MSCA Dateline: July 2010

National Service and Maintenance Agreement Renewed 2010 — 2015

The new National Service and Maintenance Agreement will go into effect on August 1, 2010 and run through July 31, 2015. No changes were made to the current Agreement and all terms and provisions will remain the same. All current national signers will receive a copy of the new Agreement later this month but are automatically bound to all the terms of the new Agreement. Current signers are not required to sign the new Agreement but may do so by sending a written request to the United Association. All Schedule A’s will also be updated to reflect the new effective dates of the Agreement. (After August 1, copies of all updated Schedule As can be downloaded from www.msca.org/labor. Contact Barbara Dolim with any questions.

New Webinar Urges You to Walk in Customer's Shoes, Tuesday, July 27

MSCA is offering a one-hour webinar, Tuesday, July 27, at 1 p.m. EDT (10 a.m. PDT) to help you better understand what your customers and clients deal with every day. There is no better way to be able to respond to the needs of building owners and facility managers than walking a mile in their shoes. This webinar is free to members. It was developed expressly for MSCA and hosted by AirAdvice CEO Jim Crowder and AirAdvice VP of Market Development Tim Kensok

Get inside the mind of your customers with this one-hour webinar focused on the world of building owners, including:

Types of building ownership
How real estate investors make (or do not make) money
Ownership structures
What all building owners care about most
Lease types and how they influence decision making
Events that drive action
Strategies for success – smart prioritizing and targeting
Getting to yes – removing barriers to sales

Early-Bird Cutoff Date Extended! Register Now for MSCA 2010 and Save!

FULL CONFERENCE REGISTRATION INFORMATION

Join us October 17 — 20, 2010 at the
Hyatt Regency Scottsdale Resort and Spa at Gainey Ranch,Scottsdale, AZ, for our annual educational conference. We've extended the early-bird cutoff date by a week, so any procrastinators out there have until July 22 to register for MSCA 2010 at a special rate. The member registration fee for MSCA 2010 is only $900 if you register by then. After that date, the registration fee is $975. If you are attending the MSCA educational conference for the FIRST TIME you can save an additional $75! The fee for first-time attendees is only $825 (early bird prior to July 22) or $900 (regular).Don't even think of missing MSCA 2010: three days of exceptional speakers and educational programs focusing on topics guaranteed to FLIP Your Thinking!!

Click here to download an 18-page brochure about MSCA 2010: FLIP Your Thinking!!

Thank you to those members who participated in our Cost for One Hour of Service Survey! The data is being collated and will be reported to you at our annual educational conference, MSCA 2010. To those who missed our requests for data, you can still participate by downloading this version that you can fax back to us.

Sign Up Now for Dispatcher's Training in Boston September 13 — 14

Registration is brisk for our next Dispatcher Professional Development Program so sign up just as soon as you can. The two-day program will be held at the Hyatt Harborside at Boston’s Logan, Boston, MA. Custom designed by an experienced team of MSCA members, this course provides dispatchers with all the skills they need to dramatically improve job performance. The program goes beyond traditional technical training to help the dispatcher learn how to: lead technicians, rather than letting technicians lead them; become the service manager’s partner; prioritize customer emergencies; evaluate technician abilities, and manage their own careers in dispatching. After attending this program, dispatchers will be able to improve their job performance by: identifying the service life cycle and the critical contact points impacting service success; recognizing the importance of the dispatcher’s job and its impact on the organization’s profitability; communicating effectively with technicians and customers; and using good decision-making approaches for optimum priority setting and effective resource allocation. This class is taught by popular instructor Nancy Bandy The next offering is November 8 - 9, 2010, in Phoenix, AZ. Check out the outline below for an in-depth look at the program schedule.

Our STARs Are Shining! Watch for a special edition of the newsletter, MSCA STAR Galaxy, to see how our MSCA STARs are using their STAR status to grow their business and take advantage of new opportunities.

Check the Status of Your UA STAR Technicians With Ease and Efficiency!

Do you know the certification status of your UA STAR technicians? Is it time for them to recertify, or has their certification lapsed? These are important questions that you need to be able to answer. Plus, if you are an MSCA-STAR qualified contractor, 25 percent of your service workforce must continue to maintain UA STAR certification or you can risk losing your MSCA STAR qualification. NITC, the organization that administers the UA STAR program, has just announced some changes which will provide contractors a number of quick and easy ways to verify the UA STAR status of their employees. You can now readily check to see if your technicians have passed a UA STAR exam, check which exams they have passed and determine when they are required to recertify. For complete details and instructions on how you can readily check your technicians’ UA STAR status, click here.