WPEC Convention News
Submitted by Greg Georg
On April 27th, held its 21st Annual Convention at the UW Pyle Center.
The business of the convention this year consisted of reports from WPEC officers and committees on their activities of the past year, a discussion of issues facing WPEC, nine proposed constitutional amendments, the election of delegates to the AFT-Wisconsin convention in October 2013, and nine proposed resolutions.
Seven of the nine proposed amendments were passed and are now a part of the WPEC Constitution.The amendments passed covered: General clean-up and corrections of spelling and typos in the Constitution and the Bylaws; Corrected an inconsistency in the Constitution related to elections for Board positions; Changes to the definition of membership to deal with statutory changes to the historic WPEC bargaining unit; Allowed for Retirees and other Associate Members to participate on WPEC Committees; Created a position on the WPEC Executive Council an Associate Member; Created an “Associate Members Committee;”
Of the nine resolutions that were proposed, eight either were passed as submitted or were passed after being amended by the members at the Convention.The resolutions that were passed by the convention were:
Support University of Wisconsin Workers; Opposing Privatization of Public Services; Protect Social Security and Medicare, Support Healthcare for All; Support Paid Sick Leave; Demand a Fair Wage Increase and Oppose Merit and Performance Pay; Resolution in Support of Madison May Day Rally 2013; Move to Mail Ballots for Elections; State of Wisconsin Designing and Enacting a Pension System for Private Sector Workers; Support Solidarity Singalong.
The only election to take place at this year’s WPEC convention was for delegates to the AFT-Wisconsin convention in Appleton on October 24 –26, 2013.Nineteen members were elected to represent WPEC at the AFT-W convention.Those elected were:
Barbara Smith, Mark Kuechler, Jane Steffes, Mike Genthe, Ward Kroencke, Sue Alseth, Wayne Mertens, John Fries, Duane Konkel, Greg Georg, Sue Handrich-Herr, Diane Mandell, Suzanne Murphy, Kevin Steffens, Gary Mertig, Dave Rasmussen, Bill Franks, Thomas Smith, Rick Fairchild
An updated WPEC Constitution and the resolutions from the convention will be available soon for viewing on the WPEC web site.