ASASP is the only union
that can represent Administrators &
Supervisors in the Prince George's County, MD
Public School System should
they need
assistance.
Dues to ASASP benefit you
-- Dues to any other union are
merely a gift
The Association
of Supervisory and Administrative School
Personnel . . .
the single,
coordinated voice for administrators,
supervisors, and other professionals employed
by Prince George's County Public Schools who
are designated by the Board of Education as
members of Unit II and Unit III.
For our members, we are the exclusive collective
bargaining representative with regard to all
matters relating to salary, wages, hours, and
other working conditions. ASASP takes
great pride in improving the educational
process for students by helping members become
more effective in their various roles as
educational leaders. Employees who are at
peace with their terms and
conditions of employment are better
equipped to focus on the needs of our future .
. .
The Mission of
the Community Services Agency (CSA) is to
improve the lives of workers and their families
by meeting their human and social services
needs; by building broad and diverse coalitions
to promote and protect dignity and justice for
workers; and by empowering workers and their
unions to make their communities better, more
responsive places to live, work, raise a family
and retire.
School-Based Administrators -
If you have
questions regarding individuals entering your
building - causing a disruption and refusing to
leave when asked - see the Annotated
Code Section 26-102. The Law is very
clear - you may deny access to the
building to any person
who "Acts in a manner that disrupts or disturbs
the normal educational functions of the
institution." This means a Board member,
the Superintendent, parent, union
representative, politician -
anyone. If you
ask somone to leave and they do not, you
have the right to call the police and have them
arrested.
Protect your students,
staff and yourself.
LABOR
QUOTES
Nothing in all the world is
more dangerous than sincere ignorance and
conscientious stupidity.
-- Martin Luther King,
Jr.
About half
our problems would go away overnight if
everybody in this country who wanted to work
had a job.
-- Bill
Clinton
Why the Union-Buster
Sank
A minister, a priest and a
union-buster were fishing from a boat not far
from the shore of a lake. The minister needed
to go to the bathroom so he got out of the
boat, walked across the water, disappeared into
the woods by the shore, then walked back across
the water to the boat and climbed back in. The
priest was the next to make the trip, getting
out of the boat, walking across the water,
disappearing into the trees, then walking back
across the water and returning to the boat. The
union-buster was the last to go. He stepped out
of the boat and immediately sank. The minister
looked at the priest and said, "We really
should have told him where the rocks
are."
THIS WEEK IN
LABOR
HISTORY
May
14 Milwaukee brewery workers begin
10-week strike, demanding contracts comparable
to East and West coast workers. The strike was
won because Blatz Brewery accepts their
demands, but Blatz was ousted from the Brewers
Association for “unethical” business methods -
1953
May 15 U.S.
Supreme Court rules in favor of Samuel Gompers
and other union leaders for supporting a boycott
at the Buck Stove and Range Co. in St. Louis,
where workers were striking for a nine-hour
day. A lower court had forbidden the boycott
and sentenced the unionists to prison for
refusing to obey the judge’s anti-boycott
injunction - 1906
The Library Employees’
Union is founded in New York City, the first
union of public library workers in the United
States. A major focus of the union was the
inferior status of women library workers and
their low salaries - 1917
The first
labor bank opens in Washington, D.C., launched
by officers of the Machinists. The Locomotive
Engineers opened a bank in Cleveland later that
year - 1920
Death of IWW song writer
T-Bone Slim, New York City - 1942
Wall
Street Journal reporter Jonathon Kwitney
reports that AFL-CIO President George Meany,
Sec.-Treas. Lane Kirkland and other union
officials are among the 60 leading stockholders
in the 15,000 acre Punta Cana, Dominican
Republic resort. When the partners needed help
clearing the land, the Dominican president sent
troops to forcibly evict stubborn, impoverished
tobacco farmers and fishermen who had lived
there for generations, according to Kwitney’s
expose - 1973
May 16
Minneapolis general strike backs
Teamsters, who are striking most of the city’s
trucking companies - 1934
U.S. Supreme
Court issues Mackay decision, which permits the
permanent replacement of striking workers. The
decision had little impact until Ronald Regan’s
replacement of striking air traffic controllers
(PATCO) in 1981, a move that signalled
antiunion private sector employers that it was
OK to do likewise - 1938
Black labor leader and
peace activist A. Philip Randolph dies. He was
president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car
Porters and first black on the AFL-CIO
executive board, and a principal organizer of
the 1963 March on Washington -
1979 [A. Philip Randolph: A
Biographical Portrait is a fascinating
biography of a great American hero. A. Philip
Randolph (1889-1979) was not only the most
famous African American labor leader of his
time, he was also a key figure in the civil
rights movement. In the UCS bookstore
now.]
May
17 First women’s anti-slavery
conference, Philadelphia - 1838
Supreme
Court outlaws segregation in public schools -
1954
Twelve Starbucks baristas in a
mid-town Manhattan store, declaring they
couldn’t live on $7.75 an hour, signed cards
demanding representation by the Industrial
Workers of the World, or Wobblies. Management
roadblocks continue to deny the workers their
union to this day - 2004
May 18
In what may have been baseball’s
first labor strike, the Detroit Tigers refuse
to play after team leader Ty Cobb is suspended:
he went into the stands and beat a fan who had
been heckling him. Cobb was reinstated
and the Tigers went back to work after the team
manager’s failed attempt to replace the players
with a local college team: their pitcher gave
up 24 runs - 1912
Amalgamated Meat
Cutters union organizers launch a campaign in
the nation’s packinghouses, an effort that was
to bring representation to 100,000 workers over
the following two years - 1917
Big Bill
Haywood, a founding member and leader of the
Industrial Workers of the World (the Wobblies),
dies in exile in the Soviet Union - 1928
Atlanta transit workers, objecting to a
new city requirement that they be fingerprinted
as part of the employment process, go on
strike. They relented and returned to work six
months later - 1950
Insurance Agents
International Union and Insurance Workers of
America merge to become Insurance Workers
International Union (later to merge into the
UFCW) - 1959
Oklahoma jury finds for
the estate of atomic worker Karen Silkwood,
orders Kerr-McGee Nuclear Co. to pay $505,000
in actual damages, $10 million in punitive
damages for negligence leading to Silkwood’s
plutonium contamination - 1979
[The Killing of Karen Silkwood
is an updated edition of the groundbreaking
book about the death of union activist Karen
Silkwood, an employee of a plutonium processing
plant, who was killed in a mysterious car crash
on her way to deliver important documents to a
newspaper reporter in 1974. Silkwood’s death at
age 28 was highly suspicious: she had been
working on health and safety issues at the
plant, and a lot of people stood to benefit by
her death. In the UCS bookstore
now.]
May
19 Explosion in Coal Creek, Tenn.
kills 184 miners - 1902
Shootout in
Matewan, W. Va. between striking union miners
(led by Police Chief Sid Hatfield) and
coal company agents. Ten died, including seven
agents - 1920
The Steel Workers
Organizing Committee, formed by the Congress of
Industrial Organizations, formally becomes the
United Steelworkers of America - 1942
31 dockworkers are killed, 350 workers
and others are injured when four barges
carrying 467 tons of ammunition blow up at
South Amboy, New Jersey. They were loading
mines that had been deemed unsafe by the Army
and were being shipped to the Asian market for
sale - 1950
May 20
The Railway Labor Act took effect
today. It was the first federal legislation
protecting workers’ rights to form unions -
1926
Why is the public perception of
the labor union movement so at odds with the
day-to-day reality? A large part of the
explanation is that the vast majority of
Americans are not represented by a labor union,
and many Americans have never had any direct
experience at all in a unionized
workplace. With little firsthand
knowledge to go on, some people easily
buy into the employers' twisted version of
things. To increase public support for
unions and the causes that we fight for inside
and out of the workplace, it's important for
people to have an accurate view of the role
that unions play. And this is where you
come in: if you make a point of letting
friends and neighbors know about your own
experiences as a unionized employee, this can
be the most effective way possible to correct
popular distortions about the labor
movement. To get an accurate picture of
what a real-life union is all about, people
need to hear firsthand from a real-life union
member.
Support the
Union: It’s the Fair
Thing
Think about the relationship
between a government and its citizens.
Each of us approves of many of the decisions
made on our behalf by our elected
representatives, but disapproves of
others. Imagine the foolishness of trying
to have a society where each person decided
things based only on what was best for him or
her individually. The fact is, we all
benefit from understanding that the only
practical way to live together is to have a
group of people with common interests making
group decisions. So each of us pays
taxes, with the understanding that our pooled
funds generally are used for the common
good. In most cases, it’s simply not
practical to allow individuals to “opt out” of
society’s decisions. You, for example,
may not have school-age children, but it would
hardly be realistic for you to pay a slightly
lower percentage of taxes because you don’t
directly benefit from (or even approve of)
spending on public education. Or you may
have a neighbor who doesn’t think that the stop
sign on the corner is really necessary, but you
sure want her to obey it if your kid is trying
to cross the street.
Be a Set of "Eyes and
Ears"
Union
stewards can't be everywhere at once, and they
can't see or hear personally everything that
goes on around the workplace. So part of
your job as an individual union member is to be
on the lookout for things that the union needs
to know about, and to pass along the necessary
information. If, for example, a change is
made in working conditions but too long a
period of time passes before a grievance is
filed, it may be too late to challenge the
employer's unilateral action. So it's
part of your responsibility as an individual
union member to be the union's "eyes and ears"
in your
workplace.
Protection From
Retaliation
If you think you're being
retaliated against for union activity,
be aware that there sometimes is a
difference between what you know actually
occurred and what you can prove as a matter of
law. You’d be kidding yourself if you
thought that there’s never been an instance in
which a worker was in fact retaliated against
for having engaged in behavior that is legally
protected but was unable to prove that the
retaliation took place. Still, don’t let
this prevent you from asserting your
rights. There have been plenty more
instances where the agency charged with
enforcing a law moved aggressively against an
employer trying to prevent an employee from
asserting rights under that law. After
all, if all employees are successfully
intimidated into not using the provisions of
the law, that agency becomes
useless.
Internal Union
Rights
Let’s take a look at the rights that you
have, as a union member, to participate in the
democratic workings of the collective
bargaining representative. The primary
law setting forth your legal rights to
participate in your union grows out of a
federal statute passed in 1959, known as the
Landrum-Griffin Act. Specifically, the
Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act
(LMRDA), administered by the US Department of
Labor, covers unions with members in the
private sector. (If your union represents
both public and private sector workers, this
law may apply to you, as it will if you are a
U.S. Postal Service employee.) The
LMRDA’s “Bill of Rights of Members of Labor
Organizations” contains an “equal rights”
provision, guaranteeing all union members the
right to nominate candidates for union office,
to vote in union elections, and to attend and
participate in union meetings. While the
federal law does not require labor
organizations to hold meetings, it does say
that when meetings are held you have the right
to participate fully. The labor “Bill of
Rights” also guarantees “freedom of speech and
assembly.” The law does say that unions
are allowed to have “reasonable rules”
regarding how they run their affairs. But
you, the union member, have a guaranteed right
to have and to express your viewpoints on the
union and those who lead and participate in it,
even if those viewpoints are critical or
negative
ones.
Workers facing financial difficulty due
to strike or furlough may be eligible for two
new grants from Union Plus. The Union Plus Job
Loss Grant has also been expanded to help even
more members. Union Plus Credit Card holders
who are on strike or locked out for 30 or more
consecutive days may apply for a $250 payment
made directly to their credit card accounts
under the new Union Plus Strike Grant. Union
members or their spouses who have been
furloughed from their jobs for 15 days or more
within a six-month period can receive a
one-time $250 payment made directly to their
Union Plus Credit Card with the new Union Plus
Furlough Grant. Also, the time to apply for a
$250 Job Loss Grant has been expanded from six
months to 12 months to allow members more time
to learn of the grant and apply for it. “These
grants are part of the Union SAFE program from
Union Plus that has provided some $5 million to
assist eligible union members facing hardships
due to layoffs, hospital costs, disability,
mortgage payment problems and high college
costs,” says Union Plus. “Through these new and
expanded programs, Union Plus will help even
more union families.” Click here for more
information.
Internet Help for
Seniors
(and those caring for
them)
Click here for websites that can
help seniors and caregivers find health,
housing and community support
information.
School
Administrators Union
Endorse ‘Bully’
Documentary
Last week, the American
Federation of Teachers (AFT) invited the
American Federation of School Administrators
(AFSA) to watch the documentary “Bully” and
join with them as the only school
administrators union to endorse the
documenttary. AFSA whole-heartedly
supported the effort.
In addition to their efforts
with AFT and the movie "Bully", the AFSA
GEB passed a resolution on
bullying.
Click
here to review
questions/issues ASASP has raised about the
PGCPS Proposed FY2013 Budget. These
questions/issues were shared with the
County Council before their hearings
concerning the Proposed
Budget.
American
University
Adjuncts Vote
to
Join Union
(Metropolitan Washington Council,
AFL-CIO)In response to growing inequality on
campus including near-poverty wages with no
benefits, adjunct faculty at American
University (AU) have voted to join SEIU Local
500. More than 1,000 adjuncts will now have a
collective voice with the union. “This is a
major step in reforming higher education, not
just at American University but across the
country,” said Mark Plane, an adjunct in the AU
anthropology department. Adjunct faculty make
up more than half of all college teachers
nationally and most work part time for very low
wages with no benefits, job security,
administrative support or academic rights. At
AU, an adjunct with a Ph.D. teaching three
classes a semester could make as little as
$18,000 a year, according to SEIU 500. “It can
be a real struggle to get by,” said Plane. AU
is the third university in the Washington, DC
metro area to vote to form an adjunct faculty
union. SEIU Local 500 also represents adjunct
faculty at George Washington University and
Montgomery College.
Dr. Bonita Coleman-Potter,
Deputy Superintendent and Mr. Matthew
Stanski, Chief Financial
Officer joined ASASP members at its
General Membership Meeting to discuss and
answer your questions regarding Student Based
Budgeting. Click here to view their PowerPoint
Presentation
When people think
about the role that unions play, the first
thing that comes to mind is negotiating over a
contract. These collective bargaining
agreements deal with what are known as the
“terms and conditions of employment.”
This is unionism at its core: employees
banding together to fight for more money, get
decent health care and other benefits, and gain
more control over many other areas of their
day-to-day working
lives.
A
boss goes in to see a psychologist. He says,
"It seems I can't get along with my employees.
Can you help me, you lazy
slob?"
Eternal Vigilance
Is
The Price of
Liberty
Don’t make the
mistake of thinking that the existence of
rights on a page somewhere means that you’ll
always be able to count on those
protections. Rights that aren’t exercised
can in fact disappear over time; you can lose
what you don’t protect. So you need to
know where your rights come from, and how to
use your union to protect them. In
practical terms, this means that when your
employer breaks the rules, you need to make
sure that your union steward knows about
it. A steward’s job is to be the “eyes
and ears” of the union, but a steward can’t be
everywhere at once, and that’s why individual
members have the responsibility to alert the
steward if they see a problem. That way,
the union/employer structures that are in place
can be used to prevent changes for the worse in
the day-to-day conditions of the
workplace.
ASASP Members, your Board
of Directors are your stewards.
Call any of them or call the ASASP office
- keep the Union apprised of what's
going on.
Remember, we don't know
and, therefore, can't jump into
action, until YOU let us know what's
happening!
"Why should we get
involved? Why should my child learn about
what happened to workers a hundred years
ago? If these children don’t understand
and appreciate the struggles of their parents,
grandparents and great-grandparents, they may
be doomed to fight the same battles over
again."
-- Fred Kaltenstein, Labor
Educator
Unit II and Unit
III
SENIORITY
ASASP WILL NOT ALLOW THE BOARD
OF EDUCATION TO IGNORE OUR NEGOTIATED
AGREEMENTS. WE WILL TAKE WHATEVER
ACTION IS NECESSARY TO DEAL WITH ANY
UNFAIR LABOR PRACTICE.
an injury to
one
is
an injury to
all!
Q
If I am RIFfed,
what then is the status of my
pension and any retirement
funds?
A
Per Human Resources, the pension
remains with the Maryland State
Retirement System (MSRS). If you have
less than 5 years, you may withdraw your
funds. However, you should
probably wait to withdraw your funds
until you secure another position.
If you accept another position with an employer
that participates with MSRS. you can
continue to contribute to the pension
system.
NOT
a Spectator
Sport
Unions are far more than a kind of
employment insurance policy for working
people. Plenty of union members and union
officials have learned the hard way that when
workers come to think of their union as a
business that provides service rather than a
group of people banding together to fight for
common interests, the union quickly loses the
clout and credibility needed to defend and
advance the members’ interests. When an
employer looks and sees only a small handful of
paid union staff or elected union leaders, and
no one standing behind them, pretty soon the
employer starts thinking that “the union” isn’t
really much to contend with. And the
truth is, that’s right.
Much has been
written and much has been said about the right
of self-determination. Yet, in the quiet
corridors of public education institutions,
most administrators and supervisors have become
passive participants in those issues that most
positively and/or negatively impact their
livelihood.
Swirling around
you are the national, state, and local tides of
"accountability" for which you have had little
or no input. Nevertheless, the
implications of these measures have serious
implications/penalties attached to them.
Those of you who are deemed "unsuccessful" will
certainly have to justify your continued
service, in whatever position you now
hold.
While no one
should shrink away from accountability, as
such, those who are charged with evaluating
your efforts ought to be held to a standard
reflective of documented professional high
quality support! These "enablers" should
have some evidence of "personal" success on
which they can legitimately offer guidance, as
well as submit an end-of-year evaluation of
your efforts.
You have a
responsibility to get involved in those
processes, both politically and
organizationally, that determine the quality of
your professional life. Individuals who
express an understanding of your jobs, and of
your aspirations, and who run and/or running
for political office, need to be supported by
you. However, these same individuals need
to understand the strength of you and of your
organization to impact them at the polls!
Blind acceptance of "whomever" is elected does
not serve your purposes.
Waiting for your
"proverbial" ship to come in is not a good
professional strategy for success (if and when
your ship comes in, you might be at the
airport). You must be proactive in
expressing your needs, as those needs are
peculiar to the members of this Union.
"Silent Night" might be an appropriate song for
celebrating a revered holiday, but "silent
voices" can never be appropriate for bringing
about a desired change. Get involved, on
your terms ... or else others will determine
your term of
involvement
For
over 300 years, African Americans have raised
families and built communities that have been
vital to the growth and development of Prince
George's County, Maryland and its
history. They have established
neighborhoods and built physical structures,
many of which survive in the midst of the
County's ever changing landscape. This
Guide invites you to take a visual journey to
those African American historic sites and
buildings that offer guided or self-guided
tours.
lean
more...
The Big
Squeeze
The
local bar was so sure that its bartender was
the strongest man around that they offered a
standing $1000 bet: The bartender would squeeze
a lemon until all the juice ran into a glass,
and hand the lemon to a patron. Anyone who
could squeeze one more drop of juice out would
win the money. Over the years, many people had
tried but nobody could do
it. One
day a scrawny little man came into the bar,
wearing thick glasses and a polyester suit, and
said in a tiny squeaky voice "I'd like to try
the
bet."
After the laughter had died down, the bartender
said OK, grabbed a lemon, and squeezed away.
Then he handed the wrinkled remains of the rind
to the little man. The crowd's laughter turned
to total silence as the man clenched his fist
around the lemon and six drops fell into the
glass.
Stunned, the bartender paid the $1000, and
asked the little man "What do you do for a
living? Are you a lumberjack, a weight-lifter,
or
what?"
The man replied: “I negotiate union contracts
for management.”
for supporting a boycott
at the Buck Stove and Range Co. in St. Louis,
where workers were striking for a nine-hour
day. A lower court had forbidden the boycott
and sentenced the unionists to prison for
refusing to obey the judge’s anti-boycott
injunction - 1906
Black labor leader and
peace activist A. Philip Randolph dies. He was
president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car
Porters and first black on the AFL-CIO
executive board, and a principal organizer of
the 1963 March on Washington -
1979
hour, signed cards
demanding representation by the Industrial
Workers of the World, or Wobblies. Management
roadblocks continue to deny the workers their
union to this day - 2004 
[
Chief Sid Hatfield) and
coal company agents. Ten died, including seven
agents - 1920 
