The IAM is joining with other unions and community activists in urging Congress to rectify a wrong: The exclusion of Sojourner Truth from a monument commemorating the Women's Suffrage movement. Sojourner Truth, an African American who rose up from slavery in pre-civil War New York to become a noted preacher, orator, abolitionist and women's rights activist, was one of a quartet of famous women generally credited as the founding mothers of the movement to win the vote, and equality of rights with men, for women in America.

Contact your Congressional representative and urge him or her to support of House Resolution 601 (HR 601), which “directs the Architect of the Capitol to enter into a contract to revise the stature commemorating women’s suffrage located in the rotunda of the United States Capitol to include a likeness of Sojourner Truth.”  Also, download and sign the online petition to accomplish this end.

Trbovich To Be Canadian Communications Director
Canadian labor journalist Bill Trbovich will replace retiring Canadian IAM Communications Director Neville Hamilton. Trbovich began his career in journalism in his hometown of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario in 1973. He worked in radio and television in North Bay, Peterborough and Kitchener, Ontario before moving into public affairs with De Havilland Aircraft in 1982.

He returned to broadcasting with CBC Radio in Toronto in 1983. In fall of 1984 he joined the Global Television Network where he spent 15 years as the national network’s ‘Labour Specialist’. In the spring of 1999, Bill left broadcasting to take on the position of Supervisor of Public Affairs for the Ontario Public Service Employees Union.

In August 2001, he left OPSEU to develop media campaign strategies, promotional and training videos, Internet news and web site creation as well as media training services for organized labour and the aviation industry.

HPWO Partnership on Display in Oklahoma
“Saving jobs and creating jobs by helping a business grow is the goal of the IAM High Performance Work Organization (HPWO),” says GLR Jim Reid about a budding partnership between the IAM and two contractors at Vance Air Force Base in Enid, OK.

Members of IAM Local 898 and management representatives from Dyncorp and Trend Western met earlier this month to launch the HPWO’s signature program of increased participation and expanded decision making for contract workers at the base.

Nearly 900 IAM members at Vance AFB work in aircraft maintenance, service and supply areas of the base. “This is good news for Vance Air Force Base, Enid and the work force,” said DBR Jerry McCune. 

Improved efficiency and better labor-management relations at the base could be important factors as government officials weigh candidates for the next round of base closures, scheduled for 2005. Click http://www.goiam.org/visit.asp?n=93 for more information about HPWO partnerships.

U.S. Companies Prime GOTV Efforts
Big Business is taking a page out of the union playbook as they begin a push to register employees to vote and are ready to establish get-out-the-vote efforts come election time. The thinking is that employees will probably vote for a candidate the company favors. The Washington Post reports that  99 of the 150 companies in the Business Roundtable are participating in a voter registration program.

While the voter registration drives are supposedly non-partisan, Republican leaders expect the voters signed up in the registration drives to be pro-business and therefore vote Republican. Union members have long been counted on to contribute the lions share of support for get-out-the-vote efforts for worker-friendly candidates — more often than not Democrats.