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Directing Business Representative

Marion "Bud" Duryea

21 July 2006 

It has been a busy year so far and there is a lot to be accomplished before this year is out. 

We were very busy with preparing for the NewTec negotiations and negotiated a fair contract for the NewTec employees.  The Negotiating Committee and I had been meeting on a regular basis in preparation for negotiations in June.  Many thanks to all that were involved and the many hours of dedication that they put into getting this contract and thanks to all our brothers and sisters at NewTec for their help.  I know what they gave up, and the hard hours of work they put in, to accomplish this task.  Again many, many thanks for the outstanding job and tireless dedication. 

We went to Clovis and did a meeting with our brothers and sisters from Melrose and Cannon, and had a great turn out from both units.  It was great to spend the time with everyone in the eastern part of New Mexico, and look forward to the next meeting.  The E board is going up again the 5th of August to do another meeting with our Brothers and Sisters from Clovis.

In February, Marie Box came in and helped us by providing Steward, Negotiator, and Officer training.  We had a great attendance and as usual she did a fantastic job.  Thank you, to all who attended the training and to Marie for traveling here to conduct the classes.  We all learn a lot in these classes.  Pete Garcia is now our Educator and is ready to start instructing these classes.  You will be hearing from him as to dates and times in the near future.

We just found out the beginning of the March that we will be getting two new contractors at the Johnson Space Center in Las Cruces.  Honeywell and their sub-contractors are out and Jacobs Sverdrup and EASI Company will be the two new Contractors.  The change over has gone pretty smooth and all of our brothers and sisters were picked up.  We look forward to working with the new contractors and hope our relationship will be a good one.  Since NASA split the contract in two, we have elected a new Chief Steward for the FOSC side of the contract and that is Victor Mesa.  Victor along with Pete Garcia on the other side of the contract are doing a great job as the Chief Stewards.

In the middle of July we negotiated a national contract with Yulista in Kansas City.  For those of you that don’t know, Yulista is the PMEL Lab contract at Cannon AFB.  We had eight different site around the country and negotiated one master agreement.  We received a contract that was ratified by the Membership on 18 July of this year.  Thanks to the hard work of their Negotiating Committee and the long hours of negotiating put in by their representative in Kansas City.

The Technical side of the NASA Contract has elected their negotiators for the upcoming negotiations with Jacobs Sverdrup in the November time frame and there is a lot of work ahead to get ready for these negotiations.  Committee help will be greatly appreciated.

 5 December 2005 

It is the time of year that we all look forward to a little down and spending the Holidays with the most important people in our lives, our families.  Before I go any farther, I would like to wish each and everyone of you and your families a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.  Enjoy your time off, whatever it might be and return to us safe after the holidays. 

It seems to always stay busy at my level.  I also know that many of you have been working some long hours (a lot of overtime).  I am very proud to say that we have two new groups that we have negotiated a first contract with and would very much like to welcome them into our Union and our Local.  They are CBD Training at Holloman AFB, and DynCorp International at Biggs Army Airfield in El Paso.  CBD Training does the flight Simulator instruction at Holloman and DynCorp is a C-12 Unit in El Paso.  Again welcome to each and everyone on these two contracts.  We are glad to have you. 

In September I traveled to the Western Territory Staff Conference and the big issue was organizing.  If you don’t already know, we are all organizers and the more contracts we encourage and are successful in making a Union Shop, the better off they are and us alike.  Again in October, the Local Lodge President (David VanHorn), the head of our Organizing Committee (Randy Rodriquez) and myself traveled to Chicago for a Union wide Organizing Summit.  Again, we talked as a Union and set in motion plans to organize and grow our Union.  Again it was stressed that we are all Organizers and we all need to do whatever we can to organize and grow our Union and our Local.  Any leads that you may have or ideas that you think are good to organize, please let me know and we will check it out and hopefully gain some new members. 

The Local Lodge elections are coming up on the 13th of December, so please take the time and drop by the Union Hall in Alamogordo to vote.   The polls will be open all day until 7PM.  Your vote counts, so please take the time to cast your ballot. 

The Negotiating Committee to New Tec continues to prepare for their upcoming Negotiations with the Company this coming year.  You can look forward to getting Negotiators elected in several other contracts this next year in preparation for negotiations throughout this next year.

 I continue to look forward to working with and for you each and every day.  Your support and willingness to help your fellow brothers and sisters is evident on a daily basis.  Continue to get involved in whatever way you can and together we will grow and be more of a force in the labor world. 

 

25 February 2005 

Our latest Organizing success is a DynCorp C-12 outfit at Biggs Army Airfield in El Paso.  This is with DynCorp International and received voluntary recognition on 24 January 2005.  We welcome these 6 new members into our Union.  We will be in the process over the next couple of months negotiating a contract.

 

14 February 2005 

Another busy year for our Local in many ways.  In 2004 we again negotiated the DynCorp Negotiations that went well in June and then had to endure layoffs in the December 2004 and January 2005, due to the retirement for the German F-4F.  We hope and pray that if future work comes to the Holloman area that we will get these Brothers and Sisters back to work.  Several relocated to other locations to work and a couple of our local contracts hired a few people.  Remember, all your Brothers and Sisters in the other contracts, if you hear of something  that you feel any of our laid off Brothers and Sisters may be qualified to work in please let us know so we can direct them your way.

 

We also conducted negotiations with EG&G at RatScat and all went well in those negotiations.  They were the last contract in Local 2515 that came into the IAM Pension fund.  We are very glad to have our Brothers and Sisters at EG&G in the Pension fund and hope it will continue to grow and work for our members.

 

In December we welcomed to our Union and Local members of The C-12 Unit located at Holloman AFB.  We are extremely happy to welcome them to our great Union and to Local Lodge 2515.  Then in late January  we received recognition for another C-12 Unit at Biggs Army Airfield.  Both are operated by what was DynCorp and we look forward to getting a Contracted to these fine Brothers and Sisters in the very near future.  

 

As usual we continue to send as many brothers and sisters as possible to the various schools offered at the WWW center and will continue to do so.  Your executive board continues to be very aware of the value of education and fully support sending as many brothers and sisters as we can each year.  If you have a desire to get involve and attend one of these schools, please let us know so we can get you on the list.

 

With the National elections being over now, I would like to thank everyone for taking the time to look at the issues and vote.  We had a higher turn out to vote than we have had in years.  Thanks you for getting out and voting.

 

We are about to enter into a HPWO Agreement with NewTec on the 16th of February.  This is an undertaking that has been in the works since early 2003.  Last summer we sent 4 Union members and 4 Management members to the WWW Center to start this process in earnest.  So far, it has worked very well and we really look forward to being involved in this process.  It is you, the members employed at NewTec that really deserve the credit for this.  It takes you to make the HPWO work and you are doing a great job in your various work groups.    

 

With your continued support, we continue to move our local and our Union forward.  It is a pleasure to work for you and represent you on a daily basis.  It is always a pleasure to talk to you and see you whenever possible.   

 

16 September 2004

 

                           Time to get the membership updated again with what has been going on since the last update.  It has been a very busy spring and summer.  We have negotiated contracts with DynCorp at Holloman and hope to ratify the EG&G contract at RatScat by the end of the month of September.  We arbitrated a case at Yulista for one of our members that the Company terminated without just cause.  We won the arbitration and he was put back to work with full back pay and benefits after being off for about 8 months.  For those of you that don’t know, Yulista is at Cannon AFB, and they work in the Precision Measurement Laboratory.

                          AhnTech at Melrose Bombing Range, which is up close to Cannon AFB are doing fine.  One of our members that works there was in a real bad accident last month and has been paralyzed from the accident.  His name is Andy Walker and any prayers and support you can give for him is greatly appreciated.  From what I’ve heard he has improved some but is still in pretty bad shape.

                         AhnTech at Holloman is another story.  We have had our share of problems here, but are trying hard to get a good working relationship with them.   

                        Honeywell at the Johnson Space Center is somewhat quite, but we have had a two  Arbitrations with Honeywell this spring and summer.  We still have not received a ruling from the Arbitrators on these cases, but we felt we had very strong cases on both issues. Things have been somewhat quite, but for the most part, the grievances are being handled at the steward level. 

                         We just negotiated a new contract with DynCorp in June and the contract is a good contract.  The bad thing is that we will be loosing the F-4 Aircraft by the end of the year.  The Germans are retiring them and unfortunately we will be loosing some members because of this.  It is never a good situation when we come down to a layoff.  Some of the members have found jobs elsewhere and on other contracts in the area.  If you hear of anything, please let us know so we can pass the word on to them.  As of right now, there is nothing coming in to replace the F-4’s that we know of.

                           We have been working with NewTec since the beginning of the year on a HPWO Agreement (High Performance Work Organization).  We, have had several meeting, did some small group exercises and gone to training at the WWW Center in Maryland.  At this point, everything is going very well in this partnership.  We will keep you updated as we progress through this process. 

                           Ron Ledesma, Sandra Carrillo and myself are heading for Cincinnati for the International Convention Saturday the 18th.  We will be putting out what took place there when we return. 

                          Again, thanks to all the members for their support and backing. 

      

 

 

DBR Web Page Update, 20 November 2003

When I first took office in January of 2000, there were numerous grievances that had been waiting to go to arbitration for extended periods of time.  The first one and one half years I spent a lot of time clearing these cases up.  When I went out to meet the membership I found out that they wanted a DBR who would respond to their needs and be there when they had questions.  By having an open line to my office and home, I feel that the members know that they can reach me at any time when they need to talk to me.  Along with your elected Stewards and Chief Stewards we have aggressively fought for your rights through the grievance process with what I feel are much better than average results.  As a team, the whole membership, your elected negotiators, myself and in some cases Grand Lodge Representatives and Aerospace Coordinators have succeeded in negotiating some of the best contracts we have seen in recent years.  We strive to educate our membership by sending more members to Union schools such as Leadership, Human Rights, HazMat, Women’s conferences and numerous other schools.  Our membership has grown over the last four years unlike many locals that have seen huge decreases.  Your unwavering support of our Union and me as your DBR has been nothing less than fantastic.  Without this support and backing, I could not have accomplished the things you as the members wanted and got. 

 

This last year has been a very busy year for a lot of us in the Local.  We started off the year electing new officers and getting ready for the NewTec Negotiations.  The new officers have jumped in with both feet and really put forth great effort to better educate the members and worked hard at making our local lodge better for everyone.  Your negotiators and I, at NewTec, Honeywell, AhnTech, and Yulista  put in a lot of time and effort getting ready for negotiations.   Your input and total support during this whole process helped us get the contracts that we negotiated  with the Company.  As soon as the NewTec Negotiations were done we were already starting with Honeywell pre-negotiations and also were in the process of doing first contract negotiations with our two new Companies, AhnTech and Yulista.  On behalf of the membership of Local Lodge 2515 we welcome everyone to our family.  AhnTech, is a Company that does bomb range work and is based at Holloman AFB and Melrose Bombing Range out of Clovis.  Yulista runs the Precision Measurement Equipment Laboratory (PMEL) located at Cannon AFB, in Clovis. We are extremely happy to have these new brothers and sisters as not only a part of our Local Lodge, but also as a part of the Machinist Union.  We elected negotiators from both of these Companies and were able to attain first Contracts for both before October of this year.  From there In October we right into negotiations with Local Lodge 392, a Fireman/Guard Unit that works the Johnson Space Center in Las Cruces. 

 

Overall the number of grievances has dropped from all the Contracts, but we continue to process all grievances and will continue to Arbitrate grievances that we cannot settle in the grievance procedure.  In between all of this I was able to attend the Aerospace Conference with the Local lodge president, Mr. VanHorn.  This is the first Aerospace Conference that we have sent anyone to since I took office.  As you can see from the president’s comments in his article, it was well worth the trip.  The information you bring away from this type of Conference is nothing less than great.  Having the ability to send several members to these conferences is very educational and very beneficial for all of us.

 

The Educator, Communicator, and the two individuals who keep our Web Page up and running have done a great job in their areas.  These are all fairly new to our local over the last few years and they have proven to be great assets for our Union and our Local Lodge.   Their efforts in these areas have benefited all of us as members in more ways than you could imagine.

 

We must continue to ORGANIZE, ORGANIZE, ORGANIZE.  Anyone knowing of a new contact on or off the bases please let us know.  Let’s help these people make a better living for themselves, by making them Union members.  Let them know some of the benefits you have received since you became a Union member.   

 

As for what I envision this local will do over the next four years.  I believe we will continue to see needed growth in our Local.  We are continually striving to educate as many of our brothers and sisters through all means available to us.  My desire is to continue to send as many members as we can, to all the schools and classes that are available to us.  I have and will continue to request and hopefully get two to three more slots in the Leadership classes than we normally get each year.  The better educated our members are, the stronger we are.  I have set up Organizing and Collective Bargaining Classes for anyone desiring to participate on 6 December here in the immediate area.  With the help of our membership, we can organize more units throughout Southern New Mexico and continue to have more of a say in our working and living conditions.  I myself cannot do any of the things our members want for our Union and Local Lodge without the help of the membership.  Brothers and Sisters, you are the backbone of this Union and are the ones who should envision what will happen in our Local Lodge and Union over the next four years.  I cannot accomplish anything without you and your support, but together we can accomplish whatever goals we, as brothers and sisters in our Union may set.  Every day I look forward to serving you and making our Union stronger and grow larger.  The numerous schools and classes I have attended over the last few years have enabled me to work hard for you and aid in achieving your goals as a membership.  Together, brothers and sisters we can set and accomplish realistic and attainable goals to benefit everyone.

 

As always, I very much enjoy seeing you whenever possible at your work sites.   Thank you for allowing me to serve you and fight for your negotiated rights.

 

Bud Duryea

Directing Business Representative

Local Lodge 2515