Chairman’s Report By Louie Schreuder
Shop Committee Members: Steve Rop, Zone/Recording Secretary,
Marty Green, Michael Thompson, Al Nielsen, Duane Sprague, and Mike Yorton
September 2004
TRAINING
I will not be giving the Chairman’s report at the September union meeting because five members of the committee will be in Detroit September 21, 22, and 23, for Appendix K, L, and Job Cell training. Steve Rop, Marty Green, Mike Yorton, and myself will be attending; along with Jim Store, who is in charge of the Appendix K and Jobs Committee for the union. This training is important so we can keep up with things like Insourcing, Outsourcing, Allocations, Reallocations, and Job Cell Number. I believe Duane Sprague will be giving my report at the meetings due to my absence.
TEAMS
As I write this report, we are doing a three day workshop at the Clay Avenue Training Center to get our Teams to where the plant’s Mission Statement says we should be. I believe the plant manager and our committee are pretty close to being on the same page when it comes to understanding what Empowered Teams mean.
As our story in the Auto Know said, we need to get our Teams on the right road and truly empower them. Having said that, this needs to filter down to the floor so everyone, including the supervisors, know where we are going and the way we want to do things. I have already expressed my concern to management that everyone must be in the loop. I will tell you changes are going to be made, and I think you will like what you are going to see when we indeed have truly empowered Teams and they run like they are suppose to. You- the Team Leaders, are the one’s running the Team, along with your Team Members.
U-HOOD
As it stands right now, they are going to take the U Hood out of our plant and give it to another UAW plant, which is Checker Motors. If you remember in the 99 National Contract, they - meaning the International - told us they would be doing this from time-to-time. We have turned this issue over to Detroit for resolution. I need the membership to understand that we were running around 5500 panels a week and sending them to Doraville and China. Now Doraville is changing over to a steel hood for the GMT201 and only China will still be using aluminum; which means the weekly volume will be 250 to 550. That means it will run on an average of one shift a week for eight hours.
You elected us to fill this plant with work, and the committee is working together to make sure this happens to secure our future. We have a lot of work coming in from Grand Blanc that more than makes up for what we are losing, and I know it will take time but when our two new presses get up and running, you will understand what I am saying.
At this time, we have a total of 37 jobs coming from Grand Blanc. This committee stays on top of what is going out and coming in to this plant!
APPRENTICES
We have a requisition in for six Pattern Maker Apprentices and are waiting for an okay from Detroit, which should not be too long. Randy Hendrick, Apprentice Coordinator, has been interviewing people from the Lansing plant all week so we can get some more people in the Apprenticeship like our Local Contract calls for! Stay tuned, I will keep you informed every month on what is taking place with this.
WEMR
As you know by now, we have five new WEMR’s from Kalamazoo. Please make them feel at home. Management has told us that in October they will let another five WEMR’s go to Cross Train; three will be going to Millwrights, and two will go into Pipefitters. So please help them fit in brothers and sisters. The committee is working all the time on getting more manpower also! -continued-
NEW COMMITTEEPERSON
Mike Thompson was elected 2nd Shift Production/ Production Support Committeeperson; along with this position comes a Shop Committee seat. We have been working with Mike as the Alternate Committeeperson in that district before the election, so we know what we got; and I speak for the whole committee when I say we welcome Mike with open arms and will support him in his new position.
96 MOVES
I will properly know by the end of this month how many Paragraph 96 Moves will come with that work from Grand Blanc, because the Chairman from Grand Blanc has contacted me about it. Now it’s up to us to agree on how many people that we open it up for. I will be able to tell you what is happening with this a little better in next month’s report.
GRIEVANCES
We have about six grievances at the 2nd Step and also a number of Paragraph 183 grievances at the 2nd Step. The committee is on top of getting resolution on these as soon as we can for the membership.
NEW JETT
Dave Castle was appointed as the new Ergonomics Representative. This is a process that I do not enjoy, because we can only select three names to send to Mr. Shoemaker so he can make the final appointment. There are a number of people that I was sure would do a good job for the membership, but you can only appoint one. I encourage you to try again, and I hope you understand.
MISSING IN ACTION
We have been very busy as a committee lately in meetings and so on. I miss spending time on the floor and just visiting with the people. It should slow down soon, and I will be able to spend more time on the floor along with the rest of the committee. We are still doing well together and sticking together as we should be to show management we are one.
Fraternally,
Louie Schreuder
Shop Chairman