By: Duane Ballard

Greetings Brothers and Sisters,

With everyone enjoying the summer and a pause in the meetings, it allows us here at the Union Hall to regroup a little and work on some other things for the membership.

One of the main goals is how to get the membership more involved in our Union. Not only are we lacking in participation levels in events we have, but our membership is totally losing interest in the everyday leadership positions of the Local.

Joint Council Structure

I know our structure is a little confusing at times and does have members bewildered at times. I think the way Local 659 was structured many, many years ago has some great value and yet some bad also. Our Joint Council structure is that 5 people are elected from each district (from their units) to be the voice of the district. The Committeeperson is also an automatic Joint Council Delegate.

For a member to sit on a standing committee, they must first be a Joint Council Delegate. Our standing committees consist of Constitution & By-Laws, Union Label, Education, Recreation, Publicity, CAP, Civil Rights, Veterans, Community Service, Consumers Affairs, Women’s, and Election, with the latest to be added being Organizing.

All units get one representative for each committee, with the exceptions of the Women’s and the Election committees, which get two per unit. In each of your represented facilities, there are spots open for the membership to get involved.

The best way for members to get involved in their Union is first and foremost by starting to attend their Union Meetings. Meetings are so vital for members to get information about your work sites, as well as what is going on around the Local. You might have read it before in one of my articles and I will repeat it… The Future of Our Union Is in Your Hands!

As you look around, you will notice most of the leadership is on the higher seniority side. Most of the fears we have is that interest is not there to learn the positions that will be open in the future. Without leadership, our Union will fail.

Clicking here will take you to a survey to complete. Please take a few minutes to answer any questions on it. It is based on what we need to do to get more members involved and what the membership would like to see for future classes to get them involved. Hopefully, this will guide us to get the members the education they would like to see and a clue to what we need to do to get involvement numbers up.

If you have any questions about getting involved or how Local 659 is structured, please contact me or any of your leadership and ask. We are all here to help guide you into the future of the UAW and will give you any guidance you need to get you pointed in the right direction.

Tiger Baseball

The Tigers are playing some really good baseball this year and are a joy to watch. On September 7th, the Recreation Committee has put together a bus trip to go down and watch them. The tickets are $100 and includes a round-trip bus ride and a T-Shirt. The price also includes a $20 food voucher for the game.

This game will be perfect timing for playoff placement, so it should be a great game. Come to the Union Hall and get signed up for the game. Tickets are limited to the first 80 people.

Summer seems to be hot and miserable this year and many families are going to the beach or pools a lot. Over the July holiday, there seemed to be a lot of instances of drownings throughout the state. Teaching your child to swim or getting them swim lessons is a great idea this time of the year. It is a perfect opportunity to teach them a life-saving lesson and gets them outdoors.

The outdoors presents everyone with many ways to enjoy it. Make sure to do it safely. Give or get those kids some swimming lessons, don’t forget the life preservers, and get them outdoors.