I have been employed at Ford Motor Company for 26 years and have worked  at six different plants.  I earned my journeyman's card through the apprenticeship program and I am a millwright by trade.  I have never ran for office, but was an alternate at the Chicago Assembly Plant for MP&L.  Before my career at Ford, I worked for Continental Airlines and was an employee rep for the entire east coast of the United States and never lost an arbitration hearing.

I am not a career politician nor do I want to be one.  I do not want to be the guy at the golf outing handing out TVs, I want to be the guy in the plant trying to fix the issues that need to be addressed.  The first reason why I am doing this is definitely not for money or fame, its because I see the trades going in the wrong direction.  WE NEED A CULTURE CHANGE.  In my trade, we have many problems and not many solutions, and I'm not even talking about the zones that we were forced into.  If we don't start holding the company and ourselves accountable, the trades will continue to decline.  The second reason is I have family that works here and we have to fight to keep this location open for the younger membership.

Everything That I State  Is My Own Experiences, No One Else's, As Seen Through My Own Eyes. 

Transparency- This is the one thing that I will try to improve on.  With all the changes we have been experiencing, most of the time no one knew anything until the last moment and that has to change.

Skilled Trades Meetings- I will have them every month, this will give everyone an opportunity to voice their concerns and see if we can get them resolved.  I was told that the reason we don't have meetings is because no one wants them, but everyone I have talked to is begging for them.

Lines Of Demarcation Committee- This has to be done.  I would like to get one person from every trade and sit down and work this all out so there is no more arguments between the trades.  I have lost the count of how many times I go to a job and everyone has to figure out on the fly to see whose job this is.  With all the new people being hired, this has to be a priority to ensure that all trades have an equal voice with the work being dealt out.

Equipment- I can only speak for the Millwrights.  But when we have to do a complex lifts using cranes for the USSR Soviet Era, it makes the job harder and more dangerous.  We need new equipment and a place to store them.  I have lost the count of how many times we have to search for JLG's and scissor lifts for jobs.  We have to come up with a common storage area for our equipment that makes them easier to find and keeps them out of the elements.

Bidding For Work-  I still don't know why we do this when we have tradesman in the building that can do the work.  When we have to bid on jobs in the building I would aim to get one person from every trade to help in this process, meaning the more info we have hopefully the better chance we will have in securing the work.

Shift Bidding For Zones- Hopefully we don't have to do this again, but if we do this process has to change.  We need a real time chart that people can see before they bid.  We can't have just one person on the phone saying what is open and the person bidding is expected to memorize all the info.  This is how jobs and areas get missed and people really don't get to bid on what they really wanted because it wasn't told to them.  And yes this has happen to more than just one person, and I was one one of them.

Accountability- We have to do a better job of holding the company accountable. One example Loaning people out of zone.  The company has to loan out the lowest seniority person in the plant and in my experiences that is not always the case.  There are so many to list here but this is the one that happens to me the most.  The other is if I am working in a zone and covering production, that is all I do, but it is becoming more frequent that the company is taking advantage of us, especially when there is a call off and no one is brought in to fill in the spot, making me and  my partner cover the absent worker.