December Union Meeting and Holiday Dinner.
Greetings Brothers and Sisters,
Welcome to the summary of our December Member’s Meeting.
Our Day Shift Meeting began promptly at 16:00.
We started with The Pledge of Allegiance, leading us into our standard protocol with an E-Board Roll Call.
Following the roll call, Brother James informed us that we had a few guests and we also had verification of quorum.
Sister Patricia read us the past minutes of our last meeting. If you wish to read the minutes, you will have to read them from the official records book kept by Patricia.
Next, Brother Brett gave the report of the Secretary-Treasurer.
Next, we moved to Reports from the E-Board
To start with Brother Gerry, “So I wanna thank all of you guys, every one of you. It's been a crazy year and it's been a busy year. We had contract negotiations. A contract, I personally, I'm pretty happy with. The 401K, I mean, I've seen mine has been jumping and that's good. It's been up and down but it's much better than what it was in the past. We all knew that pensions were not gonna happen. That's a thing of the past but Lockheed did step it up and our negotiating committee pushed them for it. So we did pretty well on that along with a lot of other great stuff.”
Next, "We see Lockheed is growing tremendously. We have all seen a lot of new faces recently. There are growing pains that we as a union know we're having on the shop floor. A lot of issues we've talked about with supervision and we gotta keep our pulse on it. Don't be afraid if any supervisor or anyone in management tries to give you shit, give it right back. home well you come and you file a grievance and we'll take care of it. respectfully. respectfully give it back from you."
“We've still got tee shirts. If you haven't got your shirts or if you want to purchase shirts, they're still available.”
“We've been experiencing a lot of deaths as of late. It's been a crazy year, so just be careful out there. The holidays are here so be aware you're surrounding. “
Lastly, “The Veteran's Committee. We've been talking about it and I've got the ball rolling. I've got some names and early next year, we're gonna start getting that going. We're gonna start having meetings and I've talked about the national director from the IAM for the Veterans Committee. I've been trying to reach out and I finally got a hold of him last month. He said he'll come out to visit when we're ready. So what I'll do is, I'll reach out to the guys that I have on the list. I only have about five people as of now, so if you're interested send me your name and your number. We'll get that going. I know we've talked about budget and we'll get that approved, but let's get a meeting first. I'll reach out soon within the next couple of weeks and then we'll set something up."
Sister Patricia wished everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Brother David did the same as Sister Patricia wishing everyone a Happy Holidays.
Now, we moved to reports from the Business Representatives
Brother Richard started with a BIG Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year all the other holidays too. “The last few weeks we've been meeting with the company. The senior boards and I were meeting with the company for grievances. I am happy to say that we've knocked down approximately 32 to 33 grievances. That's it's great we were up at 70 grievances. We're now down around 40 and we’re going to keep going. We're going to we're going to keep that positively flowing into this next year. We are unfortunately going to be losing the labor relations manager at Lockheed. She has chosen to move on to other career ventures and we wish her the best. However, that does mean we don't know who is going to be taking over. That's something to keep in mind. We do not know if who's coming in to fill those shoes is going to be a real hard ass or someone who is willing to work with us. That is why the senior board and I are trying to work out as many grievances and knock out as many as possible.”
“The other thing that we are working on is the overtime situation. With all these paid issues that we've been having, we're working on the memorandum of agreement to vote on. I'm gonna be putting out communications for us to vote on it very quickly. I want this to be effective as soon as possible so we can fix our overtime issues so that you guys can be paid correctly. Keep an eye out for that. We'll be having communications coming out for a memorandum of agreement. We'll hold a Vote here at the hall. We'll do an all-day situation, so all the shifts can come vote throughout the day. As soon as that's ready I'll be putting communications out on that.”
“The next thing is steward training is canceled for December. We're not gonna hold it for December, but we'll start it back up in January.”
Lastly, “As always, I want to thank Brett and all the stewards that are out there. You guys keep me busy with these grievances but let's keep it going. Let's keep enforcing that contract and keep representing our members to the fullest. Thank you!”
Next, we had Sister Joelle Depue. For those who don't know Sister Joelle, she is an Area Director for the district. She oversees the staff in Palmdale, Rancho Cucamonga, and Huntington Beach. She started by saying, “What you guys may or may not know is there have been some recent staff changes within the district.” Our other Business Representative, Edwin Marroquin Jr. has returned to his shop. That means, in the interim, Sister Joelle will be servicing as the business representative for all of the bargaining units that we have at Edwards. The position has been backfilled with Business Representative Jeff Bear. (Apologies if I spent that wrong) He will eventually be taking over as the Business Representative for Edwards.
As for an update about Edwards, Sister Joelle said, “I have a couple of grievances for Pratt & Whitney that need to be addressed that I'm working on. I need to just touch base with the steward and follow up on it.”
Next, she said, “Literally just wrapped up negotiations for, what used to be known as the Albers Group, now known as Albers Aerospace. Hoping to ratify an agreement on that contract next week.”
Lastly, she said, “I had a couple of other minor issues going on at Edwards that I'm working on, as well as, a recent steward appointment for the building people. I'll get that communication to your communicator to get that information updated. Lastly, I don't know what negotiations that have coming up as I’m not fully versed just yet, but anyway that's what I have for Edwards.”
Next, the Budget Committee presented the Budget for 2024 for our local. As we presented the budget, we took questions before we would vote on the budget in our New Business portion later in the meeting.
To finish, we moved on to Good and Welfare.
Good and Welfare at the Day Shift’s Meeting raised an issue with the 3/12 shift at Lockheed regarding how Holiday Pay is being given. Richard was under the assumption that it had been fixed when it was brought up back when the shifts first started. He informed the membership that we would be filing a grievance to get this fix. This is a great example of why you need to bring it to our attention if you think something is wrong.
The swing shift meeting had no questions for good and welfare.
Lastly…
We had our business.
We had a moment of silence for those sick or deceased.
With that, we adjourned the Day Shift’s Meeting at 17:05 and began our Holiday Meal for the Membership
Remember, stand strong and stand together,
In Solidarity,
See you at our next meeting.
E-Board & Communicator
