MAPE

Member Spotlight

The MAPE Membership Committee is launching “Member Spotlight” in an attempt to recognize and acknowledge our members and teams of members who give up their breaks and lunch hours to do the recruiting work, which benefits all of us. We hope to recognize and thank our dedicated members for the work they do year-round, not just at Delegate Assembly time. If you know a MAPE member who is dedicated to growing our union by signing up fellow members, please let us know. We want to hear about our brothers and sisters who are taking the time to meet and talk face-to-face with new employees and existing fair shares, and helping to build their MAPE local by increasing our numbers. We are looking for members who take the initiative -- those who empower others. Please include specifics! Where does she or he work? What have you observed this member doing to build the union, specifically? Numbers are helpful if you have them. We need stories! Send them to jsmith@mape.org

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Member Spotlight

Jane Livingood of MAPE Local 202 has been the local’s membership secretary for the past two years and has found that every member counts and makes a difference to the big picture of overall union solidarity and unity. Local 202, which covers the Department of Human Services (DHS) Child Support Enforcement (CSED) and Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) divisions was previously named Local 902 before the metro realignment last winter and has a total of 155 people. Jane is proud to report that 84 percent of Local 202 are active members. Jane has worked since the local’s formation in 2002 to recruit members and makes it a priority to contact and visit with each new employee in their first few days of employment. Jane believes that every local should have a membership secretary (it is an optional local officer position under the MAPE Bylaws) so there is a point of contact specifically dedicated to membership recruitment and retention. Jane has seen first-hand how a local’s membership percentage can drop if no one is signing up new members.

Jane currently helps manage and maintain the Child Support Enforcement Division’s Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) systems. She is a part of the web maintenance team that is responsible for getting information about child support on both the DHS public website and Minnesota Child Support Online. Jane and co-worker Sandra Nowacki are currently involved with the DHS VoIP project for CSED, which includes designing and programming both IVR and Contact Center VoIP systems.

Jane was brought up in a union household in Elizabeth, a small town in Northwestern Minnesota. Her father was a meat cutter and active union member for twenty-five years.

Jane resides in Faribault with husband Kelly, a schoolteacher and union steward. They have two sons, Marcus and James. Jane is active in her church, Crop Walk for Hunger, Habitat for Humanity and Hospice. She enjoys family, friends, reading, traveling, yoga, gardening and a good garage sale.

Jane Livingood