MOBILIZE the MOVEMENT 74Th NATIONAL CONVENTION || BALTIMORE, MD CONVENTION PROGRAM
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MOBILIZE THE MOVEMENT 74th NATIONAL CONVENTION || BALTIMORE, MD CONVENTION PROGRAM SUNDAY, AUGUST 16, 2015 8:00-8:45 AM Delegates’ Registration, Foyer CONVENTION OPENS 9:00 AM Deb Gornall, Eastern Region President National Anthem: Kevin Yancy, UE Local 150 Invocation: Luci Murphy Speaker: Rev. Graylan Hagler 10:00 AM Address: General President Bruce Klipple 12:00 PM Recess Convention Photo in Ballroom Sunday Afternoon and Evening: Committee Meetings MONDAY, AUGUST 17, 2015 8:45-9:00 AM Music 9:00 AM General Session Speaker: Lawrence Hanley, International President of ATU 12:30 PM Recess 12:30-1:45 PM Lunch 1:45-2:00 PM Music 2:00 PM General Session Organizing Report: Director of Organization Bob Kingsley 4:00 PM Recess 4:15 PM Gather in Lobby to March to Baltimore City Hall 5:20 PM Busses will bring delegates back to Hotel from City Hall 6:40 PM Gather in Lobby to be bussed to Dinner and Boat Ride, Hosted by UE Eastern Region TUESDAY, AUGUST 18, 2015 8:45-9:00 AM Music 9:00 AM General Session Convention Speaker: Program Fred Mason, Continued President of MD onand DCBack AFL-CIO Cover 10:00 AM-12:30 PM Workshops 12:30-1:45 PM Lunch 1:45-2:00 PM Music 2:00-4:00 PM Workshops 4:15-5:30 PM General Session 5:30 PM Recess WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 19, 2015 8:45-9:00 AM Music 8:30 AM General Session 10:30 PM Budget Review: General Secretary Treasurer Andrew Dinkelaker 12:30-1:45 PM Lunch 1:45-2:00 PM Music 2:00 PM General Session Constitution Committee 3:30 PM Officer and Trustee Election 5:00 PM Recess 6:30 PM Banquet, hosted by UE National at hotel THURSDAY, AUGUST 20, 2015 9:00 AM General Session 12:00 PM Adjournment CONVENTION CLOSES elcome delegates to the 74th National Convention at the Inner Harbor, Baltimore, Maryland! WOur officers and staff have collectively organized a great week of many workshops, reports, and deliberations regarding what we need to do to continue strengthening and building our union. As we join together in solidarity, let’s take a moment to reflect on those who have come before us. Those men and women who sacrificed and struggled to give us the proud union we call UE. Let’s make them proud this week as we celebrate our accomplishments and continue to honor the traditions of UE. The Eastern Region is proud to sponsor this year’s Convention. We want you to enjoy the events the Eastern Region has scheduled for this week including a hospitality room Saturday night and a dinner/boat ride for Monday night. Be prepared to work hard and play hard! In solidarity, EASTERN OFFICERS AND EXECUTIVE BOARD: Deb Gornall, President Donna Morgan, Vice-President Scott Slawson, Financial Secretary Karen Rizzo, Recording Secretary EXECUTIVE BOARD MEMBERS: Steve Adkins Bonnie Keen Jim Borowski Bill Metzger Aaron Clifton Jeff Moose Bud Decker Leslie Riddle Mike Divins Larsene Taylor Tom Gharing Jeff Van Meter Fred Harris Roger Zaczyk WHO IS THE EASTERN REGION? The Eastern Region has a relatively short history – it was formed 10 years after UE convention delegates amended the UE National Constitution, with ratification by the locals, to consolidate the existing six UE geographic districts into three regions. But the Eastern Region also has a very long history. Most of the independent local unions that came together in Buffalo in March 1936 to form UE were located within what’s now the Eastern Region. The new union set up its national headquarters in New York City where it remained until 1987 when the national office moved to Pittsburgh, both cities in the Eastern Region. The Eastern Region covers a big territory, including locals in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and North Carolina, and has the largest membership of the three UE regions. When the Eastern Region was formed in 2005 it was a merger of District 6 (Western Pennsylvania, Western New York and West Virginia), most of District 7 (Ohio), and District 1 (Eastern Pennsylvania, Eastern New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina.) Much of the history of UE took place within the current boundaries of the Eastern Region, including big organizing victories and major strikes by workers at plants of GE, Westinghouse, RCA, Sylvania and other companies in the electrical, radio and machining industries. A great deal of UE’s pioneering work fighting for equality for women workers and for African American workers took place in the Eastern Region. Ernest Thompson, who headed up UE’s Fair Practices Committee that made great strides against racial discrimination in the 1950s was an African American organizer who came from a UE shop in New Jersey. Several of the women who drove UE’s early women’s rights work were from UE plants in Pennsylvania and New York. When UE’s very existence was under attack, from the late 1940s to the 1960s, some of the biggest battles to save the union took place in this region. With other unions “raiding” our membership, helped by politicians, government agencies and mass media who were smearing UE as part of a “communist conspiracy” against America, UE member fought courageously to save their locals and save the national union. UE won many of these fights, but also lost many, and a large number of locals that had were organized as UE locals and had won good UE contracts, ended up in other unions. A number of UE’s largest original locals were lost in this way. UE probably would not have survived the 1950s if not for the unity and courage of the members and leaders of Local 506. They stood firm under the most intense pressure and voted overwhelmingly to stay in UE, even as the local newspaper, politicians and the Catholic bishop told them to oust UE and vote for the IUE. When the John Nelson, the local’s charismatic president, was fired by GE for refusing to “name names” to a U.S. Senate committee on a witchhunt against alleged “reds”, the members solidly backed him, and Nelson himself never wavered, even though the harassment of him and his family ruined his health, resulting in his death at age 42. But the steadfastness of Local 506 gave hope and courage to others and helped ensure UE’s survival. The districts that now make up the Eastern Region suffered and survived another period of crisis, the massive wave of plant closings and deindustrialization that was most intense in the 1980s, but continues to this day. The locals that fell to plant closings went down fighting, and the memory of those plant closing battles is part of our legacy. But UE also fought back with renewed and diversified organizing. The Eastern Region is especially proud of the organizing work south of the Mason-Dixon Line that has built UE in Virginia, North Carolina and West Virginia. Our locals in those states, particularly Locals 150, 160 and 170, represent UE’s expansion into the public sector and put us in the forefront of building the labor movement through pre-majority and in states that outlaw collective bargaining for public workers. CONVENTION CULTURAL PROGRAM We are excited this year to have some of the best cultural workers labor has to offer energizing our UE National Convention this year! These choruses, ensembles, and individual artists have been inspiring workers, educating and motivating workers struggles and the labor movement for many years. From shop floors to picket lines; in marches and rallies; at plant gates and legislative halls; in classrooms and on college campuses; in churches, temples, synagogues and places of religious worship; they have been there speaking out for labor – reminding workers that we have the real power and reminding those corporate capitalists who put their profit before workers that they don’t make a dime unless we, the workers, move! With us this week will be: THE DC LABOR CHORUS The DC Labor Chorus is a musical ensemble representing union members from the Washington, DC area. Some are professional musicians but most are union members and activists who just love to sing! The DC Labor Chorus sings for rallies, demonstrations, and picket lines. They welcome union members to the annual Great Labor Arts Exchange each summer, and hold an annual “Sacred/Favorite Songs” concert every winter and a community benefit concert every spring. ANNE FEENEY Anne states that “I’ve been ‘comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable’ since I graduated from high school in 1968.” The Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement shaped her conscience and consciousness. She worked for a dozen years or so as a trial attorney, and served as President of the Pittsburgh Musicians’ Union. For the last 25 years, she has really been living her dream... on the road 200+ days a year... all over the US and Canada, and then Sweden, Ireland and Denmark. Anne proclaims that “It has been my privilege to spend most of my waking hours with people who are trying to make a difference in this world... people on strike, or in a union or community organizing drive, or defending women’s rights, the environment, human rights ... working to end poverty and racism ... teaching peace.” LUCI MURPHY Luci Murphy is a long time Washington DC activist & cultural worker. She is a vocalist famed for singing usually in her uniquely stylized a cappella. For more than 30 years, she has sung at thousands of peace and justice rallies, both here in the U.S.