By: Shaun Windels

Greetings Brothers and Sisters,

The Shop Committee would like to take this opportunity to welcome you all back. Hopefully, everyone had a wonderful, uneventful, healthy and safe time off. At the time of typing this, you have been back a little over a week.

As you know we’ve all been quite busy in the last week getting adjusted to our schedules again.

I would like to take this moment to address some concerns the Shop Committee and I have. One of them being if you’re having issues with your Union Brother or Sister, please allow the Shop Committee the opportunity to address it between to the two of you. Often times, all it takes is for us to meditate the situation and help with solutions. That way, those issues don’t end up on your shift manager’s desk. When they end up handling it, it may become a bigger problem.

Secondly, which goes along the same lines, if your shift manager is asking you or telling you to do something that you don’t feel is right, please don’t hesitate to ask for a committee call, so we can have that opportunity to discuss and fix any problems or issues that are happening.

Too many times, we find out things after the fact. Without our membership being our eyes and ears on the floor, we don’t always know what’s happening on the shop floor. We see you and want to hear you, but can’t help you unless we know what’s going on. We are not mind readers, even though sometimes we wish we were.

Now that we got that over with, if you’re on first shift, you probably have seen some new faces. Three of our members that were working at our other facility have come over to our facility, as their work ended at their facility. If you see them, please be welcoming to them. It’s never easy changing what you’ve done for so many years to doing something different. They might have some growing pains and being a kind person to them will be very helpful in their transition.

Recently, I had the opportunity to have Allstar services in to view our facility for our vending machine needs. Some of you might have had the pleasure of meeting them during our walk through, and some even got some free food.

I’m happy to announce that I will be signing onto a contract with them to service our location. I would expect the change to occur within the next 30 to 40 days. They will be giving everyone a free card to use on the machines with $5.00 loaded onto the card for use right away. After that $5.00, you can load your card up with funds and use it anytime with no processing fees, and gain points every time you purchase to use towards future purchases.

During their launch here, they will also be giving away some free prizes, so look forward for that. I will have more info to come in the coming weeks as we prepare to transition to having them move in.

We have been in the process of trying to get around to everyone to see if they need a UAW membership card. It’s been brought to our attention that the card gets you discounts at certain places and we wouldn’t want you missing out on those discounts.

If you hadn’t been asked or written your name down yet, please see your committee person so they can get your name written down. Please remember, you must be a member in good standing to receive a card.

As a reminder, be kind to others as you have to work with them every day. Kindness and empathy costs zero dollars. I hear a lot about name calling and members talking about other members. Let’s just not do that anymore. You never know what someone else is going through.

As for the schedule at work, it looks like sales and demand are strong, so expect Saturday work to continue, for the distant future. Also, there will be no July shutdown this year, so please schedule your vacations accordingly.

It may not seem like it, but we are turning the corner to spring and then summer. We are starting to work on plans on how to accommodate the time off you all are requesting.

Finally, as I wrap this article up, Happy Valentine’s Day, (yes, it’s a thing). For you guys reading this, don’t forget to get your wife or girlfriend something for Valentine’s Day. I say guys because we often forget, but ladies don’t forget those special guys in your life either. I did forget once and Mrs. Windels wasn’t too happy with me.

I’m signing off for now, stay safe everyone.