USW Local 309 Membership Update – Sep. 6, 2024

Last week members of the E-Board and the Bargaining Committee attended our District 9 educational confrence. Everyone was very engaged and the leadership from the District bragged on Local 309 to me several times while we were there. Lots of good information that is being brought back to help grow and advance our Union.

As many of you have probably noticed over the past several months, there’s been an increase in contractors inside the plant. This is due to the company refusing to start apprenticship/CDP programs a rate that keeps up with the attrition that we are currently experiencing. We are grieving and escalating this issue, and while at the confrence I was able to meet with Director Flippo, Director Milsap, and VP Ramirez on this matter. We are now in the process of setting up some meetings with the leadership of Arconic outside of TN operations to hopefully gain some resolution to these issues. Bottom line is, if you see a contractor in the plant, this is the main factor that is keeping the CDP/Apprenticship programs from starting. Keep an eye out for more information on this to come soon.

If you are interested in volunteering for the upcoming car show that the Veterans of Steel are going to be participating in, please let Brian McConnell or myself know ASAP. The show will be on, 9/28/2024.

Between the educational confrence and half of HR being gone this week, we’ve not had any progress on the overtime bargaining.

On 10/28/2024, the Bargaining Committee will be heading to Davenport to attend a Labor/Management Meeting for all 4 locations in the Master Agreement. CEO, Chris Ayers will be attending this meeting and will give us a platform to hopefully find out about what the plans are for our facility and the workforce at TN.

Please be questioning your supervisor at the start of every shift for the safety callouts that are sent out after every event. Also, be sure that we are following the SWIs and if they don’t have them for a job that has been assigned, make sure that we are requesting the proper people to come out and create one. Above all, if it’s not safe, STOP and get help! If you have any push back when attempting to perform a Safety Stop, inform your Department Chair, Plant Chair, or get directly in touch with me ASAP. We will get the issue addressed.

I informed you all in my last update that our safety group was in Pittsburgh for the Joint Safety Conference. I’ve been contacted by several members of our International leadership about how well our guys did up there, and Mike Bivens even had a big part in putting on the Arconic/Alcoa portion of the event. Like I said in the statement above, don’t hesitate to call these folks. We will get the issue resolved and you don’t have to perform any work that is not safe!!

We still must remain really focused on quality and be sure that we’re stopping when something is not up to our standards. If its not up to how you were trained and a foreman is asking you to run anyway, get a hold of someone in the Union Leadership immediately. I know that many heard Mike Bivens say it in the Town Halls with Chad Birge present, so the company leadership supports this.

Union meeting next week, 9/12/2024 at 12pm and 3:30pm. Everyone is encouraged to attend.

 

Please be promoting and sharing the link to this update. I do my best to share it out on all platforms when it gets sent, but I can easily miss one. Thank you for all that you do and stay safe!