Shop Chairman’s Report
November 2002
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Meeting too long?
It has been brought to my attention that the members who attend membership meetings think that I take too long to give my report. I don’t know how to change that unless I give less information, or just let the members read my report and take questions. If this is a problem, I need input.
Health and Safety
Last month I told you about a bad audit. What I didn’t tell you were the successes we had, and there were several. We had exceptional notations in SOP sheets and all grinding equipment. We ended up with one "Repeat Needs Improvement" and three "Needs Improvement". This is much better than we originally thought. That means the majority of what we do is good. We are ready to complete the safest year we have ever had. That’s one of the reasons it is so hard to accept a bad audit when we are doing so many things right. We all have something to be proud of this year. Whenever we have less people hurt, that is the biggest success story of all.
Quality
Even though we have had three spills this year so far, our overall year has been exceptional. Our bad parts per million are down, and our volume is up. Once again, there is a lot to be proud of. We are the low cost/high quality producer, and that is definitely something to be proud of.
Production
Our production levels are up above what was projected. You can tell by all the overtime that is being offered; and with the holidays coming, a little extra money is a good thing.
Manpower
There was a requisition for 30 people, and we received 20. Anything is good, but we really need to satisfy our reqs, and it’s getting more difficult to do that.
Situational Leadership Training
This was the best training session I have ever attended. If I would have known what this was, we would have started with it and gone on from there. I will push to get our leaders trained in these techniques as well. In a nut shell, it teaches how to recognize individual needs when dealing with people; something we all need.
Remember, if you have a question, ask it. A mind is a terrible thing to waste.
Yours in solidarity,
Mike Mansfield
Shop Chairman
Local 730, UAW