APRIL 2009 LABORS’ VIEWS 

Service awards to members of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America for the month of April were presented to: 

Alan Lisee                    35 yrs.

Jay Lopriore                 30 yrs.

Sidney Petrie                30 yrs.

Paul Vine                      30 yrs.

Congratulations!

It is with great sadness that I write of our brother, John Morich’s recent death.  How  tragic to lose someone at such a young age.  John was well-liked by his co-workers, and he had such potential in life!  We extend our deepest sympathy to John’s family, and we are reminded that life is short, and each of us should appreciate our health and protect it as best we can. 

Fred Pierce, Jr., has asked me to express his sentiments to the members of our Union.

He extends “Much appreciation to my friends for their consideration and thoughtfulness in the loss of my father.” 

John  Garton, Jr., has also asked me tell the membership how much he appreciated the thoughtfulness extended to him when his father recently passed away.

I would like to welcome back our 37 brothers and sisters who volunteered for the furlough.  I want to thank them and so do our members who are less senior (and would have been forced to take the layoff.).   I’m sure that some of them would have faced financial hardship if their fellow Union members had not graciously given up their positions.  It is good to know that these people had a job to come back to.  My favorite saying is, “I think that we all need to realize how fortunate we are to have a job and benefits in this bad economy.” 

There have been a lot of people asking about this year’s Christmas shutdown.  An agreement between the MTC and Company has been reached.  It will be charged the same way this year as it was last year.  You will use all unused vacation time and any floaters you may have left (because you lose them at the end of the year anyway), and for the rest of the time, you will be excused. 

Our department has everyone back from road jobs.  As of now, we do not have any scheduled road work for the rest of 2009.  That is not to say that something won’t come up.  If this happens, we will be using the current polling list.  An updated list was posted on all bulletin boards.  If anyone has any questions about this list, please let me know. 

The Company has new family leave forms out.  There are four different forms.  One is for employee use, another is for family members who qualify for family leave, and two different forms are available for military family leave.  If anyone needs one of these forms, please ask your area steward. 

Last month the NAVSEA Team toured the shipyard, 16J training, and SSN780.  In all areas we really demonstrated our commitment to safety. Some of the comments from the NAVSEA team were that they “had not seen safer staging at any other shipyard and 16J training was the most inspiring and innovative training they had seen anywhere!”  Sometimes it’s good to hear comments like this so that we have some idea of how we compare with other shipyards.  I believe that after awhile, we tend to take things for granted, and it takes someone from outside EB to point out how far along we have come where safety is concerned.  I would like to congratulate all instructors in the 16J training and especially our staging people who are highly qualified.      

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