April 2017 Volume XXII No 3

Honoring Dr. Martin L. King,

Jr. By Shirley Dickes

It is hard to believe that Dr. Mar-tin Luther King, Jr.

has been gone for forty-nine years on April 4th. Dr. King was an American Baptist minister and the leader of the Civil Rights Movement. He believed in the advancement of the civil rights in a non-violent way. Since 1955 when he led the boycott and helped found the Southern Christian Leader-ship Conference, Dr. King believed in nonviolent protests. Violence never achieves anything. Dr. King helped to organize the 1963 March on Washing, where he gave his most famous speech, “I Have A Dream.” In October of 1964 he received the Nobel Peace Prize for helping to com-bat racial inequality through nonviolent resistance and in 1965, Dr. King helped to organize the Selma to Montgomery marches. Along with his opposition towards poverty and the Viet Nam war, Dr. King alienated many of his liberal friends and allies. In 1967 he delivered his “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence” speech. He was very much against the War be-cause he felt too much money was being spent on the war while Congress was neglecting social wel-fare at home. “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

On March 29, 1968, Dr. King went to Mem-phis, Tennessee to support the black sanitation pub-lic works employees represented by AFSCME Lo-cal 1733. They had been on strike since March 12 for higher wages and better treatment. In inclement weather, black street repairmen received pay for two hours when they were sent home, but white employees were paid for the full day. On April 3, Dr. King delivered his “I’ve Been to the Mountain-top” speech. No one knew this would be the last speech Dr. King would deliver. On April 4, 1968 at 6:01 p.m., Dr. King was assassinated by James Earl Ray and died an hour later from the gun shot. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. left a legacy that paved the way to secure civil rights. Days after Dr. King’s assassination, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1968. Next year marks the fiftieth anniversary of

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s death. Some of us remember that day in Memphis. I hope this year you took a few moments to reflect on one of our

Nation’s greatest heroes.

Our annual donation to New Horizons

C.A.N.E.L. Lodge 700 Website www.iam700.org

Officers President………………..David Durbin Sr. Vice President………….Luther Collins Recording Secretary…...Shirley Dickes Secretary Treasurer…...Robert Deegan Conductor/Sentinel……Nancylee Waters Trustee…………………Joseph Arabas Trustee…………………Paul Dickes Trustee…………………William Neil

Contributing Editors of COMPASS Robert Brzozowski - Educator Shirley Dickes Carl Peterson - Communicator Melvin Tripp

Shop Committee Chairman David Durbin Sr. 1st Shift Mel Tripp 2nd Shift Joseph Arabas William Neil 3rd Shift Robert Deegan

C.A.N.E.L. Lodge 700 Website www.iam700.org

Officers President………………..David Durbin Sr. Vice President………….Mel Tripp Recording Secretary…...Shirley Dickes Secretary Treasurer…...Robert Deegan Conductor/Sentinel……Doug Campbell Trustee…………………Joseph Arabas Trustee…………………Paul Dickes Trustee…………………Mark Harrison

Contributing Editors of COMPASS Shirley Dickes Paul Dickes Mel Tripp Valerie Stewart

Shop Committee Chairman David Durbin Sr. 1st Shift Mel Tripp - Frank Checko 2nd Shift Joseph Arabas - Mike Frei 3rd Shift Robert Deegan

Next Monthly Meeting is Sunday morning May 7th

at 10:00

In Memory Of Our Departed Member

(Brother) Charles Perreault

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Introduction to UTC-4-Vets’ Middletown

By Theresa Fair, Local Lodge 700 Member

Hello Sisters and Brothers. I am writing to introduce you to the new UTC-4-Vets chapter in Middletown. It was inducted this year and we have ambitious plans for 2017. First, we are an hourly and salary organization set-up to aid Veteran’s Past and Present, Active Service Members, and the Vet-eran Organizations in the Middletown Area. We are planning on having a Golf Tournament on July 22nd, at Lyman Orchards. We are raising money for the CT chapter of “Project Healing Waters”. Please check out their website. They do awesome work for injured Vets young and old.

We are still looking for three Board Mem-bers. If you are interested, contact Mike Axler on P&W e-mail, michael.axler@pw.utc.com. You don’t have to be a Veteran to be on the Board or volunteer for the UTC-4-Vets. We celebrate Veter-ans every Friday by wearing Red Shirts. We will be collecting old cell phones on Earth Day, for free talking hours for Serviceman. Look for the collec-tion boxes.

We are having a social in May to “meet and greet” outside of P&W. We are looking forward to meeting all of you. If you have any Veteran’s is-sues or questions, please contact any Board Mem-ber. Are you being deployed soon? Please let us know. The Chairperson is Keith Tanner, Co-Chair is Mike Axler, Treasurer is Christopher Heath, Honor & Recognition person is Christopher Porter, Community Outreach person is Theresa Fair and the Event Coordinator is Tarik Dhoum. We will have information for you every month. You may contact me at theresa.fair@pw.utc.com. Please know we are here to help you!

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Are You Retiring? By the Retirees Committee

Are you retiring from Pratt & Whitney? Many of our long-time members Local 700 mem-bers are now looking forward to enjoying their re-tirement. We would like to take this opportunity to remind you to stop at the Union Hall on 82 Saybrook Road and fill out a retiree’s form from the Union. At that time, you will receive a watch from Local Lodge 700. At the same time, we would like to ask that you consider joining our Retiree’s Committee. We meet once every couple of months to catch up and discuss issues of importance to retirees. Retired Brother Jerry Guarino along with help from Sister

Nancylee Waters would like you to join them in these dis-cussions. Most importantly,

please stop at the Hall to pick up your watch as our way of saying thank you for all you

have done for your many years of service to us.

Upcoming Picnic By Entertainment Committee

On Sunday, July 16th, a first-time member-appreciation, joint picnic will be held with our sis-ter Locals 62A, 743, and 1746. It will again be at High Meadows, 311 North Granby Road in North Granby, Connecticut. The park will open at 10 a.m. for us until 5 p.m. We have a fun-packed day planned for you. There will be food, swimming, activities for the children, raffles and music for all to enjoy. Mid-dletown Local 700 ticket prices are $10 for adults and children 13 and up. For children ages 3 to 12, tickets are $5. Under the age of three is free. Tick-ets will be coming out soon and when they do, we will have flyers to go into the shop. We hope the day will cooperate and be sun-ny, but if not, there is a covered pavilion for us to sit under with lots of room. We are limited to 300

tickets that will be on a first come, first serve basis. We look forward to seeing you there!

Worker 411

By Valerie Stewart this is a continuing column

Why should we as workers care about our state budget? Governor Malloy’s proposed budget relies heavily on sacrifices from working and mid-dle class families including deep public service cuts, significant reductions in municipal aid and more than $1.5 billion in concessions from state employees. With the plethora of anti-union and anti-public employee bills sweeping the Connecticut General Assembly- bills that would undermine un-ions by eliminating agency fees or require the legis-lature to vote on all union contracts- it is important to take a close look at states like Kansas, Wisconsin and Louisiana as models of What Connecticut should not do. Kansas’ economy tanked. How did it hap-pen? Large cuts on taxes for the wealthy and busi-nesses, $200 million in cuts to education, laying off 2,000 state employees. Does this sound familiar? Today Kansas has a $700 million deficit. In Louisiana, the governor cut taxes on the rich, cut education by 44%, ended social services and cut funding for state hospitals and enacted right to work laws. Now private and public employees are among the lowest paid in the country. Wisconsin did the same cuts with the same results. Now onto the good news, Minnesota. Their economy is in the Top Five. How did he do it? They raised taxes by $2.1 billion, with most paid by the wealthy. They poured money into education. They worked with unions and supported collective bargaining. This stimulated economic growth. We all want Connecticut to be a great place to live. Let’s follow Minnesota’s model. Invest in educa-tion, maintain social services and work with unions and tax the 1%.

Or we can be like Wisconsin, Kansas and Louisiana.

82 Saybrook Road Higganum, CT. 06441

Phone: 860-345-2098 Email: paul.dickes@sbcglobal.net

Mourn for the Dead

Fight For the Living

You can make a

difference MONTHLY EH&S REPORT

C. A.N.E.L . LODGE 700 est . in 1959

To view the full Monthly EHS report, go to iam700.org click on Safety Representative then Monthly Report.

Respectively submitted Chief Union Safety Rep-resentative Paul Dickes.

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April Monthly Report 4/10/2017

The RIDII program has been started. In the first 15 days of the RIDII program we have re-ceived 28 RIDII. The RIDII that have been put in range from a manhole cover missing to fall protec-tion issues. Good work Local 700 members. The 10 names will be published soon of the win-ners for March 15-31st dates. Congratulations. We have some issues to resolve concerning the program and we are working them daily. One is getting back to the member in a more timely fashion. Some of the issues are database issues and language in the procedure/process for the program. There are a few issues you can help us with. Please give a little more detail on the issue. The biggest concern is members writing the RIDII placing blame on a fellow member. This RIDII will be deleted if it is turning in a fellow member. We need to address the issue, so please do not write any RIDII on a fellow Union sister or brother.

To the new members of C.A.N.E.L. 700. We have a disturbing trend coming forward. It’s re-porting injuries. Several new members have come from places of employment that discouraged re-porting of injuries. The Union and the company encourage people/members to report injuries as soon as they happen. So please report your injury . Then when the company comes out to talk with you about it, make sure a Union Safety Representative is there. The company should set that up but if they don’t, do not say anything until the Rep is there.

Urgent Request To all members: We are asking for your help on the VEHS teams. We have two teams, Er-gonomics and Audit. Please contact me to set you up on the Voluntary Environmental Health and Safety Team. These teams meet on company time and we will train you on how to do an audit or a ergonomics assessment.

In Connecticut we have several Worker Memorial Day Ceremonies. Your Union Safety Com-mittee has the honor of attending these events. The first one is in Groton at 6:00AM at Washington Park. This starts out the day with a raising of the flag and a beautiful rendition of the National An-them and guest speakers from around the state speaking on behalf of worker safety. The 2nd event will be the Workers Memorial at the Sailors and Soldiers Arch in Hartford. This event is sponsored by the CT AFL-CIO with dignitaries and union leaders speaking on the be-half of those injured and killed on the job. In Connecticut alone we had 44 people die from a workplace incident. Please take a moment from your day and remember the workers who have been killed in CT and across the nation.

If you would like to know more about attending a Workers Memorial Day events go to page two of the this report on our website (http://iam700.org/eh&s_page.htm) Then click on monthly report. Or go to https://www.goiam.org/departments/headquarters/safety-and-health/iam-workers-memorial/

“Mourn for the Dead Fight Like Hell for the Living.” Mother Jones