Apologies to UFF USF members who unsubscribed to the Biweekly

Like all respectable electronic newsletters, the UFF USF Biweekly has a mechanism for unsubscribing. As in all newsletters, this appears as a notice at the bottom of the newsletter; the computer maintains a "blacklist" of addresses not to send newsletters to. Unfortunately, the UFF USF Biweekly's blacklist was corrupted, and some unsubscribers may receive this issue. For that, we apologize. We hope to have the old blacklist file back shortly, but meanwhile, the unsubscription function is in operation, and if you want to stop your subscription, you may do so by clicking "unsubscribe" button the bottom of this email.

REFERENDUM ON AMENDMENTS

Ballots are in the mail to UFF members' home addresses. At the 22 March 2019 UFF USF Chapter meeting, the chapter resolved to submit amendments to the constitution and bylaws to the members for approval. Amendments to the UFF USF Constitution must be approved by a two third majority of those voting; amendments to the Bylaws require a majority vote.

Here are the amendments as they appear on the ballot (underlined means to be added, while struck out means to be deleted):

Shall Article IV, Section 2 of the UFF USF Constitution be changed as follows?

• Nominations shall be closed and all nomination materials shall be due by February 28. The elected officers and Senators representatives shall be elected annually on or before March 21 31, and shall take office on the following April 1.
• Rationale: It takes several weeks to collect the necessary nominations, which results in a very short window to return ballots. The UFF requires that new officers and representatives be elected by April 1, and their own deadline is a day or so before that, so we can follow suit.

• Standing Committees shall be:
  1. Bargaining Committee
  2. Grievance Committee
  3. Services Membership Committee
  4. Communications Committee
  5. Political Action Government Relations Committee
• Rationale: The UFF state office has requested that government relations committees not be entitled "Political Action Committees" as UFF has one PAC and the chapter's committee is not it. In addition, the Services Committee's duties are recruitment and organizing, and the usual title of such a body is "Membership Committee."

• The Political Action Government Relations Committee shall cooperate, upon the approval of the chapter at a chapter meeting, with the State UFF in lobbying, endorsing candidates, and raising contributions. The Chairperson of the Political Action Government Relations Committee shall be the an official nominee to the State UFF Political Action-Legislative Committee and West Central Florida Central Labor Council unless otherwise determined by the President and/or Chapter Council.
• Rationale: Chapters do not nominate members of the UFF Legislative Committees, and the Chapter can have several members on the Central Labor Council - depending on density. And again, the UFF has requested that government relations committees not be entitled "Political Action Committees" as UFF has one PAC and the chapter's committee is not it.

• Before the end of the fall semester of each academic year, the chapter shall elect an Elections a Nominations and Election Committee (which is not a standing committee) of union members to design an election process, subject to the advice and consent of the chapter; solicit nominations for office and representative positions; conduct the election; and report the results. Members of the Elections Nominations and Election Committee shall be barred from running for executive office, and all candidates for executive offices in contested races shall be barred from canvassing or counting ballots.
• Rationale: The duties of this committee includes soliciting nominations, and this duty should be stressed. Important note: there is a scriveners' error in this item of the ballot. You may notice in the ballot that it says at one point that the phrase "Nominations and Election" will be struck. The phrase "Nominations and Election" is not currently in the bylaws, and the proposal is to replace "Elections" with "Nominations and Election" in two places in this article. If this amendment passes, the bylaws will be amended as indicated in this Biweekly Special. We apologize for the error.