Hello Brothers and Sisters. As many other brothers and sisters have, I also wish to extend my sincere congratulations to all the newly-electeds at Local 640. It was a true pleasure seeing everyone step up to serve in this election and everyone who ran should be truly thanked for your interest in participating in our local union. As you know, we will be conducting a runoff election for the office of Business Manager/Financial Secretary. This may be the most important vote you have an opportunity to cast in your union career and I would like those of you who participate in electronic media to hear the “other side” of what has been presented by my worthy opponent. As a 19-year member of this union, I am serving because I care about moving our local union forward and making sure we still have a union in another 20 years, and that requires us to grow; and that starts with having jobs. Jobs are what fund our pension and health benefits; jobs are what create opportunities to organize new members and grow our market share. Since we began to recover in 2010, there is actual measurable success in what we have done to make sure our members have jobs. In fact, our market share has grown to the highest point it’s been in the last 10 years, and it is trending up. And that is a major part of what it is going to take to regain the power and respect that the union enjoyed 35 years ago. My opponent has made his platform about change. Change can be good, but it can also be very bad if it comes at the wrong time. I have not heard any real changes my opponent says he will make that will keep our members working, but he has made several promises that I feel need to be addressed here. 1) Getting rid of the “black list”-- For starters, real blacklisting is illegal and we are always looking to find proof of it occurring here in Local 640. What he more likely is referring to is the contractors’ “ineligible for rehire list”. Unfortunately, his promise to address this is meaningless, as that is a long established legal right of the contractors and a part of the mandated language by our International Office. In fact, in at least the past three international conventions a resolution has been passed that the International President work with National NECA to remove this language and he has been unable to do so. I don’t anticipate that it will change anytime soon. For our part, several years ago I was able to establish an MOU with the contractors in which they acknowledge that we can actually address a member’s ineligible status with the contractors; something that we never could do before. We have successfully gotten many of our members back to work using this method in the past few years, most recently on the Cascade project. 2) Noncompliance with apprentice ratios-- Our office has always addressed this issue when it has been brought to our attention. Sometimes, however, we are not notified until after a job is completed that this occurred. When we have been notified, not only have we addressed it but the Apprentice Director and trustees have also cooperated to correct it. If there is ever a problem in the field, all you have to do is let us know. We have never left a contractual issue in the field unaddressed if we have been made aware of it. 3) A more economical means of dispatch for our brothers and sisters in outlying areas— The main issue with this is that it can’t just apply to the outlying areas; it has to apply to everyone. For the past year and a half we have been contacting other locals around the country who have some type of remote dispatch looking for the right solution for our jurisdiction. The biggest challenge is making sure that it can be implemented in a way that is transparent and fair to everyone. We are currently very close to having the correct solution, but it will take some time and funding to properly implement it. 4) Enrichment of the apprentice field experience—I agree with this in concept, but it actually falls more under the jurisdiction of the Apprenticeship Director and contractors, and the Business Manager alone has limited individual ability to directly change this. Many of the factors affecting this are customer and general contractor-driven. 5) Enhanced Dental Coverage-- This is another issue that the Business Manager has limited individual input on. As a trustee, he is required to maximize the benefits with the money available in the fund. And if elected, my opponent will not be able to do any more or try any harder to recover our dental and health benefits than we have. 6) CW/CE transparency-- This is kind of a disingenuous issue. We have always been willing to educate our members who really are truly interested in how the CW/CE program functions since its inception. There are no secrets. I have had personal discussions with many members on how it functions, and any member is, and has always been, welcome to come into the office to discuss or examine the program. I do believe it would be helpful to have a general membership roundtable to help the members who want to know and understand the function of the program better. Our union is a giant, slow-moving vehicle. The progress we have made hasn’t come overnight. The respect that we have won and the positions on various boards and committees I serve on to represent our members and enhance our position in the community and our jurisdiction won’t necessarily transfer to a new person just because he has the Business Manager title. Since I took office in 2007, a good year for work in Local 640, our market share has gone from 10% to 13% and our wage package has grown from $31.50 per hour to $34.94 per hour through one of the worst financial meltdowns our nation has ever experienced. In this year’s negotiation, I convinced the contractors to finally leave the dismantling of our pension off the table, which they did. Also, the health and welfare trustees continue to keep the improvement of our dental and health benefits as soon as possible a top priority. Our respect among the business and political community is at its highest level in years and our contractors are competitively winning jobs in the open market. As I’ve said before, we have a long way to go, but we are heading the right direction. Now is not the time to take a giant step into the unknown. I don’t question my opponent’s good intentions, but his admitted lack of experience in all facets of this job is going to require a long and bumpy learning curve for him, and that does not inspire confidence for moving forward, or that our growing general fund and assets of around $7 million will be properly managed. Much of the business I deal with on a day-to-day basis involves working with other entities such as NECA, the International Office, customers, general contractors, politicians, consultants, other labor unions, the AFL-CIO; and a very specific knowledge of the IBEW Constitution, our bylaws, our Inside Agreement, as well as our unit agreements, and state and federal labor laws. Everything we do has to fit within this labyrinth of laws, and I have spent literally thousands of hours building these relationships and becoming educated on these laws to help implement a system that is conducive to creating jobs and growing our union on behalf of our membership…and it is working. Don’t sit this one out. Please consider all the facts and vote accordingly. I have heard that many of you want me to go out on jobs more. I know I have spent a lot of time working on the business of our membership, sometimes at the cost of making the personal contacts in the field. I can tell you that if that is your desire, I will try to make it around to more jobs and have more personal discussions with you on a regular basis. As always, I am willing to discuss any concerns or questions you may have regarding our union. However, by law I am prohibited from discussing the election directly or electioneering at the business office or on company time, so please limit any questions to issues and not politics. As my opponent stated, I too will not exchange barbs on social media. Thank you for this opportunity to present these thoughts and for the opportunity to serve our membership for the past 7+ years. PS. Sorry this ran so long
Posted on: Tue, 01 Jul 2014 02:51:51 +0000
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