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Thank you, Inland Empire Section, for your vote of confidence
in me to be your representative in our professional organization,
Professional Engineers in California Government. I look forward
to working with the new PECG Corporate Officers and PECG staff
in reminding them of our members’ needs and concerns.
As you know PECG has been successful in previous
years in achieving pay parity with our colleges in other public
agencies. This resulted in not only our members
to increase their pay but also the non-represented Seniors
and Managers. PECG has been fighting to protect and build
upon member rights, benefits and work place safety.
In this economy old challenges have become more
prominent and new challenges have arisen. Our
jobs are under attack by this administration in the form of
outsourcing with out competitive bidding, our pensions are
under attack by politicians who are lying to the public…that
our retirement is “plush”, and our pay is under attack by
unlawful furloughs and violations to our MOU. PECG is challenging
these attacks head on. PECG needs every member to be involved.
I encourage you to continue to rapidly contact your representatives
on urgent matters that come up threatening our jobs and benefits.
Every person under the Unit 9 umbrella should become
a member. In contract negotiations it is difficult
for DPA to think that PECG truly represents the majority of
unit 9 employees if our membership numbers are weak. This
fact can be seen by PECG’s Meet & Confer team in its attempt
to negotiate with DPA for benefits and salary increases for
non represented seniors, has been quite difficult, not just
because of the economic impact but because senior membership
is very low. It’s quite possible that if senior membership
was higher the pay increase would have already occurred. Also
when senior pay goes up then DPA is more obligated to increase
managers pay as well.
Fee payers are NOT members, but for
a few dollars more you can become one. Please consider joining,
at least until we have a new contract.
It is important for our members be involved in
activities that PECG corporate helps to coordinate.
As an organization of state employees PECG is always struggling
to convey the creditability and need for public service. By
participating in our outreach activities such as being involved
in local science and engineering fairs and mentoring programs
helps us to fight off the negative stigma that the media and
politicians have set against public service employees.
My goals for this year, Oct 2009 - Oct 2010,
is to increase our senior & managerial membership and
to increase the Inland Empires roll in outreach activities
whether they are political or community oriented.
Your participation in our section’s outreach activities and
meeting attendance under the direction of your elected officers,
then President Scott Hongkham and Director Elaheh Hadipour,
has brought a great deal of recognition to this section. Of
all the sections (17) PECG awarded the Inland Empire Section
the prestigious “Section of the Year Award”, and this section
now has two of its own in PECG’s Corporate Office, Shabbir
Ahmed-President and Joya Gilster-Nova Secretary. Tim Sharp
is an alternate co-chair of PECG-Pac and co-chair of the Members
Benefits Committee. Elaheh Hadipour co-chair of the Members
Benefits Committee and me co-chair on the Outreach Committee.
Congratulations PECG, INLAND EMPIRE Section. May
we have another successful year!
Aaron
Brady
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