3
President Reports to the
OSEA 1948 General Council
By L. R. W HITE, President
A t the close of the 1947 General
Council meeting, it was' very obvious
that the chapter delegates had charged
the new lyglected board of directors
with the responsibility of, carrying out
a.jprogram of securing ( In e q u ita b le
salaries and wages for all State em
ployees, (parity pay with private indus
try? political subdivisions of the State,
the employees of other Western States
and the Federal Government) ; (2) Pre
senting to all chapters^ definite pro
gram to increase the membership of the
association. While there Were many oth
er problems discussed and resolutions
adopted, your board realized the im
portance of these two subjegg and ap
proved a policy of directing most all
I activities of the executive staff and
board members accordingly. I believe
you will agree that the key to our suc
cess as an association is a strong mem
bership. We should be in a position to
freely say that a majority of full-time
State employees are members of our as
sociation.
In accordance with Article V of the
By-Laws of the Association I present
the following report and summary of
the accomplishments for the past year.
In so doing I wish to commend the oth
er members of our board of directors,
chapter officers and all members of the
Association for the fine cooperation
given and the spirit with which all have
participated in making 1948 a success
ful year. May I also especially mention
our employed staff who gave so gener
ously of their time after hours,- particu
larly our Executive Secretary, Forrest
V. Stewart, who accompanied me on
many holidays and week-end meetings
with chapters j and otherwise ^assisted in
souring new membersWor the associa
tion.
MEMBERSHIP
Although the following?; figures do
I not represent our total membership, the
records show that the paid-up member
ship as of December 31, 1947 was 1914,
and as,o£.September 30, 1948, 3100. For
the. nine-month period January 1 to
September 30, 1948, hew members to-
taled 1510. Th is in c lu ded 189 chartS*
and 12 veteran members. During the
period eight new chaptBfs were formed
and charters-Tapproved. Although all
chapters have worked hard, the out
standing record for new members was;
made by Corvallis” No. 29 with Port
land
C. N o . 17 a close second.
^Corvallis increased its membership dur
ing this period from 75 to 273— almost
400% — and No. 17, from 52 to 192,
about the same percentage*. While most
all chapters have increased their mem
bership, our goal should be at feast 6,000
paid-up members at all times.
SALARIES A N D W A G ES
The Association was y^ry fortunate in
securing favorable comment in the Press
all during the time the Board of Direc
tors and Executive Staff were negotiat
ing with State officials fo rI a salary
adjustment after the "Cost of Living
Increase” resolution was presented to
jthe State Board of Control on Decem
ber 5, 1947. I am convinced that the
five-months’ delay in obtaining the
$20.00 a month increase will in the end
be beneficial due to the favorable publi
city that we received. Our Governor,
Budget Director and Civil Service Com
mission stated publicly at^ the time that
State employees weiyrentitled to at feast
$30.00 per month across the board, and
I believe we would have received that
amount had funds been available.
During the past six months the Civil
Service Commission has made another
survey of salaries and wages, and it will