As expected, the House FY09 budget was released yesterday afternoon with a proposed increase in employee health insurance contribution rates.  The House plan mirrors the plan proposed by Governor Patrick, which is as follows:  ·       Workers earning $35,000 to $50,000 would have their premium share increased from 15% to 20%. ·       Workers earning $50,000 or above would have their premium share increased from 15% to 25%. The proposed increases would result in out-of-pocket increases of 33%-67%, depending on a worker’s annual income.  Council 93’s Department of Legislation, Political Action and Communications is working closely with a coalition of other public employee unions to defeat this measure.  However, in order to maximize our chances of success, WE NEED YOUR HELP. State Representative Marty Walsh is sponsoring an amendment to the budget that would eliminate the proposed increase in your contribution rates and maintain current health insurance premium contributions. 

As expected, the House FY09 budget was released yesterday afternoon with a proposed increase in employee health insurance contribution rates.  The House plan mirrors the plan proposed by Governor Patrick, which is as follows:  ·       Workers earning $35,000 to $50,000 would have their premium share increased from 15% to 20%. ·       Workers earning $50,000 or above would have their premium share increased from 15% to 25%. The proposed increases would result in out-of-pocket increases of 33%-67%, depending on a worker’s annual income.  Council 93’s Department of Legislation, Political Action and Communications is working closely with a coalition of other public employee unions to defeat this measure.  However, in order to maximize our chances of success, WE NEED YOUR HELP. State Representative Marty Walsh is sponsoring an amendment to the budget that would eliminate the proposed increase in your contribution rates and maintain current health insurance premium contributions. 

As many of you may already know, the Department of Youth Services is in the process of creating and rolling out a new policy on ROOM CONFINEMENT. Your Vice President (Bob Amaral), is currently a member of the Policy Steering Committee, representing the Local. As a Groupworker III, with several years of experience, I can assure you, Bob is doing the right thing in representing us all, and making sure our interests/concerns are heard at this level. On April 8, 2008 both VP Amaral and President Gilbert were invited to the training/roll out for managers held at Bunker Hill Community College in Charlestown. As stated earlier, the day was intended for Mangers, not Labor Relations/Union negotiations. Some uneducated(in Labor Relations) managers from DYS recently made comment to some members that the Union sat there silent and he did all the talking for staff...Pretty brave words BG, not very truthful though.. There is a process and a forum for the Union to speak their minds and concerns(and bargain if necessary) and a Management training is not appropriate.

January 23, 2008   Dear AFSCME Council 93 Member,       As you are aware, Governor Patrick is proposing an increase in state/higher education employee health insurance costs in his FY09 budget.      

As many of you may already know, DYS is in the begining stages of implementing a Pre-Employment test. This will include testing for physical agility, mental stability and drug testing. IT WILL BE MANDATORY FOR ALL NEW HIRES. As I understand it, DYS will be requesting the same program for current employees through the current contract negotiations. At this point, that is a discussion for another day.. The purpose of this notification is that DYS approached the Union seeking "permission" to seek volunteers from the current workforce to assist " Good Samaritans" in the creation of the testing (physical agility test), as they currently work with DOC and feel the program they use needs tweeking to be better suited for DYS...The Union requested, and was given, a written guarentee that none of the volunteer participants would face any sort of discipline in cases of failing the test.