FEBRUARY 2010 LABORS’ VIEWS 

New seniority lists are out.  If anyone would like to see it,  please ask your area steward.

The only change on the January seniority list will be that the first round of carpenters who were laid off on January 29 will be taken off of the list.  There was a total of 40 carpenters who were laid off, and also six carpenters already have left the company. 

Overtime was zeroed out in January.  It is important that I remind carpenters you need to keep up your qualifications because it could affect you when people with special qualifications are needed to work overtime.  If you let yours expire, you will miss the opportunity to work overtime.  There may be road jobs which require certain qualifications and if you let yours lapse, you also will miss the opportunity to work on a road job.  Periodically, we are given a handout detailing which qualifications each of us has trained for.  It is important to look that over carefully and make sure that it is accurate.  We continue to have no-shows on the weekend.  Overtime has been substantially reduced, so not everyone is given the opportunity to come in.  Those individuals who “no-show” are taking work opportunities from other carpenters who may need the extra money.  Please, if you are asked to come in, make sure that you do.

If you leave early on Friday, and you haven’t been given a job assignment even though you have polled to work the weekend, you need to call at the end of the day to find out if you were added to the overtime list.  If you have been added on, and you don’t show up to work, you will be charged refusal hours. 

There are 21 carpenters who are working in Puget until Feb. 19.  Our department does not have much work scheduled this year on the road.  We are hoping that some road work will come in in the near future because our work load in our department is slow.  The road job lists have been updated, and they are posted on the bulletin boards.  If there are any questions concerning the road job lists, please contact me or your area steward. 

The Company may have 110 job opportunities in the MDA.  For those of you who are getting laid off and may be interested, you will need to watch for the posting on the EB website www.gdeb.com.  

We are told that we got the work dismantling some of the mock-ups in 16J.  The model in which we do our safety training is not scheduled to be dismantled.  We will continue to do our safety training there.  I was told that some of the work may start in March.  We also still have some of our carpenters working with Yankee Remodeling which is a big help in these lean times.