PRESIDENT’S REPORT
By President, Greg Golembiewski
Dear Members of Local 730,
Welcome back from your holiday break. I hope everyone had a safe and relaxing vacation. I’ve attended a couple of very important meetings in my short time as President and wish to extend this information on to you.
Community Services Meeting at Region 1D:
On June 18th, the Community Service Committee and I met with Robert Haight, President of West Michigan United Way and Charlie Bush, United Way liaison. The meeting took place at Region 1D and was attended by Don Oetman, Region 1D Director and some of his staff. Topics of discussion included this year’s theme, “Live United” for the United Way Drive. Robert and Charlie talked about how United Way is concentrating a lot of their efforts on education, especially kindergarten through 6th grades. They feel it is important to start with early child development. United Way sends volunteers to read for one hour to youngsters. This helps the children develop school readiness. United Way provides strategic support for after school care. Other services provided include Bronze Work Keys test which aids with employment opportunities, they work with the IRS to provide free tax service to low income individuals, provide funding for emergency services, health services, behavioral counseling, utility assistance plans, and 2nd Harvest Gleaners. There are more than 1,300 separate United Way Chapters.
The message we are bringing back to Local 730 members is, “please do whatever you can do at Local 730 to help out with this year’s drive, whether it is being a Loaned Executive Officer, by increasing your donation, or simply volunteering.
UAW Leadership Meeting with American Axle, Delphi, and GM:
On June 22-25, 2008, Steve Rop, Larry Palmer and I attended this year’s Leadership Conference in Mt. Pleasant, MI. The theme for this year’s conference was Health and Safety. The opening speaker was Bob King, UAW Vice President. He talked about the challenges we face in the global economy and also our rights and responsibilities as trade union activists. Bob told us that all janitorial services at Ford, Chrysler and GM will be organized by the UAW. In closing, he discussed in depth about political action which equals power, and what we must do during this election year to elect a candidate that will give us the best chance to maintain our jobs and wages while we move deeper into a brutal global economy.
Mike Bieber, Assistant Region 1D Director spoke on Article 39 in the Constitution, which outlines our responsibilities as trade union activists.
Steve Shepard from the UAW Health & Safety department talked about the overriding priority of safety. Steve discussed two fatalities; first being Jessie Brown who worked at Federal Mogul and was caught inside of a press. The other was a location in Ohio where a crane operator did not see his hooker and set a coil down on top of him. Both
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of these tragedies were preventable. Steve covered ergonomic training along with HASMET. Currently the International has a 40 hour Joint Management Work Team that will come to our facility at no cost. This is something that we will be looking into for our location.
Connie Learman, Priority Health guest speaker, discussed the importance of knowing where you get your prescriptions refilled. Make sure the facility is licensed and state certified. Be careful about purchasing drugs on the internet from another country, because they are not always the same.
Terry Thurman, UAW Vice President spoke on the importance of organizing; the upcoming election, and our future.
I attended two night classes while I was there. The first class was Local Union Financial Budgeting & Administration. This gave me a more clear and precise demonstration of financial dos and don’ts, when to figure a budget, and also the importance of net worth every month. The bottom line is referred to as the Statement of Financial condition. The second class was on Worker’s Compensation. It was very informative. They said that every injury that happens at work must be reported at once. Even a little cut could eventually cost you a finger from staph infection to possibly your life. The first 10 days you are at the mercy of the company doctor. The company can refuse to pay worker’s compensation if you don’t see their doctor or if you miss doctor’s appointments. After 10 days your doctor is the boss; however you still have to see their doctor. Worker’s Comp will take of you until the injury is better or you are bought out on a severance package that is jointly agreed upon.
The conference wrapped up with local union reports. Each local gives a brief synopsis of their local status. The majority of the IPS plant’s members earn $13-$18 per hour, with about one-half of them with a non-matching 401K plan for their retirement. Most of them have don’t have COLA raises and nowhere near the paid holidays that we have. I came away from this conference feeling extremely fortunate for everything that what we have.
I would like to congratulate those that won in the most recent election, Trustees – Andra Jackson and Kirk Jackson, and 1st Shift Representative – Mike Jacobs. Congratulations and welcome to the Executive Board.
On a final, yet sad note, I would like to wish the very best to the following Region 1D UAW Representatives that have recently announced they are retiring. They have been around for a long time working behind the scenes helping Local 730 in many ways. Best of luck in retirement to Mike Bieber, Ken Bieber, Dan Baldwin, and Bill Webster.
We will be posting for a full time Benefit Representative position in the near future. Information regarding this posting will be on the bulletin boards.