Membership Meeting Notice

OPENING STATEMENTS from the UE and the GE will be given on Tuesday, May 20th to kick off negotiations. Following that event, the Union and the Company will meet for four weeks concluding on June 15th if an agreement can be reached. June 17th has been tentatively set for the Conference Board to then meet and vote whether or not to recommend the offer to the Membership.

RALLIES - Aside from our May 17th Rally, the IUE will be holding two national rallies, one, hosted by Local 201, on June 7th in Lynn, Ma and one in Louisville on May 17th, unfortunately the same date as our rally. The CBC is looking at technical ways to tie the two May 17th rallies together. There will be a discussion on sending Local 506 delegates to the out of town rallies during the April 24th Membership Meetings.

The UE-GE CONFERENCE BOARD met in Pittsburgh on March 28th to finalize the UE Contract Goals and to coordinate plans for negotiations. Delegates attending for Local 506 were: Frank Fusco, Mike Jelinek, Jim Jaroski, Larry Pietrasiewicz, Wayne Burnett, Don Kosobucki, Roger Zaczyk, Dave Kitchen and Pat Rafferty.

OFFICERS MEET WITH CEO - On Friday April 4th the officers along with President-elect Frank Fusco met with GE’s Chief Officer, Jeffrey Immelt, in Building 50. With Negotiations coming up a good portion of the 40 minute meeting centered on the cost of providing health care and who should bear the burden of increases. Along with talking about the Company’s ability and responsibility to continue to provide coverage, we talked about the political side of the issue as well. Both parties aired other Contract Negotiation concerns and expectations involving pensions and other benefits, wages and job and income security.

During the meeting the CEO answered questions about the GE Corporation and specifically the Transportation Business. Several times during the course of that discussion, he stated that he liked our Erie-based business.

COMMUNICATIONS will be handled as in the past primarily through a network comprised of Chief Stewards, Stewards and some Member-Volunteers. We heard a lot of good comments during the 2000 Contract Negotiations about the leaflet distributions and the website info that was available (see Dale Stubenhofer’s article on page 7), so we intend on making the most of those resources again this year.

Grievance activity this year stands at 47 cases compared to 26 cases during the same time period last year. Here are the highlights of several of those cases:

-From Building 6 a grievance was filed over the company purchasing wire we can make here - all while there were temporary layoffs in the area.

-Short staffing in the trades groups causing the farmout of certain trades work prompted a grievance.

-From Building12, a grievance over the company purchasing some shafts which we make here. Even though this did not cause a reduction in headcount the Union was not given proper notification.

-In several areas of the plant, the Union has grieved the company’s failure to supply parts to incentive workers in a timely manner.

-A ridiculous requirement to use your SSO and password to access drawing retrieval systems in the plant has been met with much skepticism because the SSO and password are the same as those used to access your benefits.

Sixty cases were heard at Step 3 in March. Most of the cases were centered on the Article 23 language as it relates to the Central Maintenance. The Union argued the language is not being followed as far as proper notification. A meeting has been set up locally to address this concern.

In another matter, we have asked the Chief Stewards to attempt getting Stewards and Alternates elected to fill any vacancies in the departments. Going into contract negotiations we need the information network to be the best it can be. This contract appears to be headed for some rough times. The issues of health care and job security may very well be areas in negotiations that cannot be, is vital. If there is currently no Steward in your area or Alternate consider running.

The officers met recently with the GE Chairman, Jeff Immelt. Part of the meeting was spent talking about the issue of health care, both sides laying out their concerns and offering assurances to work hard to reach a settlement. We were also assured, by the Chairman, that GE likes the locomotive business and will continue to be a strong presence in the market and here in Erie.

Keep May 17^th open for your attendance at our Contract Rally to be held at the Gannon Hammermill Center. We need an extra effort to bring our attendance up to the maximum. No matter what specific area of the contract you are interested, your participation is a necessity. Other rallies by other CBC Unions are in the planning stages and we will be getting more information out on these as soon as it becomes available.

MAY 17th SET FOR ERIE CONTRACT RALLY

The 2003 Contract Rally Committee has been meeting on Tuesdays at 3 P.M. busily planning another one of our world famous Rallies. We are having it on Saturday, May 17 at Gannon’s Hammermill Center to kick off the start of the National Contract Negotiations, so be sure to mark your calendars. There will be local and national speakers, entertainment by nationally known Union Activist and Singer, Anne Feeney. Afterwards, there will be a short solidarity march followed by a memorial service to honor fallen picketer, Michelle Rodgers, who tragically lost her life while on picket duty during our National Strike this past January. A picnic will follow serving hot dogs, hamburgers, salads, soft drinks and dessert, more music and entertainment will fill out the afternoon. Make plans to attend, this is an important, but simple and fun way to show G.E. our unity and solidarity and the first step to winning a fair Contract.

There’s an old saying "it’s what we’ve done that makes us who we are". Often it’s what we know that helps us decide what we do. Experience teaches us that lack of knowledge can be a dangerous thing. So let me get to the point.

Over the last few weeks we’ve seen the company put out articles on pensions and health care. If we accept what GE’s self-interviews are trying to tell us we don’t need to ask for much in the coming contract. We should be overjoyed to "equitable cost sharing" on health care I’ve been wondering when they’re going to talk about "equitable profit sharing", since the last report released has GE’s profit per employee going up to over $44,900.

Our objective is to make as much information available as possible to UE members. A great deal of effort goes into this, especially at Contract time, because it has a huge effect on our livelihoods. It’s important that you keep informed and participate to make an impact.

The UE will be putting out a lot of information on the local and national level. Much of it will be on paper, passed out in the shop but I want to explain what’s available 24 hours a day, seven days a week on the Internet. It’s like having a newspaper that changes every hour and has access to every nook and cranny.

The main sources for UE members are the Local 506 web site at http://www.erie.net/~uelocal/ and an alternate site at http://users.adelphia.net/~uelocal506/ on our local site we have unemployment info, holiday schedule, Erie Rally info, links to government pages on social security and consumer issues.

The UE National web site is at http://www.ranknfile-ue.org/

When you get there you will find links to the contract schedule of events, the political issues that affect you, veterans issues, what other UE Locals are doing, just to mention a few. The entire Contract 2000 archives are still available there. There are links to at least five articles on the recent two-day strike over health care cost shifting. The CBC, the organization of thirteen unions about to begin negotiations with GE, has a web site at http://www.geworkersunited.org/ From this site there are links to dozens of places like Executive Pay Watch, bargaining, pension issues, and on and on. The amount of data out there is really beyond comprehension. And when looking for something you’re having trouble with, try a search engine. Personally, I like google.com    Type the words you want to search for, click the search button and you generally get more than you can use. Sorting it out can take some time, but if you’re specific enough with your search words you can narrow it down.

We aren’t assuming everyone has a computer and Internet access. But it’s plain, from what we see and hear that there’s a whole lot more members online now than there was just a few short years ago. Please make use of every piece of information that comes your way by sharing it. Whether it’s our Local 506, the UE National or CBC outlet go to the web sites, see what’s there, and print it out and talk to your fellow workers about it. And do it often because things are added all the time. If we are all informed, it makes us that much stronger.

ODDS AND ENDS

TREASURER

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