Category: Cleveland Citizen

Brothers and sisters:

The Volunteer Organizing Committee will be contacting every member of Local 17 in preparation for the picket line at the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections job. The committee is asking every member to donate two vacation days to the picketing effort. It is important that Local 17 sends a clear message that every elevator constructor working in our jurisdiction be paid the prevailing wages and benefits whether on a government job or not. These are the same benefits that members in the past have fought for at the negotiating table and, sometimes bled and died for in the streets.

At the most recent IUEC national meeting General President Frank Christensen spoke about the importance of being involved in the political process and organizing our non-union brothers and sisters. Christensen reported that the market share of organized elevator companies in North America dropped to 83% after the most recent survey. In western Canada Richmond Elevator, a non-union company, controls 25 percent of the work in its region.

There have also been sightings of Delaware Elevator and Oracle Elevator trucks in Cleveland. These are two non-union companies, the first from the mid-Atlantic and the latter based in Florida but with an office in Columbus. If you see a non-signatory company on one of your jobs, please call Business Manager Tim Moennich at 216-431-8088 or email him at TMoennich@iueclocal17.org.

The signatories for Local 17 are Kone, ThyssenKrupp, Schindler, Otis, Maximum and Ross Elevator.

The IUEC is making a serious effort to establish companies in the home access market. There is money available through Work Preservation for regaining the home units. If the IUEC can capture 1% of the market it would result in 250 jobs for our members and 450,000 man hours of work.

Out of the 24,000 IUEC members in the US and Canada currently 500 are participating in the National Elevator Constructors Political Action Committee. The committee researches candidates and issues that support organized labor and supports them through the contributions it receives from its members. A five cent per hour contribution is approximately $100 per year. For more information or to receive a form, please contact Tim.

On Wednesday, November 19th Brothers Jimmie Dimmel and Joe Rapine from the Elevator Industry Work Preservation Fund will be presenting a team class on the history of the IUEC. This is an outstanding opportunity for every member to understand exactly how we as a union and as a local came into existence and the battles fought for the opportunity work in the best trade union in the trades. The session will be held at the school located at East 25th and Superior Ave. and will start at 5pm.

NEIEP is now offering an online escalator class using 3-D computer modelling. The class gives the student the chance to increase their familiarity with the major mechanical and electrical components of the escalator. This is another important class that separates the IUEC from the non-signatory companies looking to take our work.

There is a signup sheet for a scaffolding class. If you are interested in taking the class for the first time or need it to re-up your credentials, then contact Tim at the hall.
The November 14th, December 12th and January 9th meetings are mandatory meetings for the nomination, election and installation of officers. You must call the hall prior to the meeting with a valid reason to not attend or you will be assessed a $25 fine.

As of this writing there are eleven mechanics and 1 apprentice out of work.

Brothers and sisters:

First off I would like to thank everyone who turned out for the Volunteer Organizing Committee meeting on July 16th. In addition to the regular VOC attendees, several new faces added fresh ideas to the mix.
The main subject of the meeting was instructing members on the do’s and don’ts of picketing. While it is similar to the hand billing we have been successfully conducting on East Fourth there are some very strict rules associated with picketing that do not apply to hand billing. Attending the meeting was IUEC organizer Jim Lowery who helped answer the questions from the room.

The committee is asking every IUEC Local 17 member to donate two vacation days to the picket effort. Please talk to your superintendent as soon as possible so they can plan for your participation.

On Monday, July 21 the VOC attended the Beachwood School Board meeting. The school system currently contracts with Gable for its maintenance needs on the four hydraulic elevators and three chair lifts in its system. The response to the VOC from area school boards has been overwhelmingly positive. The group talks about the overall education needed to be counted as one of the best tradesmen in the trades and emphasizes the safety requirements we have to adhere to in all aspects of our work.

To our brothers and sisters in the other trades, continue calling the hall whenever you note a non-signatory elevator company on one of your jobs. You can contact Business Manager Tim Moennich at 216-431-8088 or email him at TMoennich@iueclocal17.org. IUEC Local 17 signatory companies are Kone, Maximum, Otis, Ross, Schindler and Thyssen.

On an upbeat note, every one of Local 17 apprentices passed their previous year’s final exam. Apprentices should also note that the fall semester will be starting August 13th with a two-hour orientation class.

There is currently a signup sheet for a scaffolding class and Business Manager Tim Moennich is still working on a date in the fall for a welding class. If you are interested in either class, please contact Tim at the hall.

Local 17 sends its condolences to the family of former member Doug Green who passed away June 17th.

As a general reminder, there is no August meeting. The next regular meeting will be September 12 at 6 pm at the hall located at 3250 Euclid Ave. Please plan on attending.

As of this writing there are four mechanics on the bench.

Brothers and sisters:

There is a lot going on so I’ll get right into it…

There has been a great deal of activity on the part of the IUEC Local 17 Volunteer Organizing Committee. To date the group has attended three school board meetings (Solon, Amherst and Maple Heights) and received positive responses from board members and superintendents about our emphasis on elevator safety, safe work practices and the general educational requirements to be employed in this very dangerous trade. The VOC is planning on attending more meetings through the summer and into the fall when contracts are generally let out for bidding.

The VOC has spent a great deal of time hand billing East Fourth Street. While we may not have slowed the flow of restaurant and entertainment patrons, there has been headway with residents, business owners and managers. The flyer each one receives talks about elevator safety and the importance of being sure that the elevators they rely on everyday are maintained by the best tradesmen in the trades. These buildings are owned by developer Rick Maron and the elevators maintained by Gable Elevator, a non-signatory company.

At the June meeting, the local passed a resolution offering reduced initiation fees and monthly dues to employees of Gable who wish to go on the local’s list. This reduction in fees would last until the employee is picked up by a signatory company or Gable signs on to our contract and then the full fees would be in force.

There is a VERY IMPORTANT meeting of the VOC on July 16th at 5 pm at the school at East 28th and Superior Ave. to go over the rules and responsibilities of picketing. International organizer Jim Lowery will be there to answer any questions and run the meeting. Everyone is invited to come and give their input. The local is also asking each and every member to be available for two days of picket duty. Please talk with your supervisor about this very important part of keeping our work. Also, watch the local’s website, iueclocal17.org, for picket updates.

At the June meeting there was a bit of a changing of the guard. Long-time Local 17 officer Dennis Dixon retired from his post as Treasurer and was replaced by John Driscoll, Jr. Jason Fredrick was named and sworn in to fill Driscoll’s vacant trustee seat by President Brian McTaggart. Denny served Local 17 for 23 years as an officer in one capacity or another. If you see him out and about, be sure and say hello and thank him for his tireless work.

A note to all apprentices… fall semester classes will start in early August and you will be attending the 700 and 800 series classes.

To all the members holding welding cards, please get your documentation into the hall in order to maintain your certification. If you have a scaffolding card, it expired in November of 2013.

NEIEP is now offering a CPR and first aid class in cooperation with the American Heart Association. Besides learning this valuable skill, participants will receive a certificate that is valid for two years. There is also a virtual code course available through the website, neiep.org, which will help constructors learn about code requirements and related topics.

On the entertainment front, there were 77 members, 34 active and 43 retired, in attendance at the Retiree’s Dinner held at Frank Sterle’s. This is one of those events that everyone who attends enjoys because the faces are all friendly, the beer is cold and everyone walks away with a smile and good memories. Keep August 23rd open for a possible second golf outing. There are no details as of yet but when or if they come to fruition, they will be posted on iueclocal17.org.

I hope that all the fathers or fathers-to-be reading this article had a great Father’s Day. While we do not get all the press mothers do, our part in raising a happy and healthy child is very important. Remember, when you are watching the kids you are not a babysitter, babysitters are someone you hire to watch your kids, you are a parent and it is called parenting.

On May16, IUEC Local 17 held its annual Retiree’s Dinner at Frank Sterle’s Slovenian House Restaurant. This is always a great time for past and present members to get together and swap stories about when “men were made of steel and rails were wood.” During the fifty-fifty raffle Al Jerson along with retirees Joe Lijana, Lenny Kessler and John Ward took single honors and the big double winners were Hugh Taylor and retiree Bob Hess.

Taking home service pins were Tim Moore and John Patton for 25 years in the business; Dan Tinner for 30 years; Jack Saunders, Tim Moennich, Dennis Dixon and Rick Myers each took home 35 year pins and the big winner of the night was Pat Culligan who is celebrating 40 years in the elevator business. Congratulations to everyone on reaching these career milestones!

Those of you that have signaling and rigging cards from NEIEP please take note. Your cards are good for three years. In the final year of your certification you must go to the NEIEP website and open a recertification link at the bottom of the screen. This can be done any time in the last twelve months of certification.

If you hold a scaffolding card and need to renew your license there is no refresher course, you must take the course again. It is a 12-hour course and if there is enough interest Local 17 will schedule a class.

NEIEP is also offering OSHA 10 certification through the website. It is a ten hour course that covers all aspects of OSHA and is required on many construction and large modernization jobs.

In May two issues passed that should help out the organized trades. First was state Issue 1 which is set to fund infrastructure projects like roads, bridges and schools. It is expected to help all 88 Ohio counties pay for these important public improvements.

Also passing was county Issue 7, the Sin Tax renewal on cigarettes and alcohol. All three of the major Cleveland sports teams backed this effort to help maintain their venues. The large advantage for the trades is they do all of their work through union contractors and the expected upgrades to the facilities should keep the trades working for some time.

The ACT-Ohio website has added a new link called Campus Safety Information. This was created to address the hiring of non-union contractors at Ohio campuses. The site includes photos of OSHA violations and is setup to prevent dangerous situations from developing on college campuses. There is a link to the ACT-Ohio site through iueclocal17.org on the Links page.

There has been some concern recently about company truck drivers and what they can and cannot do. On a construction site, if IUEC members are not allowed to operate the lift truck, then the truck will be unloaded by hand. If you are on service, the company drivers are not allowed to unload or pickup weights or any job material without a member there to do the work. If you have any questions, call Business Manager Tim Moennich at 216-431-8088 or email him at TMoennich@iueclocal17.org.

The Volunteer Organizing Committee will be hand billing twice in the month of June and once in July. If you would like to be a part of the effort to recapture our work, please give Tim a call so we can show up in force.
The VOC would also like to thank everyone that continues to call the hall with information on non-signatory elevator companies working around town. The signatories to IUEC Local 17 are Kone, Maximum, Otis, Ross, Schindler and Thyssen Elevator.

Over the years, the celebration of May Day has brought a sense of joy, sadness and fear. Originally May Day began as a celebration of summer, planting and new life by Celtic and Germanic tribes as a way of cleaning house and shedding winter garb.

Think about it, when does Spring cleaning start in earnest?

Around the end of April beginning of May when the weather is more receptive to outdoor activities. On the morning of May 1st in St. Andrews, Scotland locals celebrate with a torch light procession to the North Sea where revelers plunge into the sea naked. In Germany, the day is traditionally celebrated with festivals and the delivery of a streamer draped tree or pole to the home of a love interest.

In America, May Day has a bloodier connotation. In 1886 four strikers at McCormick Harvesting Machine Works were killed by police. As a response a May 1st rally was called for at Chicago’s Haymarket Square. When police tried to disperse the crowd, a bomb went off and the resulting police riot left at twelve dead. Four alleged anarchists were later tried and hanged for their part at the rally. In the wake of this bloodbath the Second International of the Communist Party, trying to seize the mind and hearts of their American comrades, appropriated the date as International Workers Day and, for years, celebrated it with military parades. Since then uttering the phrase “Happy May Day” branded you as a Fellow Traveler and in the 1950’s would have given you a front row seat to meet Senator Joe McCarthy.

As for me, when I wish someone a Happy May Day it is more in the vein of my Celtic and Germanic friends than the Second International. I also take a moment to remember the men and women who bled in the streets for our right to organize for a better life. So fellow travelers however you choose to take it…

HAPPY BELATED MAY DAY!

Two notes for apprentices. First, the last day to make up missed classes is May 29th. Second, turn in your completed OJT forms or you will be called to appear in front of the Joint Apprenticeship Committee.

For those with 2G and 3G welding certification, section D1.1 of the requirements says that in order to maintain your certification, you must make at least one documented shielded arc weld every six months. It is your responsibility to maintain your documentation and have a supervisor sign-off on your welds. If your certification lapses you have to private pay for the cost of recertification. NEIEP will not cover recertification.

If you are working as an assistant mechanic, please check to be sure that your Appendix A forms are being signed by yourself, the company and the union. This will avoid future problems.

On April 3rd the Volunteer Organizing Committee hand billed the businesses and apartments on East 4th Street. The effort was to raise awareness of the residents and patrons of the neighborhood to issues of elevator safety. The response to the hand billing has been encouraging for the VOC. There are several other actions planned for the coming months and the local needs the help of everyone in the trades to protect not only the elevator work but the work of all the trades. If you are on vacation and stay in a hotel where there is renovation going on, ask the owner or manager if they are employing union labor. If they aren’t, go somewhere else. This is a way of voicing your fraternity with our fellow tradesmen and keeping your money earned by union labor supporting union labor.

The VOC is also asking all trades to keep reporting to our hall anytime they see a non-signatory on their job. This has been a successful effort and aided the Committee in identifying several buildings for follow-up by Business Manager Tim Moennich, our International organizer or members of the committee. IUEC Local 17 signatories are Kone, Maximum, Otis, Schindler, Ross and Thyssen-Krupp Elevator. Tim can be reached at 216-431-8808 or emailed at TMoennich@iueclocal17.org.

IUEC Local 17 sends its condolences to Brother Bob Kobasic whose father, Ed, passed away. We also send condolences to the friends and family of Brothers Jim, John and Tom Goggin on the untimely passing of Jim’s son James. James was a member of IUEC Local 45 (Akron) and recently initiated into this great trade.

As of this writing there are five mechanics out of work.

Brothers and sisters,

 IUEC Local 17 currently has ten apprentices enrolled in the program.  Instructor Jerry Rietz has six in his 100 series class and Rick Meyer has four in his 500 series class.  Instructor John Taylor is currently teaching a 36-hour class in DC motor and generator theory.  The class covers components of the DC generator and motor, the different types of motors and generators as well as maintenance and service of these ubiquitous pieces.

There are also still opening for the welding class offered through NEIEP and Lincoln Electric.  We have ten spots open as of this writing and we need twenty total in order to schedule the class.  If you have any questions about this or any other continuing education opportunity, call Business Agent Tim Moennich at 216-431-8088 or at TMoennich@iueclocal17.org.

The special called meetings for the nomination, election and installation of officers are November 8th, December 13th and January 10th.  Special called meetings are mandatory and there is a $20 fine for not attending.  No excuses will be accepted unless you call the hall prior to each meeting.

The annual Children’s Christmas Party will be held on Saturday December 21^st at 1pm at the hall located at 3250 Euclid Avenue.  Children up to and including 12 years old will receive gifts.  Mothers are asked to bring baked goods and beverages will be provided.  To reserve your spot contact Entertainment Chairman Mike Hogan at 26962 Southwood Lane, Olmsted Township, Ohio  44138 or via email at M.Hogan67@yahoo.com.  Deadline for responses is November 22, 2013.

While this year’s political season just wrapped up with the election held on November 5^th, the fight next year will be to get labor friendly candidates elected to the Ohio legislature and congressional delegations.  The math is very simple.  Democrats are out numbered 60 to 39 in the House, 23 to 10 in the Senate and 13 to five in the Congressional delegations.  This inequity is due to the gerrymandering done by the Kasich administration after the 2010 census to turn Ohio into a red state at both the state and federal level.  We need to go no further than SB 5 to see that the plan was to turn back collective bargaining rights first in the public sector and then in the private through right-to-work-for-less amendments sealed into the state constitution.  Luckily the latest RTWFL push failed to gather enough signatures to make to the ballot this cycle and would be doubtful for the next cycle due to the overwhelming turnout against SB 5.  This is why identifying and supporting candidates that support labor-related issues is so very important.

ACT-Ohio Director Matt Szollosi is meeting with Ohio representatives to find which ones stand strong on the labor related issues like PLA’s, Davis-Bacon and RTWFL.  Recently, Lorain Republican Gayle Manning worked on a plan to deal with Kroger’s going non-union on capital improvements at their stores.  Also, the Cleveland School system’s John Marshall High School improvements were turned around to the tune of $20 million worth of work for the Cleveland building trades.

This is why it is important to register to vote, be informed about the positions of the candidates and vote for those that will support labor.  To that end, Business Agent Tim Moennich has voter registration cards available at the hall.  If you are not registered, register and vote in the next election.  There are those Republicans out there that are Republicans because it was the only way to win their seat so, do not be afraid to ask questions about where they stand on labor-related issues.

Finally, for the IUEC members, there is a card on the back of the Standard Agreement that authorizes the company to withhold an amount of your choice for the National Elevator Constructor Political Action Committee.  A five cent withholding works out to about $100 a year.  This is one way to be sure your voice is heard on the state and national level.

Safety is, as always, an ongoing issue.  The International recently reached an agreement with Schindler Elevator on a set of enforcement guidelines for their safety policy.  Since the IUEC is on a record pace for fatalities in 2013 General President Frank Christensen feels we need to do something different.  The discipline outlined in the agreement is progressive, but ramps up quickly if further infractions of the policy are noted.  The important takeaway is that no matter where you work or in what phase of the building trades, follow all of your company and site safety policies.  Not only does it give you safer working conditions, by taking the time to follow them it reinforces good behavior that will allow you to go home at night.

As of this writing there are 18 mechanics and two apprentices on the bench.