May 14, 2013 online at www.uawlocal2250.com

Union meeting is after 2nd shift tonight and tomorrow at 7:15 am, 1 pm and 15 minutes after the longest first shift line time.

Anyone who has a Union related or special interest story to tell should submit their articles to their committee person or the Union Hall by May 23 for inclusion in a paper to be published after the Memorial Day holiday.

From the Civil Rights Committee: The 125th annual Annie Malone Parade will be Sunday, May 19 beginning at 1 pm. For those who wish to participate in the parade, we will be meeting at Behlmann Buick GMC, 820 McDonnell Blvd. at 10:30 am. We will be departing for the parade staging area no later than 10:45 am. For those wishing to help decorate the float, the staging area is located on Market Street between Compton Ave. and Jefferson Ave. at 12 noon. Remember, admittance to the staging area is by entry sticker only. There is street parking in the downtown area and near the staging area. For questions or detailed directions call Dan Williams at 314-616-2271. Mark the date and hope to see you there.

The Civil Rights Committee is raffling off a Samsung Galaxy 2 Tablet 7.0 to support the Annie Malone Parade. Tickets are $5 apiece or 3 for $10 and available from any committee member. Thanks in advance for your support.

Weekly build options: 32 E-26 vans; 1075 cutaways (34%); 587 slider doors; 466 r/h door deletes; 420 15-pass vans; 23.0% 07 loop; 145 diesels; 25 YF7s; 70 brake deck spare tire; 585 Onstar; 6% AWD; .7% tan interior trim; 80 exports (33 Israel, 19 China); 70 CNG vans; 150 Penske; 175 U-Haul; 170 AT&T; 456 Enterprise; 77.3% white vans.

From the Veterans Committee: There will be a meeting this Thursday, May 16 between the shifts at the Union Hall. Also, this coming Monday, May 20, the 25th annual “Run for the Wall” will be coming through Wentzville. There will be hundreds of motorcycle riders arriving that are bringing attention to POW/MIAs. The riders will be stopping here and we will be shuttling them to the plant from the VFW hall to use our showers. This group always stops in Wentzville on their way from Los Angeles to Washington DC because the first Vietnam memorial ever dedicated is here. If you want to help out you can attend the meeting Thursday for more information.
Labor Voices: The people must re-take the U.S. House in 2014 - By Bob King Together with our progressive allies nationally, we made history in 2012. We scored a huge victory in November when we re-elected President Barack Obama — the first time since Dwight Eisenhower that a president won a majority of votes for two terms.
We gained seats in the House of Representatives and grew our majority in the Senate. We rightfully felt a sense of optimism and hope that the Republican Party would recognize that its extreme stands were not in step with the American people, and that a new era of reasonableness, focused on the common good, would ensue.
Unfortunately, rather than moderate their positions, right-wing Republicans in Congress have doubled down on their views and their intransigence. Attacks on the middle class, women's rights, voters' rights, and worker rights have not diminished. They have increased. Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin doesn't seem to have learned anything from his resounding defeat in his run for vice president. By cutting $4.6 trillion from spending over the next decade, his 2013 budget proposal would reverse the country's budding economic growth, kill millions of real and potential jobs and take social assistance from those suffering the most. All of the tired ideas from 2011 and 2012 are back:

• Eliminating Medicare's guarantee to retirees by turning it into a voucher plan.
• Dispensing with Medicaid and food stamps by turning them into block grants for states to cut freely.
• Repealing most of the reforms to health care and Wall Street.
• Shrinking beyond recognition the federal role in education, job training, transportation and scientific and medical research.

The public's opinion of these callous proposals was made clear in November, but Ryan is too ideologically consumed to have learned that lesson. Since congressional Republicans have made it clear that they will resist all efforts for the common good and working families, we must elect people to Congress who are not bound by a right-wing ideology.
We need to recapture the energy and enthusiasm that we mustered last year — and now focus on taking back the House of Representatives in 2014. To do this, we need to flip a minimum of 17 seats. We definitely can achieve this goal, but we cannot do it alone.
We need to solidify our winning 2012 coalition of labor, women, African-Americans, Latinos, environmentalists, the faith community and other allies. We must build a massive movement for real justice, dignity and fairness for all.
We need the active participation of every active and retired member to rebuild fairness in America, to rebuild our middle class, to work for the common good of all citizens, to make America the great middle-class democracy that so much of the world admired, respected and wanted to emulate. We cannot allow the radical right and super wealthy to destroy our middle class and our democracy. What is very exciting is that if we elect a majority in the House and maintain our Senate majority, we could pass more "common good" legislation than was even passed during FDR's administration. Instead of just blocking bad legislation, we could pass outstanding, positive legislation.
Tom Brune
UAW/GM Communications Coordinator
Wentzville Assembly
636-327-2119