449 er News and Views from the Hall

Transcription

1 449 er News and Views from the Hall September/October 2016 Inside This Issue 2016 Dues Increase 2016 List of Important Dates Local Events Visit us on the Local s web site: and sign up as a member to receive s and texts from the Local. Visit us on our Facebook page and click - like

2 September/October er Business Manager s Message Brothers and Sisters, I has been a very fast pace year. It seems like yesterday we were waiting for spring to be here and now fall is here, and one of the most beautiful times of year is getting ready to leave us. This year we have had several contracts that have come to term such as Lost River, Fall River, and all the Inside agreements. At this time, Lost River has settled and Fall River has started with one whole day of negotiations behind us and very close to get a final settlement. By the time that this gets published we will have had a first meeting with NECA. I called for a specially called meeting for the Membership to come together and give the committee some proposals for the negotiations. I want to thank all of those that participated in that process by showing up to the meeting and those that sent in requests. It is time that our efforts to keep our industry stable be recognized. I hope that everyone will participate by attending the meetings in October and November to make sure that you are aware of what is on the table. In the past newsletter and in the meeting I had stated that I was going to hire a new Organizer for the Eastern side. I decided to hold off on hiring one until spring or early summer of next year. Ned has agreed to help out with the organizing efforts until I get one hired. Between Ned and myself we will still be doing all the dispatch and book signing. I have hired a receptionist to help take some of the load off the front office. I started out with 7 applicants and 6 interviewed with one that we felt would fit what was needed for the short term and the long term goals that we have. Kimi Wheeler started the 29 th of August. Please welcome Kimi. She is here to help our Local with all of its needs. The work picture is still holding pretty strong on both sides and looks to be pretty good through most of winter. I am sure we will have a little slowdown but with everything that we have for next year on and off site, we are looking to be very busy then as well. The line work that the Local has seen this year has been some of the best I have ever seen in our Local. It is exciting to see that we are picking up work on the Idaho Power property. Wheeler has picked up a nice line job at the site and will be working off the Intermountain Line agreement for all that work. There are several other line packages that are coming up out at the INL. If you are interested in getting involved with the RENEW group, which is designed to get our young members that are between the ages of 18 and 35 engaged in what our union is all about. Please get a hold of the Hall and we will direct you to either Kyle Jones, Spencer Musselman, or Todd Jensen. The Auxiliary group that we have had in our Local for the last five or six years has been a huge help to our members in more ways than one. The participation level has dropped and we need to get it stepped up again. Please read through their article and get involved. The more our members and their families know about our great Union the stronger we are. Myself and Clay will be going to the IBEW convention this month and will be bring home all the information needed to show our members where the IBEW is headed for the next five years. This is a huge honor that I can t even begin to describe. The ability to be involved with how we are going to function for the years to come is going to be amazing and I thank all of you. Kyle Jones is going to be attending the convention as well as a RENEW Delegate and will also report back to the Local what is happening with the young workers in the IBEW. Please attend the October meeting and listen to what is coming. Until the next Union Meeting please remember the more we stand together the stronger we are. Fraternally yours, Rodney James Business Manager United We Stand Divided We Beg

3 Brother and Sisters, 449 Organizer I would like to start this newsletter out by saying thank you to all the members that showed up to the picnic. We had a great turn out and gave away a few good prizes. I hope all the people that were there had a chance to meet some new union friends that work in the Twin Falls area. I have been working both sides of the Local and trying to fill calls on both sides. If you know any 2 nd, 3rd, or 4 th year Cubs or Journeyman, please let me know. I would like to get in front of as many folks with this experience as possible. I will need as much help as I can get from the members on the Eastern side, as I don t have as many contacts on this side. I would like to also say congrats to all the new Direct TV workers that are at IBEW now. I am looking forward to working with as well as getting to know them. If you don t have Direct TV, lets support our new Brothers and Sisters. If we do it right, we can refer a friend and have inexpensive cable for a while. I am looking forward to seeing you at the next meetings. If you have any questions please give me a call. Thanks for everything you do! Local 449 Organizer, Joe Maloney

4 Greetings from IBEW Local 449 Auxiliary! Local 449 Auxiliary Fall is just around the corner, which means it s getting to be THAT time of year again. You know THAT time when you need to remember where you have stored all the decorations for the upcoming holidays. And THAT time to make a plan as to when, where, and how we will pull it all together this year. (For most of the guys, it s THAT time to prepare for the big hunt.) I am relatively new to the Auxiliary; my husband has only been a union member for about six or seven years. While paying for his dues one day at the hall, I found myself asking if there was any kind of support group for spouses and families who were new and found themselves faced with their spouse working away from home. Rodney told me about the Auxiliary, since that day I have made a great effort to drive from Arco to Blackfoot to attend as many meetings that I possibly could. The Auxiliary has provided me with encouragement, support, and understanding which I greatly needed especially at that time. It can be quite burdensome to have your spouse gone for great lengths of time on an out of state job. I can t tell you how wonderful it was for me to be able to speak with others who have managed it for many years. I m telling you that just knowing they had survived the time away from their spouse gave me hope that I too could survive and become a very proud wife of a 449 Union Electrician. There really is a great amount of strength in numbers! One of the things I ve noticed recently while attending these meetings, is a great concern the Auxiliary has regarding the Children s Christmas Party. Is there enough interest by the members of IBEW Local 449 to plan this event with their families? Of course we hope that there is. We need to hear from those who are interested so we can develop a plan. It s my understanding that attendance to this event is marginal. This event has been held at the JATC. It is a family event with lots of games and fun things for the children to do. One of the things you may not know, is that this event has been planned and executed by the same four to five folks. Low attendance at our meetings has changed the frequency of our meetings. We now meet on even months (Oct & Dec in 2016) and will meet on odd months in 2017 (January, March, May, July, September, and November). We hope that the reduction of meetings will allow others to join us, because we all have very busy lives. Meeting location has been at Tommy Vaughn s in Blackfoot, we tried rotating from Pocatello, to Blackfoot, to Idaho Falls and back to Pocatello to accommodate folks but that didn t work. So a more central location it will be. Our next meeting will be October 18 th.

5 We discuss many things: activities the Auxiliary wants to participate in or plan, getting information out to our Members regarding Health Insurance, Union Hall and JATC sponsored events (assistance by the Auxiliary where ever possible). We also give out Baby Bundles to new babies within our Local, Get Well cards sent out to folks fallen ill or hurt and raise funds to assist with the Wireman Wellness Fund. We listen, support and encourage each other. Each of us take pride in being a part of this wonderful Sisterhood and work together to support the Brotherhood. I am reminded of something I hear my husband proudly say with regard to the Union, It s awesome to see the power we have by combining our forces, we have the ability to swoop in on a job and shorten the amount of time it would normally take to complete the allotted work. We would love to see the Auxiliary grow. The Brotherhood has taught us many working together both lightens and expedites the load. The more folks involved at our meetings means more choices, more ideas, and a stronger Auxiliary. Not to mention, the more the merrier and all the more fun can be had by all. We have available to purchase some pretty awesome buttons for just $2. You can get yours by contacting Laurie Watters at wattlaurie@cableone.net. Please get at least one and wear it to support our Auxiliary. Thank You and hope to see you at the next meeting! Melinda Shodin Wells Local 449 Auxiliary (continued)

6 Hello Brothers and Sisters, I wanted to take this time to thank everyone for the opportunity to go to the Rocky Mountain Labor School. It was very educational, and I really enjoyed the history and the law classes that I took. I received a flash drive at the school that has all the materials from all the classes and I brought it to the Hall if anyone's interested in looking at the class materials. I made it to the Chukar's night. It was a great time and I really enjoyed the ball game. It also was great to see everybody there. We had a really good turnout. I wanted to thank Kyle Jones and Spencer Musselman for putting on the first Renew poker night at the Hall and all their hard work to get sponsors to donate items for door prizes. We had a really good turnout and we had a lot of fun that night. We have Negotiations coming up. I have appointed a negotiation committee that consists of Phil Colman, Clay Hirning, Maurice Sowell, Bruce McGhee, Dan Green and Brandon Stimpson. I would like to thank all of these Brothers for stepping up to help the Local. If you see these Brothers at work or at the Union meeting, I hope you take the time to thank them. On the 23rd of August we had a specially called Negotiations meeting, where we had a lot of good proposals put forward by the membership. I believe we're in a really good place going into negotiations. I'd like to take the time to remind everyone about the hog roast at Anderson Ranch Dam on Labor Day weekend. I hope to see you there. Craig McDonald Local 449 President

7 Assistant Business Manager/Dispatcher Hello Brothers and Sisters: Negotiations with our Lost River Co-op went really well and we are in the process of finalizing the agreement. Negotiations for Fall River and our Inside Agreement are just getting started. We had twenty-six members come to the Specially Called Negotiations Meeting and discussed all of items brought up to the Membership. Thanks to all of the Members who agreed to sit on the Negotiating Committees as we need our Membership to be involved. We are still seeing a lot of new Members signing up both on the Inside and Outside, as calls have continued to come in for both. We have processed 106 new Members so far this year and we are still busy trying to get all of the calls filled. There are a lot of Members now using the recurring credit card payment for monthly dues. If you are, please make an effort to notify the Hall if you get a new card or have to cancel a card so we can get it updated in a timely manner. We try to notify each person if a payment doesn t go through but cannot always get ahold of everyone. We currently have 82 on Book 1 with 7 of those out on short calls. Fraternally, Ned Jones

8 DIRECTV is now represented by the IBEW. Lets show them our support By using DIRECTV service. Call the Hall to get the phone numbers. There are offices in Idaho Falls and Twin Falls. They service all of Local 449.

9 Fall River

10 8450 South 5th Ave. P.O. Box 4887 Pocatello, ID PHONE FAX First off, I would like to introduce myself. For those of you who did not know that John Baker had stepped down as Training Director of the JATC. My name is James Smith. I am the New Training Director, a 2 nd generation 449 Wireman, and graduated top of my class in You all probably knew me as the Eastern Counties Organizer or worked with me on a job at some point. I would like to take a second to thank John for the dedication and excellent job he has done for the last seven years for the JATC and the Local. I have some very big shoes to fill and I was very excited to take the role of Training Director that started June With that being said, we have some great privileges coming to the JATC this fall. The Western States Electrical Competition will be held here in 449 for the first time September 30 th and October 1 st. This is a great honor to be hosting this event that I competed in 2010 and had a great time meeting all of the top Apprentices and Training Directors from the Western States JATC. It would be awesome to have huge Membership involvement in this event. If you would be interested in grading, watching or helping with the set up, please let me know. Every little bit helps. Currently we have 73 Apprentices in the program, 18 on the Western side and 55 on the Eastern Side. With one out of work on each side at the time of writing this on August 26 th. They will be going back to work very shortly. We have 11 new first years starting class September 19 th -23 rd. The application dead line is Aug. 31 st, with the Aptitude Test being around the end of September followed up by interviews in October. We also have the Fall Continuing Education Class s posted on the Halls website. Our next available class will a VDV class held September 10 th at the JATC starting at 8 a.m. If you are interested in taking any class s, attending the Western States Competition or have any questions, please call. James Smith, Training Director & Brother

11 The winner of the Wireman Wellness Fund 4-Wheeler. Andy Moreau decided he would represent a Union Proud Tattoo on his face at the fair. Some nice people that let me put a Union Proud tattoo on their faces while at the Labor Booth during the Fair.

12 Important 2016 Dates *Veterans Day Holiday-11/11/2016 *Thanksgiving Day Holiday-11/24/2016 *Elks Christmas Party-12/3/2016 *Christmas Day-12/25/2016 *Christmas Day Holiday-12/26/2016 Union Dues Classification 2016 Jryn. Wireman/Inside Wireman/Wireman/Jryn. Technician/Secretary/CE/CW $38.00 Jryn. Lineman/Lineman/Equipment Operator/Mechanic $37.00 Apprentice Wireman/Groundman/Apprentice Lineman $36.00 Metal Trades $36.45 $19+1/2% Gross Utility members Wages **************************************** Babies No New Babies :( New Arrivals ************************************************** IBEW Local 449 New Retirees No New Retirees ************************************************* Local 449 Departed Rue Stears Gerald Hargraves, Sr.

13 September 2016 Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat 4 5 Labor Day Holiday 6 Idaho Falls Unit Regular meeting Pocatello 8pm 7 8 Twin Falls Unit E-Board 7 pm

14 October 2016 Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Idaho Falls Unit E-Board 7 pm 5 6 Regular meeting Pocatello Twin Falls Unit Auxilary Tommy Vaughns

15 November 2016 Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat 1 Idaho Falls Unit E-Board 7 pm 2 3 Regular meeting Pocatello 9 10 Twin Falls Unit Veterans Day Holiday Thanksgiving Day Holiday