- UAW LOCAL 1714

From the President's Desk 8-4-2010

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Dear Brothers and Sisters, Our 40th ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION SATURDAY, was a HUGE SUCCESS!!! I want to thank everyone for the hard work it took to make this such a great day. I also want to thank everyone who attended and enjoyed the day, and all those who participated in the Car Show. We want to thank those listed below for supporting our big event. Please support them by giving them your business in return and be sure to thank them for the support they gave us to help make our Celebration a success! Sweeney Chevrolet-Buick-GMC Phil Gargoline, Page One, N.A., Inc. Associated School Employees Credit Union Edward S. DeAngelo, Attorney at Law Panera Bread Credit Union One McSorley’s Fine Jewelry Banyan Tree Rehabilitation Noel’s Car Toys Castle Mease’s Red’s Auto Glass Auto Zone (Belmont, Elm Rd., & 422) Johnyk’s Advanced Audio Tractor Supply Thom Duma Advanced Auto Coates Car Care Gene’s Jewelry Crown Ford Sunrise Inn Red Lobster Mickey’s Army ‘n’ Navy Sherwin Williams (Elm Rd. & 422) Stadium Chevy of Salem Howard’s Dept. Store Allstate O’Charleys Cole Valley Café 422 Buff ‘n’ Stuff Office Max Lowe’s Ward’s Union Auto May’s Towing Early voting in Ohio begins September 30, 2010. You can also vote absentee ballot. Voter Registration forms are available at the union hall or you can register online for those who need to register. Special Membership Meeting, August 15, 2010 , 10:00 a.m., at the Union Hall, to determine the dates for our upcoming elections. Ohio has been hit hard with job losses, as well as the entire country. The backside of this flyer is a copy of the letter sent voicing the UAW’s concerns on international trade and the free trade agreement between the United States and South Korea (KORUS FTA). I urge everyone to contact your representatives and voice your opinions on this very important issue. Senator Sherrod Brown (202) 224-2315 Senator George Voinovich (202) 224-3353 U.S. House of Representatives’ Switchboard (202) 224-3121 websites: www.senate.gov www.house.gov July 29, 2010 Dear Senator/Representative: President Obama recently announced his intention to move forward on the free trade agreement between the United States and South Korea (KORUS FTA) after addressing outstanding issues with the automotive and beef provisions. This letter expresses the UAW’s views on international trade and on the KORUS FTA. The UAW strongly supports trade with other nations as a means to raise the living standards for workers in all countries and to promote understanding and peace between nations. We believe that to achieve these goals, our trade agreements with other countries must be fair and equitable and must assure that the benefits of trade are shared broadly by workers, communities, and the economies of trading nations. Particularly important to the UAW is the protection of human rights and worker rights to freedom of association, freedom of speech, and the freedom to form democratic unions with full collective bargaining rights. The UAW believes the KORUS FTA as negotiated by Korea and the Bush Administration in 2007 fails to meet standards of fairness and equity. Moreover, implementation of the current agreement would undermine the federal government’s commitment to the domestic automobile industry by opening it up to unfair competition from Korean imports and jeopardizing tens of thousands of U.S. auto-related jobs at a time when the recovery of both the industry and the U.S. economy remains fragile. The fundamental problem with the KORUS FTA is that it fails to address the dramatic trade imbalance between the U.S. and South Korea. Seventy-five percent of our 2009 bilateral trade deficit with Korea was in automotive products. In 2009, the U.S. exported 5,878 autos to Korea and Korea exported 476,833 to the United States. The tariff reductions in the FTA – elimination of the 2.5 percent tariff on most autos and auto parts and a phase-out of the 25 percent tariff on light trucks – would, compounded by the failure to successfully address Korea’s closed auto market, likely lead to a surge in automotive imports. This surge would, in turn, threaten the viability of domestic auto makers and the jobs of American workers. We have advanced the following set of principles for reworking the KORUS FTA. These principles must be met for the UAW to consider that the FTA’s flawed auto provisions have been adequately addressed. • Implementation of the tariff reductions in the FTA should be delayed until the domestic auto industry has fully recovered and should be tied to measurable results in reducing the automotive trade deficit – the imbalance between imports and exports. • Surges in automotive imports should be addressed by the establishment of new, auto-specific import safeguards. • The provisions of the KORUS FTA dealing with the persistent Korean use of non-tariff barriers should be strengthened. • The dispute resolution procedures should also be strengthened and include application of the "snap back" provisions to light trucks. • It is critically important that Korea’s compliance with the core ILO labor standards contained in the KORUS FTA be certified prior to the implementation of the FTA, as was the case with the U.S.-Peru FTA. Additionally, the UAW shares the concerns of Korean auto workers who oppose the KORUS FTA because it encourages Korean auto companies to significantly increase the sourcing of auto parts from China, which would result in the loss of Korean auto jobs. We are in solidarity with the Korean Metal Workers Union in their effort to prevent their jobs from being relocated to a country that prohibits independent trade unions and to their opposition to the KORUS FTA as a hidden FTA with China. Finally, the UAW also has concerns about the undervalued South Korean currency, the won. We urge Congress to move swiftly to enact legislation to establish an exchange rate stabilization regime. Such a regime would eliminate the market distortions caused by undervalued foreign currencies that place domestic producers at a competitive disadvantage. Thank you for considering our views on this issue of significant importance to the UAW and to the domestic auto industry. Sincerely, Barbara Somson BCS/DM:lb opeiu494 Legislative Director Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Last Updated on Saturday, 07 August 2010 01:54
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Tickets for Kennywood, Geauga Lake, Pioneer, and golf special...

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Click the read more and print for summer savings. Kennywood print page one, Geauga Lake pg2, Pioneer pg3, golf pgs 4&5
Last Updated on Thursday, 24 June 2010 20:13
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This should be read and shared with everyone..."From a factory Rat's Daughter"

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This should be read and shared with everyone you know Farewell to GM, from a factory rat's daughter It s been nearly a quarter of a century since my dad punched a clock for the last time, but he s still got his tools, the ones he used for 37 years in the die room at a Chevy spring and bumper plant, though they don t get much exercise anymore. My parents moved into senior housing a couple years back, and if something breaks, Dad just calls maintenance. The only thing he fixes now is supper, a job he s taken over from my mom, who suffers from dementia. Dad is 83 and, like his former employer, he s seen better days. Back when I was a kid growing up on the northwest side of Detroit, everybody we knew was connected in some way to the Big Three. The streets in our neighborhood were named after Ivy League colleges, but it was a solidly blue collar area; block after block of modest little houses plunked down like tokens on a life-size Monopoly board, most of them crammed to the rafters with kids. Every morning at six thirty, with the precision of a choreographed dance, back doors would open and men would emerge and, after hasty goodbye kisses from women in curlers, they would vanish into the steel jaws of the great automotive giants, only to be belched out again eight hours later, twelve during model changeover time. Generous Motors put the food on our table and the roof over our head and the money in my parents bank account, money that financed much of my education, supplemented by what I earned from my own well-paying summer jobs at my dad s plant, one of the perks that went along with being in a GM family. My dad, the only son of an itinerant laborer from Arkansas, was lucky to graduate from high school. On the other hand, like most of the kids I grew up with, viewed college as a birthright. I even tacked on three years of law school. Such a huge change in just a single generation, made possible by virtue of a strong union and a robust industry. And how did I return the favor? How did I express thanks for my newfound upward mobility? I packed my bags, moved to California and, like millions of my fellow baby boomers, promptly went out and bought a Japanese import, which I subsequently traded in for a Volvo. On News Hour late last week, I listened to an interview with Micheline Maynard, New York Times senior business writer and author of two books about the decline of the American car industry. According to Maynard, the demise of General Motors comes largely as a result of changing brand loyalties among baby boomers. By 1990, half of all Americans under age 45 did not own American cars. Just as we rebelled against our parents taste in music and clothing and hair styles, so we came to reject their choices in transportation as well. Okay, maybe we had good reason. American cars didn't last as long, or so the thinking went. They weren't as fuel efficient. But how hard did we try, really? How much comparison shopping did we actually do? The truth is, in my case, and in the case of many of my peers as well, it never occurred to us to buy an American-made car. And so we went blithely on our way, tooling around in our imports, listening to Bruce Springsteen sing about decaying cities and forgotten workers, and we never even made the connection. All I ask is that we take a second look. Start by reading this article, Misconceptions about the Quality of American Cars Continue. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=114x16660 My husband and I have decided to only buy American from here on, figuring better late than never. He likes his new GM car, a Yukon hybrid. It s good for a big guy like him, and for hauling big dogs and navigating country roads, and the mileage isn t bad for an SUV. When the new Chevy Volt comes out, I ll trade in my Mini. Yesterday morning, as I drove home from San Francisco on Highway 101 in a sea of foreign-made cars, listening to the bankruptcy news, I called my dad to see how he was holding up. He sounded tired. Like many in his generation, he put his faith in big institutions, things he thought would last forever. Now he wonders what will happen next. His dental and vision care coverage will end July 1. After that, who knows? (Though in another few months, his own wife may not even recognize him, which puts things in a certain perspective.) My dad could always fix anything, from a toaster to a ten-ton press, and even, on occasion over the years, his daughter s broken heart. He s my institution. After we hung up, I thought of a line from Middesex, the brilliant novel by Jeffrey Eugenidies: Grow up in Detroit, and you see the way of all things. Early on, you are put in close relations with entropy. The traffic was sluggish, as it often is at that hour and, while I waited for it to clear, I contemplated the rear end of a shiny black BMW 750i idling directly in front of me. It had vanity plates, surrounded by a frame that said life is a cabaret. Yeah, right, I said to myself. Tell that to the folks back in Michigan It s been nearly a quarter of a century since my dad punched a clock for the last time, but he s still got his tools, the ones he used for 37 years in the die room at a Chevy spring and bumper plant, though they don t get much exercise anymore. My parents moved into senior housing a couple years back, and if something breaks, Dad just calls maintenance. The only thing he fixes now is supper, a job he s taken over from my mom, who suffers from dementia. Dad is 83 and, like his former employer, he s seen better days.
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Free theme park admission for U.S. armed forces & families

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By Air Force Personnel Center Public Affairs RANDOLPH AIR FORCE BASE, Texas - A tribute program that has provided free admission to SeaWorld and Busch Gardens for more than 4 million members of U.S. and coalition armed forces and their families has been extended through 2010. "Here's to the Heroes," a program sponsored by Anheuser-Busch, was launched in February 2005 to celebrate the service of military men and women and the sacrifices made by their families.
Last Updated on Tuesday, 22 December 2009 12:44
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Armed Services YMCA

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Respite child care expands to all 50 states

By Samantha L. Quigley
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON – It’s a few hours a month, but the break the Armed Services YMCA Respite Child Care program provides parents with a deployed spouse always is welcome. And since the program’s Oct. 1 nationwide expansion, many more parents will benefit.

The Armed Services YMCA, as part of a Defense Department contract, provides health and wellness opportunities, including the Respite Child Care program, for reserve-component servicemembers and their families across the country through their local YMCAs.

This means deploying Guardsmen and reservists and their families are eligible for a full YMCA membership for three months before deployment, the 12 months of deployment, and three months after, said Mike Landers, deputy national director of the Armed Services YMCA.

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