Just My thought Process Only 6/8/10

Meg Whitman? Give me a break. When I said things will get worse before they get better~I honestly didn't think we would b headin down this road. This is going to be one long ass road for us in corrections. I pray for us on this one.

Tomorrows meeting will be starting at 1600 hours instead of 1700 hours. We are hoping this will get folks out early for their family's during the summer months. The board will meet at 1530 hours. Chris Vandee is our newest board member and Bollie is official as our VP, even though he has been doing the VP duties for a very long time now.

The rumour mill that I had come in and signed my retirement paperwork is bullshit. You just gotta love the CCC rumour mills out there. If I was retired, I sure in the hell wouldn't be spending my own time coming in to meetings and dealing with issues now would I?

Our medical jobs finally got re~aligned so staff won't be redirected every weekend. It only took CDCr 6 months to do this?

This practice has been going on statewide for a couple years now, but seems to have hit our house~implementing before notifying anybody on what the hell is going on. As everybody probably is aware we have lost beds on the Sierra Yard, which in turn cut positions. After this was implemented, they sat down with us (Us requesting a sit down) and pretty much was told how things will be done. We did give suggestions, but those were set aside on the roadway. I guess it doesn't matter to the administration the extra workloads that were created because of this. Or the lack of any kind of Code response that was effected.

We lost the first watch Arnold unit Sergeant position. Again, this was implemented before we were told. This implementation will effect more workload on the officers again. Again we gave our input, not sure if anything will change.

And when the 5% reduction plan comes through (and it will), it will probably be the same tactics. It will be implemented by the state and then they will sit down with us after the damage is done. As I have said a hundred times~it will get much worse before it gets better.

We will be loosing more Level one beds coming July~again, impact on positions, workloads and code response. The list will go on and on. Cutting staff positions and putting more workload on the cops on the ground.

Without a contract~the state has pretty much free reigns on what they want to do to us. And it seems there isn't a damn thing we can do about it. Ofcourse we will file our puny grievances, they will be denied and then will sit down at the Labor office for a good year or longer. ei; the retired annuitant grievance that was filed January of 2009 is still sitting down in Sacramento. I will be long gone before they ever get to it and the RA's will be off to greener pastures when that thing is ever addressed. But this is reality. And yes it sucks. So in a brief summery, the state can do whatever the hell they want, we just sit there sitting on our hands hoping they will talk to us and just maybe take into consideration any input we may have. It's a long shot.

My personal thoughts on this, our administration is finally falling into the states rule~don't talk to your union. Implement it anyways. We will deal with them later. This was infact the exact verbiage used during a table with the state side on the Tower 4 talks.

So with that in mind, which is so pathetic and having our own Union sitting idle in Sacramento, there is not much left for us. People say we used to have one of the strongest unions around, now look at us. This is embarrassing. Hands down to the peeps down south that camped out for a whole week to make their statement and made it loud. It is too bad that everybody across the state is not in the same mind set. Instead, it is much easier to sit in their corner offices and complain about everything and NOT do anything. People~we are the union. Not the Executive Counsel down in HQ'S. Not your local board. But all of you. If we all stood strong like our brothers & sisters did down in KVSP, then we would be united. And just maybe the state would have stopped and listened or maybe our elected Executive Board would have listened. But people all have their own agenda's and create the conflict within our troops. As long as we are going down this beaten path~we will never be strong. I call it the "convict behavior". As long as all the convicts in our system are fighting eachother~we are safe. God forbid if they ever decided to get along and band together, then we would be in greater danger then anybody could possibly imagine. Same goes for us, as long as we are fighting eachother, the state, the administration and everybody in between has nothing to worry about. We are our own worst enemy in this.

I know I posted that we were supposed to have some of the Executive Board come up during this coming meeting, but to be honest, I'm not holding my breath. I have left messages with them and have not gotten a confirmation on it.

We all have a long road ahead of us~we need to get our shit together and grab the bull by the balls and handle business. If we don't, then we failed. If you have no problem the way things are going, then great, you don't have to do nothing, just roll with whatever comes your way. The choice is yours.

Stay Safe and Sane

Lori Olah

CCC