Greetings IAM District Lodge 19 Members,
Help us in thanking Kyle Loos for all of the work he put in over the years. Congratulations to Kyle and his family as he moves into retirement.
District 19 has recently taken on the representation of Machinists at an additional railroad, the Cedar Rapids, and Iowa City Railway. This railroad was represented by the IAM Mid-west Territory which has recently found that negotiating railroad contracts is lengthy and very difficult. It was decided by the Mid-West Territory and the Grand Lodge that these Members will be better served at District 19. I have assigned John Denny to work with these Members as they prepare for negotiations before the years end.
Our new Communicator, James Orwan will now be taking care of our website and social media. We intend to speed up the process on all communications so that all of our Members can be as informed as possible in a more timely manner.
All of us at District 19 are working toward improvements to all of our contracts. We intend to keep the momentum going as we seek to improve our Members quality of life any way we can. Please reach out to your General Chairman with ideas that you may have in this regard.
We are continuing to build new coalitions in order to achieve good contracts. On Long Island Railroad we have joined with four other unions to improve our strength in bargaining. James Orwan recently presented a contract to Members on New Jersey Transit which recently ratified. Congratulations to these Members on their new contract. Additionally, Daniel Tavares and I have started negotiations on Amtrak to establish new differentials and increase the pay on existing differentials. Heath Jacobs and Kenny Krause have negotiated shift swap agreements at several shops which our Members seem to like.
Moving on, we are pursuing several organizing leads both at railroads and at rail car and locomotive repair and manufacturing facilities. Our Membership levels are on the rise at our current contracted locations as you all can see in our Secretary Treasurers monthly reports. I expect to appoint a new Assistant President very soon, please watch for the announcement on our website and social media.
Lastly, we are reviewing our on-site classes and Local Chairman Classes to make improvements.
Please be in touch with your ideas by contacting anyone at our District.
Andrew W Sandberg
President/Directing General Chairman
IAM District Lodge 19
Andrew.sandberg@districtlodge 19.com