USW Local 2-232
formerly PACE 7-232
Membership Meeting
Members are urged to Attend this Meeting.
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USW Local 2-232 formerly PACE 7-232
Members are urged to Attend this Meeting.
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By Scott GodshawThe membership meetings were held on August 22, 2002 at 12:30 and 3:30 p.m. respectively at the AMF Bowlero. REPORTS Vicky Black read the Trustee Report at both meetings. Joe Chambers, in his Financial Secretary-Treasurer’s Report, stated there were 1474 members at Briggs and 429 members at Strattec for a total of 1903 dues paying members in July. COMMUNICATIONSWe received a ‘Thank You" letter from Julian Jasper – AFL-CIO Community Services, for our contribution to the Health and Hygiene Drive. Jobs for Justice will hold their organizational kickoff meeting for the greater Milwaukee area Friday August 23rd at noon at St. Benedict Church on 9th & State. The School for Workers has announced the Milwaukee fall classes. There will be 2 evening workshops – "One on One: Talking Politics with Members" on Tuesday September 24th from 6 - 9 p.m. and "Spreading the Word: Getting Labor’s Message to the Media" on Wednesday October 2nd from 6 - 9 p.m. The cost is $11.08. Also, there will be two six-week classes "Union Leadership" (morning class) Weds. Oct. 16th – Nov. 20th from 9:30 a.m.– 12 noon and "Steward Training" (evening class) Thurs. Oct. 17th- Nov. 21st from 6 - 8:30 p.m. The cost is $36.38. The Local will reimburse you if you successfully complete the course. Membership approved the following Executive Board recommendations:
Reports Of OfficersPresident, Greg Gorecki reported on the upcoming Gubernatorial Primary. Our Local endorsed Tom Barrett. The Executive Board has appointed Diane Kronenberg for Vice-President and Kathy Duchac as Chief Steward. Nominations for Vice-President will be held at the September Membership meeting and if needed, an election will be held on September 27th. If there are more than two candidates and one doesn’t receive more than 50% of the votes, a runoff election will be held on October 4th. The idea of a session to provide information on financial planning, as mentioned at the June meeting and in the recent Reporter, has received very little response. At Briggs, there were rumors of a Die Cast sale. In a conversation with Larry Bartling, he spoke of prospective partnership. Die Cast will be relocated to another company. It will stay in Milwaukee however, to utilize the skilled workforce. If this would happen, it would take one year to move out. After the year the operations on the south end of the building will move to the die cast area. There is no deal yet. If this happens, the Company would raise the two-story building. There is no EVA for Briggs – We needed to reach $99 million in NOPAT to receive a check and the NOPAT was about $75 million for fiscal 2002. We will be getting the new insurance rates for 2003 next month. Utilization has increased so far this year and could cause higher rates. Open enrollment will be October 14th – 17th and on November 6th – 13th. We received (2) WARN notices: one in M-8 where they will remove 13 jobs in October and one in M7P where they will eliminate 9 jobs on October 18th. We received a letter from our attorney regarding retiring from layoff. This has not affected anyone yet. The Bargaining Committee has requested a meeting regarding this and other issues. At Strattec, job elimination has caused quite havoc. three policy grievances have been written. Contract is clear regarding recall by seniority. These will be heard September 4th at third stage. We received two answers from last third stage regarding discharges. Both grievances were denied. The member was incarcerated and the arbitrator did not view this as a good or sufficient reason for the leave. Jesse Edwards reported on S &A benefits, which went up to $305.00 August 1st. M8X will eliminate 13 jobs – 2 Supervisors, 5 Set-up and 6 Machine operators. A new safety team was started in Die Cast. There have been problems with vacation days at the Menomonee Falls Plant. "I encourage all to attend LaborFest. The Union is here to stay, United we stand. Divided we fall." Barb Schuller reported on problems with management in die cast. In Departments 191 and 192, they merged seniority list for Saturday overtime, which is against the contract. Upper management says work through the problems with facilitators and Briggs upper management. That was done; an agreement was reached on a grievance, and then Dellemann undoes the agreement and denies the grievance anyway. On September 5th the glove manufacturer will tour Die Cast. You all are encouraged to tell him what’s wrong with the gloves. The Company time study has agreed that the beavertail job runs too fast. Quilling said it’s been run like that, so continue to run it. There was a safety problem in 780. Someone was hit by a mule. Karl Schneider reported on the 13 people laid off from Strattec. Also reported were the Cobra notices. The three policy grievances have been written because there was an attack on seniority. The old Company was very lax. Company notified the Bargaining Committee of people violating the Tobacco Policy. You should ask for training within your job, if Company refuses, let your steward know right away. Tom Bishanell gave the quarterly Time Study and Job Evaluation Report for Briggs and Strattec, respectively. Ross Winklbauer reminded stewards of the upcoming steward training and encouraged them to attend. Joe Chambers reported on the upcoming rummage sale sponsored by our Community Services Committee. The next meeting will be held on September 19, 2002 at the AMF Bowlero. |
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