Tuesday, May 6, 2008

ODOT Election Results

ODOT has elected the following people to serve Local 730 for the next two years:

Officers:
President - Cameron McGinnis
Vice-President - Kermit Meling
Treasurer - Betty Huskey
Secretary - Mike Scott
Statewide Chief Steward - Bart Cotta

Bargaining Delegates:
1. Cameron McGinnis (automatic)
2. Bart Cotta (automatic)
3. Lee Erickson
4. Joe Lamont
5. Kermit Meling
6. Mike Scott
7. Mike Johnson

Alternate Bargaining Delegates:
1. Lorrie Schaefer
2. Betty Huskey
3. 26 way tie

General Council Delegates:
1. Cameron McGinnis (automatic)
2. Kermit Meling
3. Betty Huskey
4. Mike Scott
5. Bart Cotta
6. Mike Johnson
7. Felix Martinez
8. Lia Martinez
9. Donna McKeever
10. kirk Spindler
11. Shirley Wait
12. Rex Parks
13. Lorrie Schaefer
14. Matt Munz

Alternate General Council Delegates:
1. Kurt Kinder
2. 20+ way tie

Congratulations to all!

Monday, May 5, 2008

NASHTU Trip Recounted

Last week, John Drago, Troy Barnard and myself went to Washington DC representing SEIU 503 and ODOT 730 at the annual NASHTU conference. NASHTU stands for National Association of State Highway Transportation Unions. Glen Thommen from AEE was also in attendance. The four of us spent three days learning about the dire straights the Transportation Infrastructure is currently experiencing. The fund is almost insolvent due to wasteful spending and construction fiascos throughout the country. The federal gas tax is 18.4 cents and 24.4 cents for diesel tax and has been since 1993. At that time, the gas and diesel tax had a buying power of 80%. Today, the buying power has been reduced to less than 20%. No one is advocating increasing the gas tax, especially during the current economic crisis. However, taking a gas tax holiday will not benefit anyone other than the oil companies. The expected savings will be replace by higher prices by the oil companies and then the taxes come back after labor day. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that a reduction or moritorium on gas taxes means less money to go to states to complete federally maintained roads throughout the country. Yet there are some politicians who actually think this is a good idea.
We lobbied our state senators and representatives to support two House Recommendations to the Transportation Authorization package scheduled to expire in 2009. The first HR, 2485, is to ensure that public safety is protected, transportation funds are not wasted and projects are delivered in a timely manner, would require public employees to perform the inspection on all state and local transportation projects. When the construction inspection function is outsourced to a private company, there is no longer a representative of the public on the job site. This has led to problems that threaten public safety, increase costs and delay projects.
The second HR, 3621, will ensure taxpayers receive safe, high-quality transportation services at the best possible price by requiring state and local transportation agencies to prepare a cost-benefit analysis and assess the past performance histories of contractors, prior to outsourcing transportation services to private contractors.
Private and Public Partnerships was another issue. Two examples were brought up and discussed a few times. Both Illinois and Indiana have sold off part of their infrastructure to foreign countries to get money now. However, the deals are for 75 and 99 years and will be toll roads. The purchasers can raise the tolls to whatever they want for the period of time they own the roads. Thereby making a significant profit on the roads and it is unsure or unknown as to whether they will maintain the roads.
The other big issue brought up and discussed at length was Design Build. For those who don't know, Design-build lumps design, construction and inspection of a highway project into a single contract that is awarded not through competitive bidding, but through a process that allows unspecified factors to be considered "significantly more important than cost." Design-build also allows the private contractor to inspect and sign off on his or her own work. I don't know about you, but this send up a huge red flag and I don't mean the US flag. To say the least, state inspectors are no where involved in these projects.
For myself, I was thrilled to go and represent our union and agency employees on these important issues facing ODOT now and in the future. Thanks goes to our Local 730 leadership for selecting us to attend and to SEIU 503 help in covering the costs for this trip.

Mike Johnson