President - Mary Meyer
Human resources comprise the greatest component of our economy; and organized labor must recognize its responsibility and constantly improve its capacity to be effective and to bring value. As President of the Minneapolis Professional Employees Association (MPEA) it is incumbent upon me and our Executive Board – providing collective leadership – to strengthen our knowledge and understanding of best practices and communications, and to implement these priorities across our membership. We need to be efficient and critical thinkers to address the ongoing challenges we face in our ever changing political economy.
As a thirty-year employee at the City of Minneapolis, I am one within a community of interest representing approximately 600 professional employees. With my employment at the City of Minneapolis I bring a broad background of experience across the City. I know and appreciate the value an organized workforce can bring to both the employer and the employee.
The presence of an informed collective workforce establishes a constraint within which better decisions are generated. We must always attempt to recognize partnerships and collaborative opportunities that can support common goals. Recognizing and sustaining responsible relationships most often includes achieving better outcomes. This awareness motivated me to run for, and become elected to the Executive Board of the MPEA, and after two terms, I was elected to President of the Board. I clearly recognize, more than ever, the greater value employees have being represented through a formal organization. I strongly believe that unions provide more than just bargaining power for employees. A highly informed union raises the bar for working conditions, and enhances basic rights and standards of best practices throughout the organization. Overall, organized labor provides a value to the employer that would not be present otherwise. I recognize, too, the many challenges we face in identifying opportunities to better serve our members.
We must continue, as successful stewards of our union, to achieve positive outcomes. To do this we must recognize the efforts of others who share our same goals and work together within our common interests. We must maintain respect and gratefulness for the good work performed by our past union leaders. Not only are we watchful of our membership's union dues – to be sure they are spent responsibly – we are keenly aware of the economic trials we have experienced locally, as a nation and globally. We need constant assurance that scarce economic resources are allocated wisely. The Executive Board must be proactive moving forward to understand the needs of our union – and to promote our best interests – at the same time we must recognize the challenges and needs of our employer. Within a broad perspective, we must be able to achieve outcomes that are in everyone’s best interest. These are outcomes that are achievable within the organizational focus we have established.
As an Executive Board for our professional association of approximately 600 employees we know how important it is to provide transparency through optimal levels of communications throughout our membership. We believe this engages our membership and strengthens our organization. We encourage everyone among the voting membership to consider leadership roles within our organization. For our particular organization, the greatest reward as employees is knowing that our cooperative effort is making a positive difference for the City, the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board, and the Minnesota Visiting Nurse Agency – and for our citizens.
Some of our challenges include increasing our full voting membership numbers, opening stronger lines of communication with the Executive Board, and supporting each other by promoting the union – so we all benefit. I believe one of our priorities is to protect member rights and make decisions with these core goals in mind. Members should be able to promote a positive view of the union and be encouraged to bring their ideas forward – to be more engaged. We continue to make improvements with communications among the Executive Board, and through to our membership, for example, by dispersing functional responsibilities across the Executive Board, enhancing the general membership meetings and improving accessibility (including through our website).
Contract negotiations stand as one of the greatest challenges we face – we must strive to improve the efficiency of this process. Also, our Executive Board continues to assist our union colleagues in knowing and enforcing employee contract rights – the Executive Board invites input from every MPEA member. We continue the work necessary to make the association a true membership organization, with greater communications and better opportunities for participation. As an Executive Board and as a membership, our shared goal is to achieve positive outcomes through ever-improved communications and a sustained passion for fairness and equitability for all members.
Importantly, we need to stay in touch with the issues that affect both the employees and management: we want to identify every opportunity to achieve mutual goals. Economic challenges will always lie ahead and it is important that we have fair and balanced processes in place to assure that management’s immediate needs do not outweigh its long-term fair and responsible treatment of employees. I encourage input from everyone in the MPEA, and look forward to gaining a greater insight through a shared vision. All participants must be aware of the importance of their active engagement with the broader political-economic environment, and at the same time strive to enhance communications throughout our membership.
Thank you for this opportunity.