By Paul Fong
This has been an eventful year for the Retiree Chapter. We hired an attorney to look at the bylaws of the RBOA group that handles the retiree health benefits of those hired before 1982. The attorney even provided some pro bono hours for his service. We have submitted the attorney’s findings to the RBOA Board. Our representatives on RBOA should be presenting a recommendation to the SJECCD Board of Trustees in the December 20 meeting. We will find out if our work paid off. That is only one of many events that the retiree chapter officers have been involved with.
In the midterm election that just occurred in November, Ron Levesque and I participated in the election of candidates supported by the South Bay Labor Council. Ron Levesque walked precincts for 3 weekends and I did at least 9 phone banks at 3 hours per clip. Our efforts proved to be valuable in ensuring that the majority of candidates supported by the SBLC won their elections. We even campaigned for our Board of Trustees candidates Tony Alexander and Buu Thai. Tony won with over 65% of the vote and Buu lost by just under 2% of the vote. We greatly appreciate working with the faculty members of the AFT 6157.
We are also celebrating our 15th anniversary. At Aqui in Willow Glen on December 1, the Aft 6157 presented us a plaque to honor our 15 years of service to our retirees.
Finally, we just voted in a new secretary to our board, Kathy Jasper. Welcome to our Board, Kathy! And thanks to Dan McElroy for his service as secretary the last two years.