General Items
For those of you that don't know our Business Agent, Bob Luciano, suffered a health emergency last week. I talked to Bob on Thursday and he sounded well but he is going to be in recovery for a while. I would like to ask that you keep Bob in your thoughts and prayers as he recovers.
This week as you have already read on the IBT Negotiations Website, David Bourne proposed to the company that they consider the Western Conference of Teamsters pension fund. The Company agreed to look at the fund as an option for the membership. This is a very good development in my opinion. For those of you that know very little about the WCT plan in specific or Taft-Hartley multi employer pension plans in general, I would like to share a couple of links for your edification. The first is obviously the link to the WCT fund's site and it can be found here. There is some really good information on the WCT website and I urge you to spend some time there. The second link I would like for you to see is from the National Labor College and it is a free overview of Taft-Hartley plans. The link to this free course can be found here. This course describes the laws governing these funds as well as the fiduciary responsibilities of the members of the pension committees. It also addresses who generally sits on the boards as well as their roles in the managing the funds. These funds are all governed by the ERISA act of 1974 and the WCT is no exception. While this proposal is still in the early stages of development, it provides us with an opportunity to learn a great deal about how a fund like this would benefit us. Please do your research and get your questions about this fund together so that you can make an informed decision when it does come time to vote on this issue.
The Teamsters now post the "Airline Division Week in Review" on the website. In addition to what is happening within the Union it also reports on the week's developments within the Labor and Airline sectors. If you do not receive this already you can sign up on the website to get it via e-mail on a weekly basis.
Dave Saucedo from Seattle sent me a link to the Teamsters Magazine Online. It provides for some good reading on what is happening within the Union.
Several members expressed disappointment that negotiations are not going as fast as they would like. I explained to them that the Railway Labor Act provides for some of the reason that this process is drawn out. In addition there are six Unions currently negotiating with the Company, as well as 22 Negotiations the Airline Division is currently engaged in. The Teamsters like to have an Attorney present at each session, as we had previously requested from the IAM, and scheduling around all of these items will take some more time. In my opinion it is better to proceed at a pace that ensures a fair agreement is reached and this is far more important than speeding through the process.
MM Items
For MM this week I met with Stuart and we discussed hearing the outstanding second steps this coming week. We will meet on Monday to schedule as many as we can. Hopefully the ones that do not get heard this coming week will be finished next week.
We had a surprise visit from David Bourne and Ed Gleason of the Teamsters Airline Division. Both men flew back on the same flight as I did after negotiations in Chicago. I asked them if they would like to take a few minutes and meet with the guys. They enthusiastically agreed even though it was already 7pm and they spent some time with the guys in the C Gate lunch room. There was a discussion of what happened at negotiations as well as what is currently happening on Capitol Hill.
GQ Items
I met with Greg Pinelli this week and he related what was happening in the shop. There will be some training on the new push tractor coming up soon. All members that are to receive the training have been notified. Some members have expressed disappointment that a majority of the training will be given to the Dayshift. I will discuss this further with Greg this coming week.
PV Items
There was a Labor/Management meeting this week on Wednesday. We agreed to make the last Wednesday of every month at 2:15pm the permanent schedule for these meetings. We also agreed that if either Steve or I could not attend the meetings they would take place anyway. I asked that if I was absent and there were second steps that needed to be heard that Tom Reid present them. I also asked that if Steve was absent that second steps be held until the next month's meeting. Both of these issues were agreed to. We then had a lively discussion on the outsourcing that has been occurring in the shop. The company informed us of their intention to outsource work that has customarily been outsourced but they would meet with us before sending out things that the shop could perform on a better cost and time basis than the vendors. We then heard the open second steps and Steve told me he would provide an answer soon.
That's all for this week,
Bob
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