Region 8
Women's Program

PEF Region 8 Women's Program Meeting

Minutes

Monday, July 16, 2009

Attendees: Pat J, Evarist Nicholas, Lynette Shanahan, Maddie Shannon-Roberts, Maria Brown, Debi Chowdhury, Martha Fennell, Tom Comanzo, George Mata

Maddie welcomed new member: Lynette Shanahan, DOL and thanked all for being in attendance.

Maddie reported that she attended the Service Employee International Union Convention that was held in Puerto Rico. She was a first time delegate and learned a lot. She reported a great appreciation of PEF’s convention process. The platform of the convention was Justice for all. Our own Ken Brynien was elected to the executive board of SEIU.

Old Business:

Honoring Women of PEF will take place ½ hour before the Region 8 delegate’s dinner, Wednesday, September 3, via a Champagne & Chocolate reception. A letter has been drafted seeking nominees of Region 8 Women. Deadline for submitting: July 31. Winners will be announced at the reception. WP wishes to sell Women’s Program tee-shirts at delegate dinner. The winners of the Women of Merit Award will be formally recognized in November. Patricia Smith, Executive Board member, recently deceased, will be one of the honoree’s to be honored by the Women’s program. Pat was actively involved in the Statewide Women Program.

For the convention WP booth, we will sell tee-shirts, prepare handouts, seek support from our brothers and sisters via the petitioning process, concerning time off for prostate screening vs time off for breast cancer screening. K

ate Powers is in charge of ordering the tee-shirts. 100 tee-shirts will be ordered. The color for the t-shirt will be yellow and blue. Kate mentioned that the good quality shirts, union made, is $6.90. We will get to see the finish tshirt design via email for approval. Debi Chowdhury suggested getting the shirts and then selling them as low as we can and people will buy them. Evarist Nicholas suggested that we should sell the shirts for $10.00 and the committee agreed. George Mata mentioned that if we get advertiser it will lower the price. The committee agreed to sell the tshirts at $10.00 each.

It was stated, if there is a budget for the Women’s Program and we should ask our treasurer for the allocation of funds. Maddie said that we do not have a treasurer but we do have a budget of $4,000.00. Maddie doesn’t want the women program to run out of money, therefore we are looking to do fundraisers. We are looking at expenditures for tshirts, convention give aways, awards, women history month (march) and mailing. Tom Comanzo will sign off on expenditures related to Women’s Program as appropriate.

Lynette Shanahan shared with the committee a disparity in time off for Prostrate Screening vs. breast cancer screening. She reported that men are allowed to take 8 hours for screenings. This includes 4 hours for breast screening & 4 hours for prostate screening. Whereas women are allowed only 4 hours off for breast cancer screening. Lynette reported that in September of 2002 legislation allowed time off for breast cancer screening after a big push by breast cancer lobbyist. In 2005, prostate cancer lobbyist pushed and got legislation for time off for prostate screening.

2007 Cervical Cancer legislation was passed into law. Unknown where this stands right now, for state workers. Further information is needed.