Vice President Update

1/9/12

Greetings Brothers and Sisters,

      The Holidays are here which means its closeout time for the year and starting another. Along with all the negative issues that have bombarded us in 2011, there have been some positive achievements that have been accomplished as well. Instead of recapping the negatives, let’s reflect on the brighter side.

      We again have had an outstanding year with our safety performance. More of our members are going home the same way they reported to work with less injuries. That’s a huge accomplishment that needs to be attributed to all of us focusing on our everyday tasks as well as looking out for one another and the presence of our UAW Safety Committee. It won’t be long now until the beloved 50K Ton Press will be on-line ready to manufacture some of the biggest forgings in the world. Our Delivery performance has been unbelievable by getting our shipments to our customers on time in record time. Our productivity has been again, unprecedented. Our Women’s, Civil & Human Rights, Veteran’s, EAP & Recreation Committees have had an outstanding year by gathering donations, dedicating time, and supporting our communities as well as responding to our members both active and laid off.

      Our Bargaining Committee has been working like a well oiled machine. We have been challenged by the company to bargain over changes they intended to implement, as well as our annual meetings discussing performance pay, vacation liabilities, contracting out and the grievance procedure. Although we rarely get everything we ask for, we are able to change some of the mind set of management when it comes to our working conditions. The Bargaining Committee will soon start prepping for contract negotiations. We are only about 10 months away from expiration.

      We are still waiting for our arbitration decisions to arrive from 2 termination cases for no-calls that were heard back on July 19, as well as the Breaks and Clean-up times being eliminated that were heard on October 27. We were well prepared and our UAW International Representative did an outstanding job advocating our side. In a nut shell, the company believes it is their “management right” to change our breaks and clean-up times, and the Union argued that these were long standing “binding past practices” that cannot be changed unless by mutual agreement at contract negotiations. We’ll see!

      If you would like to hear more up to date information that occurs almost daily, remember to come to our monthly union meetings to get the latest information directly. I would like to wish you all a very Happy New Year! Until next time…keep the faith!

In solidarity,

Don Mohn

Vice President-UAW Local 1050

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