May 9, 2006 - Thank you and good evening brothers and sisters. It’s an honor for me to be here with you.
We deeply appreciate the work you do for our members each day. Tom and I thank you and ask that you keep up the good work. Because you play a critical role in this union.
We simply can’t be the union we want to be without everyone’s help -- at the national level, at the state level and at the local level.
I want to take just a moment here to congratulate District 98 on starting their district newsletter and to wish them well. It may seem that everything is on the Internet these days, but a good local or district newsletter can be a real source of pride.
I want to start by giving you an update of what’s happening with some projects and initiatives we’re involved in at IAM Headquarters.
Almost all of our district lodges are now using the CAS system and it’s proving to be a benefit for the locals, the district and the International.
Since we began implementing the CAS system, we have 895 Lodges, or 83%, on CAS and we’ve reduced the amount of outstanding debt of local lodges from around $7 million dollars in per capita taxes to $1.9 million.
That’s money that pays for educational programs, organizing, legal efforts to protect your contracts and your rights to bargain for a better way of life for our members. Salaries for staff and other employees and also the whole range of expenses that are required for a first rate labor union.
- Members attending the W3 Center fly into BWI instead of Reagan National saves $95,000 per year.
- EarthLink accounts realigned saves $1,500 per month.
- Cell Phone accounts realigned saves $3,600 per month.
- Copy machine changes from Xerox to Sharp - $700,000 saved in six years – IAM Workers.
We are upgrading the VLM to its 3rd version and we continue to provide ongoing training for our local and district financial officers.
- Dues paying members as of
April 30, 2006 are 409,558 –up 653 members.
This is why we are working with budgets and saving where ever we can. And, that leads me to our next topic which is organizing.
I don’t have to tell you that we’re putting considerable resources toward new member organizing.
Each Local Lodge should have a functioning Organizing Committee that makes a report at the Lodge meeting.
We have a $30 million dollar organizing fund that was approved by delegates to the last Grand Lodge convention and I am happy to tell you that the fund has generated more than $3.6 million dollars in revenue in one year that can be used in upcoming organizing drives.
At the recent Organizing Summit we held in Chicago last October, it was clear that we have the energy and the ideas to bring new members into this organization.
One of the most important things that came out of that summit was the great stories about successful organizing drives.
One after the other, IAM members and representatives got up and talked about overcoming obstacles; like captive audience meetings; union avoidance law firms; employees being fired and a political environment that not only allows this activity, but encourages it.
What struck me was how dedicated these employees were and how hard they had to work to win their bargaining rights.
It wasn’t unusual to hear about a victory that came only after years of trying.
One of our most recent organizing wins was at a Virginia company named Church & Dwight and that campaign included all those obstacles I just mentioned.
They bombarded the 500 employees there with literature, meetings and harassment. They held meetings in Spanish for the Spanish-speaking workers and they stuffed pay envelopes with anti-union literature. They never let up.
But the workers inside that factory and the organizing committee at IAM Local 10 in Richmond, Virginia were determined. They designed a campaign with a positive message and they refused to let the company get the upper hand.
They informed the workers about their rights and what the company could and couldn’t do.
They did something else too. Something that I think we need to do more of.
They got IAM members from other nearby facilities involved in the campaign.
The IAM represents hundreds of workers at UPS, Philip Morris and other large employers in the Richmond area. They make some of the best salaries and have some of the best benefits of any worker in the area.
It’s one thing to tell prospective members what you can do for them. It’s quite another to bring them proof of what an IAM contract can provide.
Sometimes it’s just a matter of reminding people of the difference a union contract can make:
- 86 percent of union jobs provide health insurance, compared with only 59 percent of non-union jobs.
- Union workers’ median weekly wages are 28 percent higher than their non union counterparts.
- 70 percent of union workers currently have pensions, while only 16 percent of non-union workers do.
- And on vacations, union workers average 15 days of paid vacation, non-union workers get only 11 days.
- Not to mention a voice in the workplace and a real grievance procedure.
We also need to get our current members invested in the idea that their contracts are valuable, and that the best way to protect their wages and benefits is to have lots of company in surrounding facilities.
Not only can you be much more effective when it comes to pursuing legislative goals, but your larger numbers makes you a logical ally in all forms of community service and legislative activities.
We’ve got other organizing campaigns underway based on leads that came out of the summit in Chicago. I know we can count on you to help us grow this union. Each of you know someone who works in a non-union facility – talk to them – be proud of our union. Talk it up every chance you get.
You sell this union on what is in your heart. It’s our responsibility to preserve our union and pass it on to our replacements as our forefathers did for us.
I know the job of an IAM representative will never be easy, and some days seem as if they never end. Every IAM representative should be involved and contributing to an organizing drive. That is the only way we will be successful.
No other organization comes close to the IAM and what we have to offer to unorganized workers:
- Financially sound with a healthy strike fund ($127 million) that gives us the ability to win good agreements like Boeing in Seattle did.
- Organizing Fund - $33.6 million dollars.
- National Pension Plan with over $8 billion dollars in assets.
- New Health & Welfare plans that are competitive: Single Cost - $275.00; Family Cost - $700.00 a month.
- First rate staff & headquarters departments to support our members.
We really have no choice when it comes to organizing.
Right here in Pennsylvania, we’ve seen overall union membership fall to 13.8 percent of the workforce last year, and that’s down from 15 percent in 2004.
In 1990, almost 23 percent of workers in this state were union members.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the raw number of members slid from 793,000 in 2004 to 753,000 in 2005.
This is not a trend we can allow to continue.
It will take every member, every officer and every representative to turn these numbers around. But it can be done.
And for similar reasons, our legislative agenda is no less active than our organizing calendar.
With the Senate, the House and now the Supreme Court firmly in the hands of the GOP, we have no shortage of targets.
Particularly in the next election. There are 35 states that will have governors’ races, and there won’t be a better opportunity to start taking back the White House than by winning in these races.
The party that controls a majority of the state governors’ mansions has a huge advantage when it comes to winning the White House.
Right here in Pennsylvania, we have the opportunity to re-elect a Democratic governor and a chance to remove a Senator who has voted consistently against the interests of working families in this state.
I urge you to get involved in these races and to urge our members to do likewise.
Before I close, I want to also take this opportunity to thank everyone who contributed to the IAM’s Hurricane Relief Fund.
The donations from IAM members went to help out our members in hard hit places like Waveland, Gulfport and Pascagoula, MS, in addition to our members in New Orleans.
It’s a disgrace that our government turned its back on those people in their time of need.
But you should be very proud of what you did to help your fellow members.
I hope you never have occasion to need the level of help and support as those members and their families along the Gulf Coast, but if you do, you can be assured this union will not let you down.
Again, thanks for making the IAM the best, the toughest, and the smartest labor union there is.
