labor Views

OCTOBER LABOR VIEWS

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

Barry McCallum 30 yrs.

Michael Bailey 20 yrs.

Congratulations!

At the October 11 Union meeting, a by-law committee will be selected to address any proposed by-law changes. Anyone who is interested in serving on that committee should plan on attending the October meeting.

At this time the Union is in the process of polling senior members for the NSSF job at the sub base. If any senior member wanted to take a position at the sub base, this was the time to make that request.

INSURANCE: Open enrollment for insurance is October 29 – November 16. If any changes need to be made, you can go to www.gdbenefits.com OR make those changes at the Electric Boat benefits office. Changes to insurance because of marriage, birth of a child, or a divorce can be made ANY time of the year, however, if you need to add or delete coverage for other reasons, that can only be done during this window of time.

ROAD JOBS: A number of new members have asked to be added to the road job list. During each new hire’s orientation, I informed each person that they were only eligible to go on a road job after their probationary period ended. Therefore, after your probationary period ends, inform your steward if you’d like to be added to the road job list, and your name will be added. For other members who have offered to go on road jobs, check the list on the bulletin boards to ensure that your name is there. If it is not, please let me know.

The Union has been informed that our work load looks relatively stable until September 2008. Other than work in our shipyard, we will also have work at the sub base. Members will be chosen to work at the sub base based on their overtime hours. People who accumulate “no show” hours may not be selected to work at the sub base because they may have too many overtime hours to be chosen. Our department will also be asked to support road work in Portsmouth Shipyard from December 2007 to January 2008. Another road job will be available at Norfolk Shipyard from December 2007 to September 2008, and work will be available at Puget Shipyard from January 2008 to April 2008. People will be chosen for this work based on the road job list. I realize that some of our members had concerns and various problems in the past on road jobs, and the MTC has addressed these problems with the Company. The Company has said they are willing to listen and try to correct those problems. Our future looks better than it did a few months ago because we were looking at lay-offs in our department in November 2007.