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IAM W15 |
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W15 News  District Lodge News11/27/2006Organizing, Is It Important? Organizing is one of the most important activities you can do in your Local Lodge. In-Plant Organizing: By maintaining a high membership level in your lodge, you can show the Company, with whom you negotiate, that you are strong and your demands should e taken seriously. Strength also helps maintain a good level of wages and benefits, and discourages concession bargaining. Employer Organizing: Organizing other plants owned by your employer strengthens your lodge negotiations, as well as wages and benefits. When your employer is totally organized, the employer cannot threaten to move work to its non-union plants in order to dilute your contractual wages and benefits. Community Organizing: When you work to organize other employers in your community, you take away the Company’s argument on being competitive. When the community is organized, all workers receive Union wages and benefits. Because of that, the Company is competing for your employment, and cannot make threats that they pay the best wages in the community, and anyone would work in your place. The answer is yes, organizing is important for you, your family, you co-workers, and your community. When asked, you should volunteer to help an organizing campaign in your lodge, company, and community. Only you, with the strength of Union Members, can determine your future wages and benefits. All Local Lodges are required to have Active Organizing Committees. If your lodge does not have an active organizing committee, you should be asking why? If your lodge has an active organizing, please volunteer some time to assist in the organizing efforts. The more members get involved, the better the results. District Lodge Staff Meeting The staff of District Lodge W2 met on September 28, 2006, in Memphis, Tennessee. As a result of the meeting, several goals were identified, and will be followed-up on. The Goals identified by the staff were: 1. To reach a minimum level of five thousand (5000) members, with plans for continued growth. 2. To reach and maintain 10% sponsoring membership in MNPL. 3. Make sue every Local Lodge has, and maintains, Active Organizing Committees. 4. Make sure every Local Lodge has, and maintains, Active Legislative Committees. 5. Each Local Lodge is to continually work on it’s membership, with a goal of reaching and maintaining a level of 85% or higher. As a result of the goals identified, your Business Representative(s) will be meeting with you to determine how your lodge will help meet these goals. In the mean time, it is essential that you begin the preparation necessary to make the goals a reality. Please contact your Business Representative, or the District Lodge office, if you have any questions. Negotiations Continue With Georgia-Pacific Although the labor agreements expired on June 1, 2006, contract negotiations continue with Georgia-Pacific. The Lodges involved in the negotiations are W349 in Gloster, MS, W401 in Phillips, WI, and W475 in Crossett, AR. The Company is taking a hard line with the lodges involved, by wanting them to abandon the Nelson Trust Health & Welfare Plan, and replace it with the Company’s health and welfare plan. Although the Company’s plan drastically reduces the benefit levels, they will not pay the premium. In fact they demand that, if the Union agrees to the Company plan, the membership would pay 20% of the premium. Overall, the Company’s plan would cost all of our members more money when they go to the doctor with serious health problems, on top of paying a monthly premium. The Company’s plan more than doubles the deductibles currently paid in the Nelson Trust, and radically increases the stop loss levels. The Local Lodge involved in these negotiations will be voting on the Company’s proposal during the week of November 6, 2006. If the proposal is rejected, a strike vote will be taken during the week of November 13, 2006. The Union’s committee is recommending rejection of the Company’s Last, Best, and Final Proposal. Negotiations at LL W298 Results in Settlement Contract negotiations between Woodworkers District Lodge W2, and its Local Lodge W298 in North Little Rock, AR, and Koppers Industries, Inc, took place during the month of October. Negotiations resulted in, for the first time; employer paid life insurance, and increases in AD&D coverage. Wage increases are $.50 the 1st year, $.48 the 2nd year, and $.46 the 3rd year. The agreement also included several language changes that benefit the membership. Are Your Members Educated? Have you educated the membership on their rights and responsibilities as employees? You may be asking yourself; what are you talking about? Many of you have been to training as stewards and/or officers. A lot of the training has taught you techniques on representing your membership, and running your local lodge, but have you relayed any of that training to the membership? The reasons for these questions are a result of some resent arbitration cases that I have been involved in. In those cases, our members were determined to “take the law in their own hands” and challenge the Company on work assignments. Both received discipline, one in the way of a suspension, and the other was discharged. After arbitration, the suspension stood and the discharge was overturned, but the arbitrator allowed a suspension of six (6) months. The reason for the rulings was because these members failed to follow the instructions they were given. We need to remind our members, on a continuous basis, that when they are given instructions, even though it may not be a normal part of their job, they must OBEY NOW, GRIEVE LATER!!!! China Trade The United States continues to be flooded with a wave of imports from China. Clothes, toys, refrigerators, air conditioners – the list goes on and on. U.S. corporations such as Wal-Mart are jumping at the opportunity to import products from a country where workers are forced to work ungodly hours for a mere fraction of what American workers earn. Meanwhile, the Chinese government continues to drastically undervalue their currency, making American products more expensive in China and Chinese products cheaper here. The result is the continued loss of manufacturing jobs and a record trade deficit that hit $161.9 billion last year. The IAM is leading the charge in the fight to bring these injustices to light and we want your help. Empty threats by the leadership of this country will not stop the bleeding. It is you, the American worker, who has to stand up and demand change. Make your voice heard….Pick A Fight. http://www.goiam.org/ Buy Union Week Enables Union Families On Union Goods/Services To Focus Their Holiday Shopping For the third year in a row, America’s union families will focus their holiday purchases on union-made goods and union-provided services to observe “Buy Union Week”—November 24th through December 3rd–during America’s busiest shopping season. The AFL-CIO Convention last year designated the 10-days following Thanksgiving as “Buy Union Week” as a means of harnessing the considerable buying power of union wages. Delegates to that convention, unanimously adopted a resolution setting that time aside and urging affiliates to use “all available means” to promote the purchase of union-made goods and services. In 2006 consumers will spend upwards of $60 billion for holiday gifts—much of that money is earmarked for apparel, computer and related equipment, consumer electronics and books according to government sources and commercial polling firms. There are union-made, competitively priced sources for all of the items on the typical shoppers wish list. “Yes, it gets harder every day to seek out union products and services. It’s a moving target with some goods that were produced here last month bearing a “Made in China” label this month,” conceded UL&STD President Charles Mercer. However, he added, “it does make a difference when union families tell merchants they want to see a union label before they buy.” In 2006, as in previous years, the Department is circulating certificates for shoppers to leave with merchants saying: “I shop for union goods because I care about America.” Copies of the certificates can be downloaded from the Union Label website (unionlabel.org) or from State Federations or Central Labor Councils. Useful Web Sites International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers: www.goiam.org Woodworkers District Lodge W2: www.iamwwd2.org AFL-CIO: www.aflcio.org Union Plus: www.unionplus.org |
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Last modified: 12/13/2006 Copyright 1996-2001, The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers |
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