First Ever UE 506 ATV Roundup
When: August 15th, 16th and 17th
Where: Tall Pines ATV Park Andover NY
812 Jones Road Andover, NY 14806 (716.474.7660) http://www.tallpinesatvpark.com/
Who: All UE506 Members & Family and Friends
Fees and Facts:
$30 Weekend pass for rider $20 additional per passenger
Includes primitive camping (no water or electric available), over 55 miles of trails, Chicken BBQ dinner Saturday.
OR
$20 Saturday only pass per rider $10 per passenger
Includes camping and dinner on Saturday
(Dinner can be purchased for non-riding guests for $5)
*****Limited to the first 100 paid applicants*****
-Hotels, groceries and fuel less than 10 minutes away
-Waivers need to be signed prior to arrival (Unrelated riders under 18 must have notarized waiver)
-Insurance and registration recommended but not required ***Helmets are required***
See code of ethics on back
-Fill out applications at UE506 union hall 3923 Main Street Erie, Pa 16511
Make checks payable to UE506 Sports Committee
-Entries close August 11th 2014 at 4 p.m.
UTV’s, ATV’s, Dirt bikes, & Side-by-sides Accepted-NO Three Wheelers will be allowed-
Questions??? Call Matt McCracken 814-824-0148
Informational meetings scheduled for former GE Transportation workers
Two informational meetings have been scheduled for laid-off union workers at GE Transportation to learn more about their benefits under Trade Adjustment Assistance.
Local 506 of the United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America at GE Transportation learned last week that the Labor Department had granted its petition for TAA status. That means laid-off workers will be eligible for extended unemployment pay, health care, money for retraining and relocation benefits.
Affected workers will be able to learn more about those benefits at meetings scheduled for 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. June 20 at the UE 506 building at 3923 Main St., Lawrence Park.
Scott Duke, president of the local union, said he’s heard from a lot of employees who are facing the end of their unemployment benefits.
Department of Labor Grants TAA Benefits to Hundreds of Displaced Union Workers
June 5th, 2014 ERIE – The United States Department of Labor once again ruled in favor of displaced General Electric workers who lost their jobs. Today’s decision was based upon an increase in imports that reduced production in absolute terms at the Erie plant. More than 300 workers will now qualify for: extended unemployment compensation extended healthcare, worker training and relocation benefits.
“We filed on behalf our Union families because it was the right thing to do, and once again the Department of Labor has ruled in support of workers.” Said Scott Duke, President of UE Local 506. “In real dollar terms this could be worth millions of dollars of benefits to the workers who have lost jobs as wells as workers who are at risk of losing jobs as GE continues to transfer to the Fort Worth Texas facility.”
“For men and women who have suffered through the harsh unemployment conditions this is a ruling that has the potential to change their employment outlook with the offer of job training and immediately help bring some financial relief to their families.”
This is the second time in four years that the Department of Labor has granted TAA benefits to local GE workers. In 2010, the Department of Labor granted TAA benefits to approximately 1,000 laid off Workers on the grounds that the company had shifted production abroad.
Ronald A. DiNocola, UE 506’s lawyer, who successfully represented them in the 2010 and 2014 petitions, submitted substantial documentation in support of the petition which was filed in December 2013.
“We are pleased that this ruling will result in substantial financial and long-term training benefits to hundreds of Families.” Said DiNicola. “It is particularly important to note that this ruling will continue to help employees for the next two years. If GE’s projected worker layoff schedule is implemented, this ruling will mean significant financial relief for hundreds and hundreds of families.”
Today’s decision extended to all workers in significant areas of production including locomotive, locomotive kits, off highway vehicle wheels and marine products. The ruling extends benefits to anyone laid off since December of 2012 and will continue to provide benefits to anyone laid off over the next two years
2014 UE 506 Paintball – Explosion
2014 UE 506 PAINTBALL-EXPLOSION
TIME: 11:00am Start-time
WHEN: September 13th, 2014
WHERE: PENTAGON PAINTBALL, 6901 AVONIA RD.
FAIRVIEW, PA(Rt.98, Just North of I-90)
WHO: All UE506 Members & Family and Friends
(MINIMUM AGE 10)
SIGN UP: SEE YOUR CHIEF STEWARD OR SPORTS
COMMITTEE MEMBER.
ENTRY FEE: $50 PER PERSON
($50.00 Includes Protective Mask, Gun, 500 paintballs & CO2 Cartridges,
and chicken dinner after event.)
(**Additional paintballs and CO2 can be purchased at Pentagon Paintball**)
(PAINTBALLS MUST BE PURCHASED AT PENTAGON PAINTBALL)
NO AUTOMATIC FIRING WEAPONS!
CHICKEN DINNER AFTER EVENT (BYOB)
MAKE CHECKS PAYABLE TO THE UE 506 SPORTS COMMITTEE
DROP OFF APPLICATION WITH CHECKS TO THE UE506 UNION HALL LOCATED AT 3923 MAIN ST ERIE, PA.
LIMITED TO FIRST 100 PAID APPLICATIONS.
ENTRIES CLOSE FRIDAY AUGUST 29TH, 2014 AT 4:00 PM
THIS IS NOT A TOURNAMENT
WE WILL BE DOING FREEPLAY, JUST TO HAVE A GOOD TIME
NAME PHONE #
QUESTIONS? – CALL JASON TRAYER 814-504-9526
7th Annual VA Medical Center’s Welcome Home “Fore” our Veterans Golf Tournament
April, 2014
SUBJ: 7th Annual VA Medical Center’s Welcome Home “Fore” our Veterans Golf Tournament
We are planning a golf tournament at Fox Run Golf Course in Waterford, PA on Sunday, July 20, 2014 at 9:00 a.m. Registration/Check-in will be from 8:00 a.m. – 8:45 a.m.
Our plan is to use this event as a fundraiser for the Erie Veterans Affairs Medical Center’s Welcome Home Fund. The focus of our tournament will be to benefit the Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), or Operation New Dawn (OND) Veterans by providing Welcome Home Veteran Appreciation events held by the medical center. These appreciation events provide eligibility and medical center services information to all area Veterans. The OEF/OIF/OND Veterans are provided retreats along with their spouses. These weekend retreats focus on strengthening of the relationship between the Veteran and their family. Last year’s event raised $8,358 for OEF/OIF/OND Welcome Home Fund 1030.
We are again inviting you to become a sponsor in this worthwhile fundraiser. If you would like to be recognized as a sponsor for this fundraising event, make checks payable to Erie VAMC and mail to VAMC, Attention: Voluntary Office, 135 East 38th Street, Erie, PA 16504. Enclosed is a patient wish list for you to review and earmark your sponsorship (donation), if you wish to do so.
Sponsorships are available at the following levels:
PLATINUM $1000 GOLD $500 SILVER $250 BRONZE $100
Anyway that you can assist, whether it is with a donation of money, a donation of an item to assist with the event or by participating in the event, will be greatly appreciated.
If you wish to golf in the tournament, please complete the enclosed golf application, along with the entry fee, and drop off or mail to UE Local 506 Sports Committee, 3923 Main Street, Erie, PA 16511. Please make checks payable to UE Local 506 Sports Committee. This is a fun-filled community event is for our sponsors and friends of all ages and is limited to 72 golfers. For questions regarding the golf tournament, please contact Matt McCracken at 824-0148.
We thank you in advance for your consideration of this very important endeavor. We also encourage you to share this letter with businesses and organizations in your local area. Help us help our veterans.
Sincerely,
MATTHEW McCRACKEN
Erie VA Medical Center Voluntary Service Representative
Chairman, United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America – Local 506 Sports Committee
Enclosures
To assure your sponsorship, please respond to this letter by Friday, July 11, 2014.
UE 506 Bowling Tournament
UE 506 BOWLING TOURNAMENT
EASTWAY LANES / APRIL 19, 2014 / 11:00 A.M.
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TOURNAMENT RULES
1. Each event shall consist of three games bowled on one pair of lanes assigned by the tournament directors.
2. Entrants shall use their highest book average for the 2012 – 2013 Season. If the bowler’s current average of 21 games is 10 pins or higher, the current average is used.
3. If no 2012– 2013 average, the bowler’s highest current year average with a minimum of 21 games will be used.
4. Entrants who do not bowl in a league, but bowled in last year’s tournament may use that average.
5. If entrant has none of the above, then they use:
Men – 170 Women – 130
6. Handicaps will be 80% of a 210 scratch.
7. Teams may consist of both men and women.
8. No multiple awards (Example) if one wins high game they cannot win high series.
9. All UE members in good standing, past or present are eligible to bowl.
10. All prize money is based on a full 40-team complement.
11. One in four entrants will cash. 100% of prize money will be awarded.
12. The decisions by the tournament directors are final.
13. Check-in begins at 9:30 a.m., and bowling starts at 11:00a.m. sharp.
14. This is a non – sanctioned tournament.
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Learn How The Affordable Care Act Impacts Contract Negotiations
All UE members are invited to join us for the Sub-Region Training!
Learn How The Affordable Care Act Impacts Contract Negotiations
- ACA and Health Insurance Bargaining
- Guidelines for Negotiating Health Insurance
- ACA Toolkit Costing
- ACA Replacing Lost Value
- Sample Health Care Information Request
- Sample Health Care Contract Language
- ACA General Health Insurance Questionnaire
WHEN: Saturday, March 29, 2014 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
WHERE: UE Local 506 Hall 3923 Main Street Lawrence Park, PA 16511
Lunch Will Be Provided
For more information contact your Local President or Deb Gornall (Eastern Region President at 814-455-1064).
Hometown Hero’s Bowling Tournament
Click the following link for more information on the Hometown Heroes 2014 Bowling Tourney
Union Blasts GE Decision to Close Fort Edward Plant
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – NOVEMBER 21, 2013
Union Blasts GE Decision to Close Fort Edward Plant
GE today announced its “final decision” to close the Fort Edward capacitor plant, destroying 200
jobs, and moving operations to Clearwater, Florida, where it plans to pay poverty wages of $8 to
$12 an hour. This follows the company’s refusal over the weekend to extend “decision
bargaining” with the union representing Ft. Edward workers, Local 332 of the United Electrical,
Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) beyond the 60 days mandated by the UE-GE
National Contract.
Despite the union’s best efforts and 17 bargaining sessions over the past two months, the union
says it was clear that GE never intended to seriously negotiate over saving the Ft. Edward plant.
Throughout those 60 days, GE dragged its feet on providing information the union requested and
was legally entitled to; made no effort to involve its business leaders in the bargaining; and made
no proposals to save the plant. GE was just going through the motions to fulfill its legal and
contractual obligations and never seriously considered any alternative to moving to Florida.
Early last week the union made creative proposals to establish a partnership between the union,
GE, and the public to save the plant. The union proposal contained substantial sacrifices – the
loss of almost 10 percent of the union jobs in the plant which would result from modernizing and
automating – as well as $22 million dollars in government financing to keep the plant viable and
operating for the foreseeable future.
GE scoffed at this proposal and told union negotiators that it wanted more than $6 million per
year in labor cost savings in addition to what the union proposed. Based upon that statement, the
union says it was obvious that GE would accept nothing less than a wage cut of $17.88 an hour
for the 163 workers who would have been retained. “GE is extremely profitable in Ft. Edward
and elsewhere and has no justification for insisting that we work for $11.12 per hour,” said Local
332 President Scott Gates.
In Clearwater, GE intends to pay poverty wages of $12 per hour to those it hires as regular
employees and $8 per hour to contingent employees. “Working at poverty wages for this
powerful and extremely profitable corporation, GE’s Clearwater employees will undoubtedly
need to rely on public assistance, food stamps, and other social welfare programs to survive and
feed their families, even as they produce sophisticated electrical devices for a variety of
industrial applications,” said Gates. “The taxpayers of the U.S. and of Florida will once again pay to subsidize the profits of GE, a company that pays next to nothing in taxes.”
The union alleges that GE, which claims to be a good corporate citizen, intends to use public revenues and social programs to soften the blow of its aggressive campaign to slash the wages of its U.S. manufacturing workers and make even greater profits. GE calls its low-wage strategy “the competitive wage.”
“It didn’t have to end up this way,” said Gates. “Our elected officials – especially Governor Cuomo – should have played a prominent role in leading the fight to save these good-paying manufacturing jobs. Unfortunately, Governor Cuomo’s office was nowhere to be found. Despite our repeated efforts to engage him, Mr. Cuomo’s office only agreed to meet with us after the bargaining ended. During one brief phone conversation, a Cuomo staffer threw up his hands and callously told us ‘They want to move to Florida, I can’t stop them.’” Cuomo’s involvement “was much too little and too late,” said Gates.
Based on the union’s exchange with Cuomo’s office, the union believes that GE officials “poisoned the well by telling public officials in September, before bargaining even started, that its plan to move to Clearwater was a done deal.” In doing so, the union says GE’s goal was to prevent public officials from joining in a serious effort to block the move to Florida.
“We wonder whether the Cuomo administration will now also let GE out of its obligation to clean up the Hudson River,” said Gates. “The river was poisoned by GE over 30 years of dumping highly-toxic PCBs from the Ft. Edward and Hudson Falls plants, and GE spent years lying about the harm it did and evading its responsibility. Will the Governor now let GE off the hook for this deliberate environmental disaster, just as he is sitting idly by while GE shuts down a profitable plant that contributes $35 million in annual revenue to the Washington-Warren-Saratoga County area?”
On September 18, GE gave the union a one-year notice, as required by the union contract, of its intention to close Ft. Edward. The parties then began a 60-day period of “decision bargaining”, also mandated by the contract. Through delays, the company frustrated the union’s efforts to obtain information it needed to formulate a response and to propose an alternative plan to keep the plant open while increasing its efficiency and profitability.
Local 332 is today in discussions with the UE national union to develop a comprehensive plan to continue the fight to convince GE to reverse its decision and keep the Ft. Edward plant. “This fight is far from over,” says Scott Gates, the local union president.
For further information, contact Local 332 President Scott Gates at 518-496-8608 or UE Northeast Region President Peter Knowlton at 774-264-0110.
UE Local 332 Statement on the Conclusion of Bargaining with GE To Save Our Plant
UE Local 332 Statement on the Conclusion of Bargaining with GE To Save Our Plant
HUDSON FALLS, N.Y. — “It is clear to us now that GE is just going through the motions to fulfill a legal and contractual obligation and never seriously considered an alternative to moving to Clearwater Florida,” said Scott Gates, Local Union 322 President.
Union officials, clearly discouraged, frustrated, and disappointed by the negotiations process.
They say GE never put forth a proposal during the negotiation period.
“It wasn’t much of a negotiation. It takes two sides to negotiate and only one side was willing to bargain and that was the union,” said Gene Elk, UE International Representative.
Earlier this week, the union proposed a plan that would’ve cut 10% of its staff, and included securing more than $20 million in State Aid to update equipment in the plant.
They wanted an additional $6 million per year in labor cost savings, on top of the $22 million in public financing that we were offering to try and acquire for the facility.
Elk says that would’ve meant a wage cut of $17.89 an hour per employee.
Union officials expressed significant disappointment in elected officials, especially governor Cuomo. But vowing to continue their fight, they said they’ll continue to push elected officials to do what’s right.
“Even though we’re really disappointed in the Elected Officials outside of this town and we’re going to keep pushing them hard because they have an obligation to this community to do the right thing and to defend these decent factory jobs,” said Peter Knowlton, UE NE Region President.
Christine Horne, a spokesperson for GE says in a statement to YNN that the proposed closure and move to Clearwater is designed to reduce costs and help the company remain competitive, and as it stands, the union’s proposal falls well short of achieving the savings and efficiencies that would be generated by the proposed move to Clearwater. She adds that no final decision has been made by GE.
GE submitted the following statement Sunday:
This afternoon, we concluded our meetings with the union because they informed us that they did not have additional proposals to discuss.
The union’s allegations about our engagement in decision bargaining are completely unfounded. We have negotiated in good faith for 60 day and have taken the bargaining process extremely seriously.
As it stands, the union’s proposal falls well short of achieving the savings and efficiencies that would be generated by the proposed move to Clearwater. These savings and efficiencies are required to address the fact that we are losing money and to make us competitive long-term in the marketplace.
We have given the union detailed feedback on their proposal and have been specific about the cost savings needed to be generated.
We have told the union that we remain ready and willing to review alternative proposals and continue discussions at any time through tonight should they wish to contact us. The decision bargaining period ends Sunday at 11:59 p.m.
We have not made a final decision.
Upon conclusion of the bargaining period, we will take the time to thoroughly review and consider everything that’s been presented to us and discussed over the last 60 days before announcing a final decision. After we make a decision, we will notify the union and our employees first.
UE Local 506 Officers and Members Picket with Local 332 at their Rally in front of the GE Fort Edwards Plant