time off. Negotiate official time if able.
- NLC aggressively supportive of 20 yr. Retirement.
- Address our concerns on the new pagers and communicate our pleasure or lack thereof to NEB. Inability to redirect messages is becoming an issue.
- Block of time allocated at pre convention meetings, need 2 hours.
- NATCA in Washington, give NEB an overview on NIW ’98, feedback, ect.
Discussed HR 3251 – Federal Pay Fairness Act-
Question about whether it applies to ATC’s since we’re not general schedule employees and we are working on reclass?
Condensing Campaign Seminar to 2 hours for pre convention meetings-
All NLC members, get regional committee structures and name list to RVP’s for pre convention packages. Before we go to pre convention meeting cross-reference attendee/PAC contributor’s list. And possible put stickers on name badges indicating those who are PAC contributors. The outline for the 8-hour general campaign seminars will be condensed as indicated on the outline to fit into the 2 hours allocated.
Meeting adjourned Saturday, April 4th 12:30 p.m.
Alan Clendenin
National Legislative Committee Chair