Greetings from Mid-Michigan – The Great Lakes State!
Happy 4th of July!
We will be at the convention this month, which means we are one year away from the end of our contract.
I was told at a meeting that we have a fatality on an average of every 87 days. Doesn’t that seem horrible to you? It does to me. Safety should be on your mind when you wake up and throughout the day. One death on the job is too many, so what do we do to stop the on-the-job deaths? I wish I knew the answer, as I’m sure you wish you did as well. Remove a distraction from your day. I think it’s all about distractions; rushing through the job, worrying about a problem at home, trying to do more work than humanly possible, mad at your supervisor and thinking about whatever! Think about the job at hand and nothing else. This is a great job, but it’s not worth dying for. Too many people will be lost without you.
We had a significant amount of training at the Local in June. Work Preservation came in on June 10th & 11th to do a code class for Locals 85 & 36. Mike Morand put on an amazing class to help our members learn code and how to look up codes through code books. It was an eight hour class and well worth everyone’s time who attended.
Jordan Miller provided a Mentoring class on June 11th for all the Probationary Apprentices.
Randy Kape completed a Motor/Generator class.
RJ Shaughnessy completed three Fork Lift classes.
“The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future in life”. Plato
We had a Retiree Appreciation evening included in our June Union Meeting. I got the idea from Joe @ Local 44. I thought it was a great idea and had to include it (thank you Joe). Our Regional Director, Dale Coalmer attended the meeting and gave out the gifts we had for the retirees that attended. It’s not about the gifts we gave out, it’s about the gifts they gave us. Everything we take for granted they fought for, they went on strike and they lost wages, they were and are the members that deserve our respect and thanks! We have what they provided with the assistance of our International. This is what union pride & brotherhood is all about.
“It was the labor movement that helped secure so much of what we take for granted today. The 40-hour work week, the minimum wage, family leave, health insurance, Social Security, Medicare, retirement plans. The cornerstones of the middle-class security all bear the union label”.
Barack Obama
Dates to remember:
July 4, 2016 Independence Day – Paid day off due to your union contract!
July 10-16 Convention
July 28, 2016 JAC Meeting at 9:00 am
July 26, 2016 Union Meeting @ 6:00 pm, BBQ starts@ 5:00 pm
NEIEP:
School does not end when you become a Mechanic, it ends when you retire. We are planning on having two continuing education classes in the fall and two more in the spring. Stay involved in being the highest skilled and schooled in the country!
Golden Rail Club
Kalamazoo: 7.6.2016 First Wednesday at 10:00 am, Theo & Stacey’s
Grand Rapids: 7.19.2016 Third Tuesday at 9:00 am, New Beginnings, 1455 Michigan Street, NE, Grand Rapids
Lansing: 7.20.2016 Third Wednesday at 9:00 am, Zeus Restaurant, 6525 Pennsylvania, Lansing
In Unity There Is Strength,
Bill Kogelschatz
