USW Local 2-232

formerly PACE 7-232

Representing employees at Briggs & Stratton Corp. and Strattec Security Corp. in Milwaukee, WI

Season's Greetings

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Membership Meeting

Sunday January 18, 2009

Frank Monreal's El Matador

9155 W. Bluemound Rd. Milwaukee

9:30a.m.

Nomination and Election will take place for Recording Secretary to fill the vacancy of Karen Clark, who is retiring January 1, 2009

Nominations will take place for the following positions:

Trustee at Large, Strattec Grievance Rep, Briggs Grievance Rep, 2 Briggs Bargaining Committee Members

Members are urged to Attend this Meeting.

President’s Report

Production forecast remains low for Briggs;
P.I.C. process under scrutiny at Strattec

By Greg Gorecki

Briggs

    Production is slow in the Milwaukee Engine Division. Recently, the Company has approached the Union about shutting down certain departments for a week or two weeks at a time on the north end of the Burleigh Plant.
    The Union’s response was no. That is something that would violate our Contract under the work-spreading language.
    In the 1997 Contract, the Company did successfully negotiate work-spreading language, but that only applies in certain situations, such as a problem with a vendor or a supplier being on strike. When that happens, the Company can use the work-spreading language, but not in the case of orders slowing down.
    At the time of this writing, the Company and Union were in the process of setting up a meeting to discuss this issue.
    What we can expect in the early part of 2001 is a reduction in the run rates for the twin engine, Model 9’s and Model 19’s.
T    he Company reports that everything is still on schedule for the new micro engine to start up in June of 2001.
Die Cast also has purchased some new C.N.C. machines and will be introducing a new department in the near future. They will probably be looking to staff these positions soon.
    As soon as the Union is informed of the new department number and positions available, we will try to get that information on the floor. Also, the Bargaining Committee has been meeting with the Die Cast Division representatives to try and resolve some issues that have been lingering in that department for some time now.
At the Service Division in Menomonee Falls, the Company is in the process of transforming their old warehouse system to a modern paperless system through the use of radio frequency. The Bargaining Committee and some of our members and stewards from Menomonee Falls had an opportunity to tour the Harley -Davidson warehouse in Franklin where they made the same transition. It was an opportunity to talk to rank and file people there and question them about the pitfalls and benefits of the new system. I think we all left Harley with a better understanding of the new system and some ideas on what lies ahead for our members in Department 470.
    West Allis is slowly starting to phase out of their facility. As more and more jobs are moved to the Burleigh Plant, Department 552 is just a shell of what it once was. The majority of jobs from Department 552 will be moving to the Southern plants and that is scheduled to be done by June 2001. The machines that are moving to the Burleigh Plant should be completed before that June 2001 time frame.
    United Way completed a successful campaign in October. While the total numbers might have been down slightly from last year, the percentage of giving per employee did increase.
    I think for those of you who contribute to the United Way you should truly be proud of yourself. The community we live in could not enjoy the quality of life we have without you. For all the people who do not give, we hope that next year you will consider being a part of Labor’s drive to make our community a better place to live.
    I also want to offer a special thanks to our solicitors who went out and talked to all of our members. I realize that can be a tough job. I just want you to know that your work and efforts are appreciated.

Strattec

    We are in the process of trying to settle a number of old time study grievances. For the first time in a long time we have received a positive response from the Company about resolving this backlog of time studies.
Tom Bishanell, our analyst, was at Strattec investigating the proposed solutions. Hopefully, at the next membership meeting, we will have some positive news to report. The grievances date back to the early 90’s and are almost all short run jobs.
    We received a favorable ruling from an arbitrator on a discharge case. The Union was able to settle another transfer violation grievance that was headed for arbitration and we are scheduled to arbitrate another case for outside vendors doing bargaining unit work on December 8th.
P.I.C. (Partners in Change)
    The P.I.C. process has been under some tight scrutiny by the Union participants in the P.I.C. Core Committee. For awhile, it looked like maybe this group could not move ahead. After long discussion and some suggestions that the Company seemed responsive to, it appears that the union is willing to give this another try.
    The long time Union P.I.C. members sighted some of the successes of the process, such as daily communications, video monitors to pass along information and emergency call handling procedure, as positive reasons to give the workers on the floor a voice in how their working environment can be improved. While these committees cannot work on contractual issues, they have an impact on their day to day working lives.

Holiday Season