Happy New Year, and wishes for a happy, healthy and prosperous year ahead from the officers and staff of Local 362.
By now, you have received your copy of the Teamster newsletter, The Advocate. This is a project which we have been working on for some time now, and would appreciate hearing from you as to your thoughts on what you would like to see in upcoming issues. We are planning for two to three issues per year, depending on the feedback we get.
The New Year has seen your Business Agents off and running - General Meetings, proposal meetings, negotiations, and hearings have kept us all busy for the first month of 2004.
Opening letters have gone out to Lafarge PreCast, Inland Concrete Pipe Plant, Lafarge Airdrie and Fort McMurray, and Redcliff Industries, so watch for proposal meetings to be scheduled for those members.
Agreements have been signed this month with MTE Logistix Calgary and Inland Concrete Leduc, and there are several more which are out to the Companies for signature.
Negotiations on the Industrial Construction Agreement are set to continue on February 6th in Calgary. Brothers Bennett, Krawchenko and Finley will be working towards reaching a new agreement there. CF Parcel Express are voting a company offer on January 29th, so we should have word on that soon. Air Canada Jazz Flight Attendants are facing yet another layoff in early March. Brother Frost continues to work with other agents in the Teamster Canada Airline Division to try to get those problems straightened out with respect to severances, bumping, layoffs, etc. We put out written updates on that situation to the individual members on a regular basis. If you are an Air Canada Jazz F/A and have questions, please contact Brother Frost during business hours at the Calgary office.
The Movie Division is quite slow at this time, however we are looking forward to a busy Spring season. We have been negotiating two movies at this time - Santa's Slay and Little House on the Prairie, and will have word on those productions in the near future. Several other productions are seriously looking at our area for their projects.
Brother Wallace just returned from the Teamsters Hunam Right Conference held in Florida during the week of January 12th, where he represented the Local Union during an intense week spent in training sessions held to develop plans to reachout to the diverse communities within our organization, to better understand our members's needs as a whole.The Train the Trainer program is designed to build unity throughout our organization buy crossing barriers of race, religion, gender, etc, and to untimately enable us to organize in new areas to help grow this great Union.
We have made reference in previous letters about the retirement awards available to our members who retire after 15 or 25 years of UNBROKEN service. Below is a photo of the retirement ring. We are currently in the process of looking at samples of the watch and may be changing the watch we currently have, so I haven't included it. Also note the photo of Edmonton Canadian Freightways line driver, Al Donald ( and his lovely wife) who retired in October 2003 after 30 years of continuous service. Business Agent Shane Pearce is seen presenting Brother Donald's ring in the Edmonton office. Normally we try to have these awards presented at a General Meeting, or a meeting held with the members of the Employer, however this is not always possible. As you can well imagine, some of these retireee are GONE SOUTH as soon as possible, others are just not able to come to the General Meetings for whatever reasons. We will try to get as many pictures of the retirees receiving their awards as we can, and post them for your information.
Most recent retirement awards have gone to - Gaetano Roscioli - gold watch - 28 years with BURNCO Rock Products Calgary - Dionisio Baladad - gold ring - 23 years with BURNCO Rock Products Calgary - Leslie (Jim) Barret - gold ring - 30 years with CFL Edmonton
And the following are on order for presentation in the near future - Ed McWhirter - gold watch - a 27 year Pipeline member - Jim Gair - silver ring - 19+ years with Byers Transport Edmonton
Congratulations to all of these Brothers, and best wishes from the Officers and Staff of the Local Union for a long, happy & healthy retirement, with our thanks and appreciation for your many years of service with the Local Union.
For those of you considering retirement in the near future, please be sure to check with the Local Union office to see if you qualify for one of these retirement awards. The onus is on your to apply for whichever award you may be entitled to.