By: Alex Ortiz

UAW International Vice President Rich Boyer visited with workers at Local 659’s Lear Corporation facility and our members. Brother Boyer heads up the Competitive Shop/Independents, Parts and Suppliers (CS/IPS) Departments and is making a point of meeting with our membership where they are – on the shop floor. ACC, Avancez, Logistics Insight Corp and Lear Seating are all part of the CS/IPS department.

We hope to have more visits from the International Staff at all of our facilities. There have been visits from IUAW Vice President Mike Booth to the Flint Metal Center and NAETC in the recent past. The goal is to gain more work to secure stable jobs for all of our members.

The UAW General Motors Department held sub-council meetings last month in San Antonio, TX to hear reports from Locals across the country. Representatives from all of the GM bargaining units (MFD, FEO, CCA, NAETC) were in attendance. During these meetings, concerns and clarifications on how to handle situations that bargaining units are having were discussed in similar working groups. I’m not going to go into specifics as to the discussions, but I will say that my biggest take away is that everyone needs to continue to hold the line against GM’s attempted whipsawing from plant to plant.

The 2nd Annual Labor Day Parade in Flint was larger than last year, but I’d love to see a larger showing from Local 659. We still had more people than last year and hopefully, next year we will have a better turnout and continue building participation moving forward.

The Joint Council and Unit meetings have resumed after our summer cancellations. I want to thank everyone who attended their meetings and let everyone know about the aware that was presented to former UAW Local 659 President Frank Trubiro during the Joint Council meeting. One of the highest honors a UAW member can receive is the Walter P. Reuther Distinguished Service Award.

The Joint Council recommended his award for approval from the International UAW over 2 years ago, but unfortunately the awards were inexplicably put on hold. Once we learned that the awards were to resume, we sent in Frank’s extensive resume for approval. It was my honor to read the list of his accomplishments throughout his career. I want to congratulate Brother Trubiro on an extensive UAW career and community service that deserved this recognition.

There was another Local 659 baseball bus trip to a Tigers’ game. The tickets sold out and we had two buses filled for the trip. There is a tremendous amount of work that goes into organizing these events. Deonte, thank you for making this event happen!

Lastly, I have to congratulate those who made the NAETC Old Newsboys Golf Outing a huge success again, this year! Sam Vowell, Sara Orvis, Sam Schneider, Sheila Conner, Craig Leedom, Jason Browning, Chad Glastetter, Jack Brown and Dan Earle and many others made the event happen. The last I heard before we went to press there was over $24,500 raised, which broke last year’s record.