United States Labor News
To remain a strong organization, we need to communicate with each other, and this web site will help us to share news and stay connected to our union brothers and sisters. E-mail dsvetlick@ibew728.org if there is anything you'd like to add to the newsletter. The following are some of the news items that are happening at Local 728:
Need voters info or absentee ballots?
John F. Ranken Memorial Scholarship
FECE JATC Proposed Training Survey
82nd Anniversary Picnic Photos
Training
Requirements to Receive your September 1, 2008 pay raise
Nominations for Officers
Watch the Lou
Dobbs Tonight Show
Apprenticeship and Journeyman Training
As a new feature of our Web site, we are partnering with LabourStart to provide the five most recent labor-related headlines. The headlines are related to trade unions and are updated about every 15 minutes, 7 days a week.
USPS Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive
May 10 is the National Association of Letter Carrier’s “Stamp Out Hunger” food drive. Here’s what you can do to help: Put nonperishable food items in a bag by your mailbox on May 10. Your letter carrier will pick up the food when your mail is delivered. Click to learn more.
Join us on Saturday May 17 for this exciting day of fun in the sun. Volunteers will help paint, mulch, clean up trash, sort food and re-arrange closets/storage areas at different projects throughout Palm Beach County. Following the projects, volunteers will celebrate at John Prince Park – Smythe Pavilion with a picnic, music and prizes, and lots of food! Click to learn more.
Need voters info or absentee ballots?
The Supervisor of Elections of Broward and West Palm Beach is chock full of information regarding voters registration, absentee ballots, early voting and regular voting times, dates and locations. Click the following links for the elections office in your county. Supervisor of Elections for Broward or Supervisor of Elections for Palm Beach
John F. Ranken Memorial Scholarship
Local Union 728 invites your applications for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers John F. Ranken Memorial Scholarship. Applicants must be members or dependents of members of Local Union 728. Students must be degree seeking, full or part time and have a minimum GPA of 2.5. Students must be planning to attend a community college in Florida. Contact the Union Hall for applications.
FECE JATC Proposed Training Survey
The Florida East Coast Electrical JATC is
currently assessing the demand for journeyman training courses. This survey
provides a list of courses we can make available to the membership, if we
determine an interest exists. Please complete the survey and return the
survey by mail, fax or in person to the JATC by February 28, 2008. We
ask that you look at the course length before selecting a course since many of
the proposed classes will require a large commitment of your time. All lab
portions of the classes will be help in West Palm Beach.
Click here
to view/print the survey.
82nd Anniversary Picnic Photos
This year’s picnic was held Saturday, December 8, 2007, at our JATC grounds. There were carnival rides, great food, drink and entertainment. Click here to view photos.
Training Requirements to Receive your September 1, 2008 pay raise
If you DO NOT have a current Journeyman Wiremans
license you are required to complete ten hours of approved continuing education
to receive your September 1, 2008 pay raise. These classes are provided by the
JATC and are open to ALL Journeyman. Simply fill out the registration form and
return it to the JATC no later than February 23, 2008. Class sizes are limited.
Click here to
view/print the letter.
Nomination of IBEW Local Union 728 Officers will be held at the May 2008 General meeting in Ft. Lauderdale. Under Election Notice: Nominations for officers will be held Monday May 5th, 2008 at 8:00 p.m. at the local meeting hall located at 201 S.E. 24th St. in Ft. Lauderdale. Anyone who desires to be nominated must be present or provide a written and signed statement that they will accept the nomination. No member may be candidate for more than one office. Anyone nominated for than one office must choose the office for which they will run. Nominations will preceed in the order listed in the IBEW Constitution: President, Vice President, Recording Secretary-Treasurer, Financial Secretary, Business Manager, Executive Board ( Five elected members plus President and Vice President) and term of office will be three years. In order to be nominated a member must have a minimum of two years continuous good standing (current in their payment of dues and has been for the two years preceeding the nominations) in Local 728.Apprentices cannot be nominated. Election of officeFoodrs shall take place between 12 noon and 8:30 p.m. on Monday June 2, 2008 at the local union meeting halls in both Ft. Lauderdale (address above) and Palm Beach (4620 Summit Boulevard West Palm Beach). See "About Us" on this website for directions. Absentee ballots shall be available to any member upon written request to the Election Judge. Such requests will be accepted up to five days prior to the date of the election. Anyone receiving an absentee ballot will not be allowed to vote at the polls without first returning the unused ballot and the envelope used in the mailing to the election judge. Absentee ballots received at the post office box after 3 p.m. on June 2nd 2008 will not be counted. You must attend to be nominated.
Watch the Lou Dobbs Tonight Show
Our Business Agent recommends you watch the Lou Dobbs Tonight show nightly at 6 p.m. on CNN. Dobbs received The Man of the Year Award from The Organization for the Rights of American Workers and the George J. Kourpias Excellence in Journalism Award from the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers for his contributions to the national debate on jobs, global trade and outsourcing. See http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/lou.dobbs.tonight/ for more information.
Congratulations to our retiring members and thank you for your years of dedicated service. Please be sure to visit or new Retirees page in honor of their hard work and dedication.
Let's take a moment to remember our brothers who recently have passed away. Visit our Memorial Wall to see the dedications and honor those we worked with, laughed with, and loved.
Recently we posted an article about the need for urgent action to stop a serious attack on working families---the assault on the ergonomics standard in the U.S. Congress.
In an undemocratic move, the vote was added to the congressional calendar at the last minute in an atmosphere of intense lobbying by Big Business. Although Union members sent over 20,000 messages to members of Congress, they were drowned out by the call for a political payback by Big Business interest groups opposed to worker safety laws. After just 11 hours of debate, more than ten years of work was voted down by close votes in the House and Senate.
The fight to protect workers on the job continues. Right now you can see how your representatives and senators voted and send a message telling them thanks or no-thanks for their vote on the ergonomics standard this week by clicking on the link below.
http://www.aflcio.org/vrecord/vr_interim.htm
Find out more about working family issues and BushWatch by reading this newsletter or joining the e-Activist Network. Our voices were loud---but they need to be louder. Anybody can join the e-Activist Network by clicking on the this link:
http://www.aflcio.org/activists/signup.htm
Apprenticeship and Journeyman Training
Apprenticeship and Journeyman Training is the backbone of our union. Our contractors’ ability to supply their customers with a highly skilled productive work force with a can-do attitude is what we’re all about.
A recent National JATC survey asked 22,855 registered apprentices the following question: "How did you find out about the Apprenticeship Program?" 36.8% responded a family member, and 31.4% responded a friend. The clear lesson learned here is that despite all of our other recruiting activities 68% of our indentured apprentices learned of a lifetime opportunity by word-of-mouth.
Our local apprenticeship program’s deadline for applications is May 1. Obviously, the more completed applications we receive the more selectivity our committee may exercise, and subsequently a better pool of apprentices is indentured.
We request that you personally take the time to help us help ourselves. Get the word out to qualified relatives, friends, or neighbors about apprenticeship opportunities with the IBEW/NECA training programs in the electrical industry. Just tell them to call the Hall and we will take it from there.
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