Midwest Area Executive Report

MIDWEST AREA EXECUTIVE REPORT

March 2008

Remember back in November when we all were looking forward to that first snow? Sorry I brought that up, but I’m sure spring will eventually show up.  Along with warm weather and melting snow, spring will bring one of the most important NASCOE events, the Spring Negotiation Session with Management. This is when the NASCOE Executive Board and Negotiation Consultants go to Washington, DC and take the issues raised by membership to the various departments within FSA.

Members were asked to submit items for negotiation back in December. In January, NASCOE held a pre-negotiation session to review the items and determine how they should be presented to management.  There were over 75 items reviewed.  Some items that were submitted by more than one person or addressed very similar issues, these were consolidated into one item.  Everyone who submitted an item received a response from NASCOE telling them how the item was going to be addressed at this time. Items were either designated for negotiation or consultation with management, referred to a committee if the suggestion required some statutory changes, referred to the Programs committee if it was a program issue, or tabled for the time being.

Two members of the negotiation team were assigned each topic to research and write the item up for submission. These will be the people who will also present the item in Washington although everyone will be able to contribute.  Each item will be written up using the standard negotiation form which identifies the issue, NASCOE’s position on the issue, and a proposed solution or what NASCOE would like to see management do about the issue. 

Once the items have been written up they will be consolidated by the NASCOE Secretary and reviewed before they are sent on to management. The items are sent to management couple of weeks before the actual negotiation session so they can review the issues and hopefully be prepared with a response.  The negotiation session will be held in Washington, DC the last week of April. We will spend one day reviewing the items before two days of meetings with the different departments. During this session we hope to get positive results and make management aware of our concerns but as you know, this doesn’t always happen.

When the session is over, the responses to each item are reviewed by the negotiation group to verify management’s response and then the Secretary will forward the final Negotiation items with responses to management for their review before they are published for the membership.  Hopefully, this will avoid misunderstandings on any of the issues.  Items that are not addressed by management during this session often form the basis for the question and answer session during the National Convention.

This negotiation process is very important to NASCOE and is an important way to deliver major concerns to management and discuss them one on one with the people who can do something about it.  Charlene Neukomm, the MWA Consultant, and I are looking forward to delivering your concerns to management and hopefully getting positive responses.

Take care,

Jon Williams

MWA Executive