Mar 14, 2020 | Airlines, American, Community Service, Community Service Page, COVID, EAP, Education, Featured, Front Page, Hawaiian, Home, Home, Philippine, Safety, Safety, Spirit, Uncategorized, United
GOIAM.COM /////////////
Dear Sisters and Brothers,
I know there is much uncertainty surrounding the evolving COVID-19 (coronavirus) outbreak that has now been classified as a global pandemic. Our daily routines are being affected by the cancellation of many events in an effort to limit the spread of the virus. I want each and every member of our IAM family to know that the IAM is taking all necessary action to keep all of us safe while continuing the important work of our union.
The most important thing each of us can do now is to heed the advice of health officials. Please closely follow guidelines and monitor updates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The best way to avoid being exposed to this virus is to:
– Clean your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds
– Avoid close contact with people who are sick
– Stay home and seek medical care if you are sick
– Cover coughs and sneezes with a tissue or use the inside of your elbow
– Wear a facemask if you are sick
– Clean and disinfect frequently touched surfaces daily
I also encourage you to monitor the IAM Coronavirus (COVID-19) Resource Center for more information, specific safety tips for our membership in the healthcare and transportation industries, as well as any updates on changes in IAM operations. Beginning this Saturday, March 14, we have made the decision to suspend programming at the Winpisinger Education and Technology Center for two weeks. We will closely monitor the situation and provide updates on all status changes.
To ensure that everything possible is being done to protect our membership at work, IAM Local Lodge Safety and Health Committees should meet with employers on steps being taken to mitigate the risk of virus transmission. Every employer has the responsibility to do everything necessary to keep its employees safe. Our union has a duty to hold employers responsible to that commitment.
The IAM Grand Lodge is working with elected officials to ensure that sufficient funding is available to respond to the outbreak and that steps are taken to protect jobs in industries that are especially affected by the pandemic.
Lastly, I want our membership to know that we will get through this difficult time together. Throughout our union’s 132-year history, we have always confronted great challenges. Our unity has pulled us through the toughest of times and this situation will be no different.
Let’s be smart, stay safe and continue our march toward dignity and justice for all working people.
Fraternally,
Robert Martinez Jr.
International President
Feb 27, 2020 | Community Service, Education, Education Class, Featured, Home, Organizing, Uncategorized
Three members of District 141 spent a week in late January at the Winpisinger Education and Technology Center with the IAMAW Spanish Leadership Working Group (SLWG). Local 1759 Shop Steward and EAP Representative Adriana Picasso, District 141 Communications Representative Ines Garcia-Keim, and Marilyn Soto, a District 141 Organizer and Local 914 Shop Steward, who was welcomed as a new member of the group, worked to strategize outreach, set teaching schedules and to review and update course materials for this year’s Leadership courses in Spanish. The group also includes Jorge Bonilla, an Education Representative at the Winpisinger Center who is a former District 141 AGC and a member of Local 811.
Leadership programs in Spanish track the English language curriculum while also considering cultural characteristics, developing bilingual leaders who can communicate and work effectively with an increasingly diverse membership.
International President Robert Martinez recognized the work that Adriana, Ines, and Marilyn are doing in a letter he sent to members of the SLWG. Martinez pointed out his experience as an Education Rep and praised the union’s Spanish Language Programs as “second to none.” He added, “This work…is about opening doors to greater involvement, to greater activism, and to leadership to those who have for far too long been sidelined by design or by default.”
IAM Leadership Programs help bilingual and Spanish-speaking members become officers, activists, and leaders in our union, in their workplaces, and in their communities. The programs offered at the Winpisinger Center provide participants the tools and inspiration they need to amplify a message of unity in the face of efforts to divide working people.
The 2020 calendar for Spanish Language Programs is:
March 15-20 Spanish Leadership I
May 17-22 Organizing I in Spanish
June 14-19 Spanish Advanced Leadership
July 12-17 Spanish Leadership II
August 16-21 Spanish Leadership I
August 23-28 Spanish Train-the-Trainer
November 8-13 Collective Bargaining in Spanish
If you have questions about the Spanish Leadership Programs or need additional information, please contact District 141 Director of Education “Mac” McGovern at mac@iam141.org
Feb 14, 2020 | Community Service, Education, Education Class, Featured, Home, Uncategorized, Video
District 141 of the Machinists and Aerospace union is partnering with local union lodges to help provide education and training for union stewards at airports around the nation.
The program, headed by Director Mike “Mac” McGovern, attracts hundreds of union stewards each year.
This past week, a recently expanded education staff held training classes for Union Stewards at Dulles (Local 1759) and Minneapolis (Local 1833).
“Great group of members,” said District Educator Chris Lusk of his visit to Dulles. “This is a great opportunity to meet union stewards, find out what their issues are, and help to educate them on how to be better stewards.”
“We go over a number of things in the education department. We go through scenarios, we go over things that may be shared from station to station.”
Assistant General Chairs Mike Cyscon and Rich Creighton were present in Dulles to offer expert guidance for the stewards.
Aug 14, 2019 | Community Service, Departments, Education, Featured, Home
District 141 is proud to announce the winners of the 2019 Adolph Stutz Memorial Scholarships. Skye Balfour, daughter of United Airlines CSR Julie Balfour, a member of Detroit Air Transport Local 141 earned the top $2,000 prize.
The topic for this year’s scholarship competition was “How can our Local Lodges better serve our communities?” Skye wrote a poignant essay narrating how her adoption by the Balfour family when she was just three months old changed her life. She described how the IAM could help raise awareness of the needs of children living in foster care and those awaiting adoption, and how the union could support adoptive and foster parents. She also mentioned the need for job opportunities for children who “age out” of the foster care system. Skye has grown into an accomplished musician who is planning to major in music performance in violin and viola.
Other finalists who each won a $1,000 scholarship are listed in alphabetical order:
Meron E. Aria, daughter of Ermias A. Goitom, Local Lodge 1886
Tyrone Bullock, Jr., son of Adam Kramer, Local Lodge 1776
Jessica Li, daughter of Nestor Li, Local Lodge 141
Robert Alexander Perla Ventura, son of Alexander Perla, Local Lodge 811
Jocelyn Shin, daughter of Cindy Shin, Local Lodge 1782
Giancarlo Royal, son of John Royal, Local Lodge 1322
Congratulations to all the winners!
Fraternally,
Michael G. Klemm
President & Directing General Chairman
IAMAW District Lodge 141
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May 13, 2019 | Airlines, Departments, Education, Home, United
Anyone who has ever watched union shop stewards in action has probably noticed a lot of parallels between the work they do and that of a defense attorney. According to one lawyer, there are good reasons for the comparison.
Father Bob Lindell (left), AJ Lindell (Right)
AJ Lindell, J.D. is a practicing attorney admitted to the Minnesota State Bar Association.
He’s also the President and Grievance Committee Chairman of IAM Local 1833 in Minneapolis-St. Paul. A 24-year employee of United Airlines, Lindell is the primary enforcer of the contractual agreements made between the airline and the 300 Machinists at MSP airport.
If all that weren’t enough, Lindell graduated Magna Cum Laude from the Mitchell Hamline School of Law and passed the Minnesota State Bar exam on his first attempt.
Whether representing members of his hometown rural farming community in a court of law or representing unionized airline workers before managers at United Airlines, Attorney AJ Lindell knows what he’s talking about.
According to Lindell, representing the rights of the accused before a judge and jury is comparable to representing the rights of members before company management.
In fact, his experiences as a union steward directly inspired his decision to enroll in law school.
A family affair: AJ with his wife Tiffany, a Ramp Services Agent in MSP. His father Bob Lindell also worked there for 20 years, retiring in 2016.
“I became a shop steward because I noticed that there was a need for someone with the right skills to stand up for those who couldn’t stand up for themselves,” Lindell said in a recent interview. “I found that I could provide a voice for that.”
“I could use the rhetorical skills I had developed to stand up and speak for people when they couldn’t speak for themselves.”
“It’s just a natural evolution to a courtroom situation. When I was representing people as a shop steward or in hearings as a Grievance Committee member, it just became a natural outgrowth to think, ‘what if I could take this to the next level? What if I could do this in a courtroom setting and be an advocate for those individuals?’”
“After finding success in union grievance hearings and representation, I wanted to find out how well those skills would translate into a courtroom setting,” said Lindell. “And, I found out, they translate pretty well.”
The son of an airline worker, Lindell has a keen interest in labor law, yet he also maintains a close connection to the farming community values he grew up with. He plans to serve as a voice for these two communities over the coming years.
IAM141 AGC Kris Hannah (right), AJ Lindell, J.D. (left) recently used Machinists Union college benefits and IAM-negotiated contractual guarantees to earn a law degree from the Mitchell Hamline School of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota. The Machinists Union has a range of student aid resources, including scholarships and free college benefits. Find out how you can access these valuable resources at your Local Lodge’s monthly Business Meetings.
“It isn’t just because there’s a JD behind your name,” Lindell explained. “You build credibility through being a shop steward that investigates a particular situation, you build credibility when you’re a committeeperson and you advocate zealously on behalf of the employee.”
“The need for a union is absolute,” Lindell said of the importance of union activism. “When it comes to job protections when it comes to identifying issues for contract negotiations… when you have a union and a membership standing behind you… it’s incomparable. There is simply no other advocacy that is on par with having a group of individuals collectively working towards something and collectively advocating. If that means better healthcare, better wages, better pensions, nothing that exists is better than a group of individuals moving in one direction. And, companies have a very difficult time overcoming that. The more collective we are as a group, the easier we can get to that point that we want to get to.”
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Apr 10, 2019 | Airlines, American, Departments, Education, Featured, Hawaiian, Home, MNPL, Organizing, Philippine, Spirit, Uncategorized, United
PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE AMY KLOBUCHAR TALKS MEGA-MERGERS, PRAISES UNION ACTIVISM
Presidential Candidate Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Mn) spoke before hundreds of Machinists Union members at its conference of railroad and airline workers.
For Senator Klobuchar, the event was the highlight of her first campaign stop in Las Vegas, where she also visited the Blind Center of Nevada and the Harold Brinley Middle School. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt), also addressed delegates at the Machinists Union Transportation Conference. The Machinists Union is the largest union of aerospace and rail workers in the world.
In her speech, Senator Klobuchar emphasized her close ties with unions, which Owen E. Herrnstadt, Chief of Staff for the IAM International President, praised in his introduction of the senior senator from Minnesota.
“Since taking office in 2007, Amy Klobuchar has been a fearless fighter on behalf of working Americans,” Herrnstadt told the assembled group of over 800 union members from the nation’s railroads and airlines. “Amy knows how to get things done.”
“She has supported efforts to protect our pensions, to protect voting rights, to make drug prices affordable, raise the minimum wage … and shine a bright light on corporations that want to merge.”
Mergers were a particular area of focus of Klobuchar’s speech to the Machinists, whose members have been rocked by two recent mega-mergers. Notably, the mergers between United Airlines and Continental, and US Airways and American.
But air transport is not the only industry that has endured huge and difficult mergers.
“We are now in a new Gilded Age,” said Klobuchar of the railroad industry. “We’re down to four Class One Carriers that are carrying 90% of the traffic.”
“This means that wages go down because there’s not enough competition,” she said. Unions are the leverage that we have. Unions can take on corporations and win better wages for workers.”
The first female senator from Minnesota spoke highly of the community spirit and activism of Machinists.
“The 600 thousand members of the Machinists Union… helped rebuild communities affected by the raging wildfires in the West and the floods in the Midwest.”
“You sent your Critical Incident Support Team to support survivors when a gunman opened fire in Aurora, Illinois, killing five people, two of whom were IAM Members.”
“And, after the devastation of Maria, you partnered with airlines to fly goods and disaster relief to Puerto Rico,” she said.
“That’s a community. That’s a shared story. That’s ordinary people doing extraordinary things.”
After her speech, Senator Klobuchar spent time speaking with delegates and posed for pictures.
The IAM Transportation Conference assembles the top union activists within the railroad and airline industries. The event is being held this week in Las Vegas, Nevada, and will run through April 11.
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