For those of you who did not attend this meeting, I would like to make a few observations for your benefit. Less than 5% of our membership attended the meeting. Leo sent out cards announcing the importance of this meeting because the subject matter was our Pension Health and Welfare and guest speakers from the plan would be there. Of our 3 directors on the Trust Fund, only 2 of them were there: Leo and Tony.  Carole Stepp, our retired former office manager, did not have the urgency or the respect for our membership to even show up. Appointing  Carole to this position was a slap in the face of our membership to begin with. This important position is normally held by labor relations executives or union leaders only- not by office secretaries.  Leo refuses to take this position away from her for unknown reasons but this will change in January.

On a second front, business was as usual for our union leaders to belittle and degrade us, talk down to us,  and yell at us.This is unacceptable. The audacity of them to tell us to shut up and sit down must and will end soon. These people work for US. They must think it is the other way around. This is precisely the reason our membership does not participate in our quarterly union meetings.

The audio system for the entire 4 hour meeting was going in and out making it nearly impossible to understand what anyone was saying. It is hard to believe that with today's technology that this was not by design. With 7 million dollars in the bank we should have a state of the art audio system that does not fail us. We deserve our voices to be heard clearly.

A motion was made by me, seconded, and carried by the membership in an attempt to make our call board more transparent and less dysfunctional. This motion was merely for the call board to post the availability list at the call board and online. Over the years, there have been many instances where members call to have their names registered as out of work and somehow it is never there. This would give the membership the ability to end the "he said,she said" dynamic of our call board. Also, the members could see when, by magic, the names of lower grouped members disappear. Now, I understand the call board has launched a campaign to discredit me for this. This issue will be dealt with swiftly with details forthcoming.

Now, let's move on.....I am pleased to announce the addition of Kristi Frankenheimer and Jeff Bova to the slate of the WE/399 Campaign. Kristi brings a wealth of experience and industry knowledge to the table and will be a huge asset for our team. Jeff also brings skills and knowledge of our industry and craft second to none and will be greatly appreciated.

I am going to have a town hall meeting the latter part of June. The time and location will be announced shortly. Thank you for your time and continued support. Please keep your thoughts and comments coming.

Mitch