As you are probably well aware, the leaders of the Guild (mainly Jael) have been under personal attack by Council 2 and AFSCME. They have attacked Jael personally by going after her integrity and loyalty to our members. Many of you who know Jael know that she is in this fight for the Guild because she believes as I do that this is the best place for us to be so that we may be better represented in contract negotiations, workplace issues and be financially stronger as a unit. I encourage you to send Jael a short note of support via the Guild Facebook page and let her know she is not in this fight alone. She is taking the brunt of it for all of us.

  We do not wish to inundate you with tons of emails as Council 2 has and so we will continue to keep our messages to a minimum. You can expect more visits from AFSCME at work and at home to try and convince you that they really care about you. It is too bad they did not give us this kind of attention before we decided that we wanted something better. This proves that all Council 2 and AFSCME care about is the dollars you represent. Jael, Shayla, Dean and I care about you as a person and about providing you with the best service possible.

 We hear your concerns about wanting to get to contract negotiations and this is why we chose to settle in mediation with Council 2. If we had continued to fight and win these hearings, Council 2 appeals could very possibly have delayed the election until Fall of 2020 and that was not a chance we were willing to take. Council 2 proposed a vote in April. They want to put it off as long as possible because they know what is coming. Our team was successful in getting an earlier vote date: March 16, 2020.

 I encourage you to stay strong and trust us as we move forward. Your organizing team is embedded in every department, is growing every day and are working our tails off fighting for you. Remember during our last contract negotiations? Chris Dugovich told you that the City gave us their last best and final offer. It included no retro pay. He insisted that this was absolutely the best deal we would get and that voting No was voting to strike.

 Your member-led negotiation team stood strong and told Dugovich NO! — that we didn’t believe that was the last-best-and-final offer and we would NOT vote for a strike. YOU, the members, showed up in force and voted the contract down in record numbers and the City came back with a better offer and retro pay. Council 2 and AFSCME provided zero support to you during that last contract negotiations and now they want you to believe they have your best interests at heart? We as a group worked to get one of the better contracts we have had in several years, why do we want to continue to give our money to a group that does not support us?

Thanks for taking the time to read this and if you would like any more information please feel free to contact myself or Dean Tharp.

Sincerely,

Kirk Juneau