president's labour day message
Brothers and Sisters of IBEW local 2228,
I would like to wish everybody a happy Labour day and while I am tempted to use this opportunity to tell a story about the 'eight hour movement', I am confident that a group as tech savvy as we are can find the story told better by others online.
As this is my first Labour day as the President of our local and as I have not yet made any postings, I would like to use this opportunity to talk a bit about myself for those that do not know me yet and also to talk about what I plan to do for our Local over the next year.
When it comes to the responsibilities of a Union, two quotes come to mind:
'The test of a civilization is the way that it cares for its helpless members'
and
'The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few'
While these may seem somewhat contradictory, I see them both as priorities and as such the lenses through which our decisions need to be examined. I believe that the fundamental purpose of a union is to protect those that need protecting. We do however need to be strong in order to effectively provide such protection.
Dreaming aside, for the start of my term I want to focus on the units. For many years attendance at meetings has been declining and we have also seen the number of active units decline. The reasons for this are many but I would suggest that we can summarize the underlying challenge as follows: There is a perception among some members that there is not enough value provided by the meetings to make it worth the effort of attending these meetings.
I will accept that challenge. I will try to make some meetings more relevant for all by providing both more information and also providing an outlet so that Unit meetings can have more impact on work done by the executive board. I will also work at reducing the effort of attending some meetings by pushing for short meetings that occur at workplaces during break times and also expanding the use of remote attendance at virtual meetings. I envision that at a minimum there should be at least two meetings a year, following the Executive board meetings when there can be enough information to make a short meeting interesting for all members. To be clear , I also hope that there will be other and quite possibly longer meetings throughout the year for members who want to be more involved.
In Solidarity,
Jeff Wendt
IBEW Local 2228 President