I just want to take a column inch and on behalf of all the brothers and sisters of the IUEC Internationally and here at Local 17 send congratulations to the Cleveland Citizen on its 120 years of being the voice of organized labor. It can be a lonely and thankless job putting together a publication of any frequency and the staff of the Citizen deserves the accolades of everyone in the trades for the fine and selfless work they do to bring us the news that affects us every month.
Thank you.
I hope that everyone reading this will still be in the best of spirits from their long July Fourth holiday weekend.
There were 50 retired and active brothers at the Local 17 Annual Golf Outing held again this year at Mallard Creek in Columbia Station. The winning team in the two-man scramble was Scott Hicks and his unnamed partner. They shot a 5-under par 67 for the day. In the consolation round, the team of Rob Hansen and Mike Wickham lagged a long-distance putt to within three feet of the hole to win a putt-off for second place. For complete photo coverage of the event, go to iueclocal17.org and click on the Galleries page.
Rick Myers will be teaching the Mechanics Review Class starting on July 25th. The classes will meet every Monday for six weeks. The Mechanics Exam will be at 8:00 a.m. on Wednesday September 14, 2011 at 2435 Superior Avenue. All eligible apprentices must sign up by July 8th. Please contact Business Agent Tim Moennich at 216-431-8088 or TMoennich@iueclocal17.org for more information.
There is a signup sheet for a scaffolding class available at the hall. The class will be scheduled as soon as there are enough participants. If you are interested, please contact Tim as soon as possible.
SB 5 Update
As you all know, Senate Bill 5 is the bill passed by the legislature and signed into law by Governor John Kasich severely restricting the collective bargaining rights of public-sector employees. It appears as though the group behind the petition drive to repeal SB5 has topped their minimum amount of signatures required to place the initiative on the ballot.
On June 17th, We Are Ohio, a bipartisan coalition of interested groups, reported they had 714,137 signatures on petitions to put the repeal of Senate Bill 5 on the November ballot. This is far over the 231,149 minimum to have the issue put to voters. There is also a requirement that 44 of the 88 Ohio counties be represented by the petition drive. The deadline for submitting the petition and signatures was June 30th.
When United States Senator Sherrod Brown signed the petition, he said “our economy will be strong if the middle class is strong.” He went on to say that “jobs would be lost and communities destroyed unless we repeal SB5.”
At the May union meeting, we had several brothers come forward to sign the repeal petition. By signing the petition and standing up for the rights of our public-sector brothers and sisters, we stand with those that fell before us for the privilege of being able to make a livable wage, to have some say over our working conditions and to be able to enjoy a little something called a weekend.
There will undoubtedly be a large effort to flood the airwaves with misleading ads paid for by special interest dollars. DO NOT BE FOOLED! Learn as much as you can about the issue so that when your friends and neighbors ask, you can speak intelligently about the ramifications if the repeal fails. More importantly: stand with those that stand by you!
AN INJURY TO ONE IS AN INJURY TO ALL!
And while we’re talking about the governor… as reported last month the budget proposed by Kasich would have seen the raising of the prevailing wage thresholds from the present $87,000 to $5 million. Critics of the plan claimed that it would exclude 95% of the governmentally funded construction projects while the Associated Builders and Contractors, a non-union lobbying group, claimed it would save money. Arguing against the measure, officials at The Ohio State University said the plan would likely lead to shady dealings like bid auctions.
Because of the efforts of organized labor, enough Republicans came over to amend the threshold to $125,000 this year and $250,000 on July 1, 2013. Thank you to everyone who contacted their state representatives.
Rock Gaming, the developers of the Horseshoe Casino going into the old Higbee’s Building, had to wrestle with the governor about the meaning, intent and verbiage of the Constitutional amendment passed in 2009 allowing casino gambling at four locations in Ohio. Earlier in the year, the governor commented that he thought the state of Ohio should be getting a bigger cut of the action at the casino and he would use this time while the state still had leverage to squeeze more out of the developer. As a consequence, Rock Gaming locked up the site until an agreement could be reached on its future. This essentially put 2000 skilled tradesmen out of work until Little Caesar could be rendered upon. Thankfully, the two sides came to an agreement and work is restarting at the sites here in Cleveland and Cincinnati.
So, to recap, here is a partial list of groups Little Caesar has succeeded in angering in only six short months: firemen, policemen, paramedics, teachers, anyone represented by AFSME and its affiliated units, AFL-CIO on the local, state and federal levels, the union members affiliated with the AFL-CIO and its member unions, Dan Gilbert, MGM Grand, the companies that were going to invest over $1 billion before he killed the high-speed rail initiative…. And the list keeps getting longer by the week.
All I have to say is Remember in November.
Condolences
The most sincere condolences go to the family of retired Brother Bob Trapp. He was 91.
As of this writing there are 28 mechanics and three apprentices on the bench.
International Union of Elevator Constructors Local 17 