State of the Union August 20, 2010

August 20, 2010 online at www.uawlocal2250.com

The Women’s Committee is still accepting teams for the golf tournament Saturday, Aug. 28. This is a three person scramble with a 1:30 pm shotgun start at Bear Creek golf course in Wentzville. Cost is $70 per player/$210 per team. Entry forms available at the entrances.

With the announcement of GM’s filing of Form S-1with the SEC, there are certain rules employees must abide by. From GM CFO Chris Liddell: “Now that GM has filed the S-1, the company and our employees are subject to specific SEC regulations, which prohibit us from referencing the IPO through written communications. While we can continue to discuss our business as we always have internally and externally, any written communications, including emails to outside parties regarding the IPO, are prohibited. Because the SEC broadly defines ‘written communications’ to include events where verbal conversations may subsequently be published, the safest course is to refrain from discussion about an IPO in any context. Consequences to GM for violating the SEC regulations can be severe – up to and including delaying the IPO indefinitely”

Recent reports from the government and Toyota are indicating that data from the “black boxes” of wrecked Toyotas show driver error to be the culprit. However, these bold proclamations based on this data stand in contrast to Toyota’s own assessment of these data recorders (EDRs) just a couple of years ago. In a court filing from 2008, Toyota said, “The data retrieved from the EDR is far from reliable. The EDR was not intended to be used a reconstruction tool in the field. It has not been validated as a reliable reconstruction tool or crash data recorder for crash events in the field." In 2007, a driver was killed when he hit a tree after running off of a rural road in his new Tundra. The man’s family, with the help of a US Senator, finally got Toyota to read the data on the EDR. The data indicated the truck had been going 177 mph when it hit the tree, much faster than what the pickup possibly could go, safety experts said. Yet a separate reading from the recorder put the speed at 75 mph before impact. And in a Q & A on its own website, Toyota claimed that he tool for reading the data has not been "scientifically validated," adding, “At this time, Toyota does not have confidence that the readout reports it generates are accurate”.
Important Safety message from UAW Leadership on back:


An Important Safety Message from Your UAW Leadership

Safety awareness is learned, not instinctive. We are taught how to perform work, and this education comes as a result of our UAW brothers and sisters who sacrificed and fought for a higher standard and greater protection of workers.
UAW members have rights to information and receive jointly developed health and safety training on key issues like chemical hazards, lockout, powered industrial vehicles and ergonomics, and the negotiated programs to control these hazards. Hourly workers and management counterparts typically deliver this training.
The UAW believes the best way to prevent injuries and illness on the job is to provide workers with information about hazards and procedures to get these hazards corrected. An educated, empowered worker who has the right to act on what he or she knows is the best line of defense against workplace hazards.

We focus on the principle of “fix the work, not the worker.” That means reducing indoor pollution instead of handing out respirators; reducing the use of toxic chemicals instead of treating people after they get sick, and changing the design of jobs to eliminate strains, sprains and heavy lifting instead of passing out back braces. We learn through various means. Some learn by doing, others by observation, and some by reading. Others learn by their mistakes or the mistakes of others; this is one reason we post and talk about near misses and injuries on a daily basis.
If you observe a hazard, report it. Notify your Team Leader, Group Leader, or contact your UAW Health & Safety representatives Bob Boatwright or Rich Jollenbeck. When it comes to safety there is no compromise. Safety is our value and you should “Speak Up for Safety.”

It is not okay for anyone to get injured on the job. Too many of our brothers and sisters have given their lives, or sustained life-changing injuries to teach the rest of us how to avoid similar injuries. We can never relax when it comes to safety. It is our goal to ensure that each and every employee leaves work at the end of the day exactly the same as they were when they reported to work.