Observations #3
June 2000

All I ask from our union leaders is honesty, fairness and the respect that I feel we deserve. Since we're not going to get it, I will continue to write these letters to expose their self-centered egotistically selfish behavior. Waste of time or not, someone has to do it and I have the time.

In my letters I've written about issues I hear people talking about in little groups here and there. We need to organize all these little groups and it looks like we're headed in the right direction, more on that in a second. I haven't written about anything you didn't already know and I didn't make anything up. I've tried to be as true and accurate as possible based on what I've seen and heard with the hope of shaming our officials into doing what's right, but I guess I've set my sites too high. Oh well, I'll hang in there and see how it plays out.

Nepotism, the word that got everyone's attention and also put a certain young lady in the spotlight. Hats off and a big HIP, HIP HORRAY for Thomasine Parrott, she should be congratulated for her courage, perseverance and effort at getting one third of the membership to sign her petition. Now that's organized or at least a start. Lets hope the international does something with it besides making little boats and airplanes. That's why we need to continue calling Jim Beardsley or Don Douglas at 313-926-5000 until we get a response. If you want to be a participant, make the call and even if youÕve signed, call, because we're not out of the woods yet. If we're to get the international involved we have to be persistent by keeping local 239 the thorn in their side. Lets keep the ball rolling.

At the last union meeting way back in March, we were distracted by a bogus strike vote. The union meeting on June 11th looks to be shaping up pretty much the same way. Only this time weÕll be preoccupied by our schedule to work Saturday the 10th. With members working six days they don't have time to deal with union business on their day off and you can't blame them. Our union officials must be happier than pigs in shit with this development, because that means another union meeting with low turnout. Whether this was scheduled on purpose or not is anybody's guess. I think what we can say for certain is that this is just the way our leadership likes it, low turnout means less questions with bullshit answers. It'd be a shock to our officials if just a third of the membership attended to show solidarity for the petition and demand the international get involved.

I'm beginning to think our boy is made of Teflon; nothing seems to stick to him, everything works in his favor and he could care less what we think. He pissed everybody off with his appointments to Allison and shortly there after we thought we'd get some answers or at least his take on things at the state of the business meeting, not. He avoided us by being a no-show, talk about disrespect. He does ten unscrupulous things between the three-month meetings and only answers to maybe two of them. That's pretty good odds, it's no wonder he likes quarterly meetings. He still comes out smelling like a rose. Speaking of odds, what are the current odds of him being a no-show at the meeting on the 11th?

I'm going to continue keeping these issues at the forefront and not let up until he retires, resigns, is impeached or they close the doors. Preferably impeached so we can cancel all his appointments and put respect and pride back in being a union member. Something should be done regardless of the future of the plant. The bottom line is keep calling the international to demand they get involved. Thank you.

Sincerely, a Disgruntled Member