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Skilled Trades Department are seeing some changes. Our Local 892 Skilled Trades Department are seeing some changes. We are starting to see quite a few of our seniority members leave for the retirement lifestyle. Although this is great that they can retire and start enjoying their lives by doing just exactly what they want to do and when they want to do it, we are also losing a great amount of experience in our trades department. On the other hand we are also starting to see our apprentices graduating and becoming our new journeypersons to help us carry on into the coming years. Congratulations to all! I encourage everyone to learn as much as they can from our journeypersons that are planning on leaving us soon so that we can use some of their experiences and wisdom to continue running this business as it has for the past 35 years. Larry Hubbard and Kal Whitson are constantly working together to get training for our trades people. They have just begun to provide training to the leaders in each trade so that we can effectively quote on jobs to keep them in-house for our trades people to do the work rather than send the work out to a vendor. Larry and Kal are working on getting our Millwright trade trained so that we can do the repair work on the overhead cranes that are aging and experience more frequent breakdowns. They are also planning on offering training courses on gas valves, and back flow preventers in the near future. They initiated a fan-cleaning project that is now a part of the regular p.m. program. I'd like to thank Kal and Larry for their support in keeping our trades up to date on technology. Our J.S.A. Reps. Mike Kelley and Rip VanZandt have completed training all of the trades, now they are starting to write the JSA's for the trades department. These two guys have really been doing a great job. They are there for you if need them, so if you have any questions for them don't hesitate to ask. Tom Blumhardt and Sue Hunter our Local Joint Apprenticeship Committee has posted signs around the plant and also sent a paper to each employees home stating that the next test for the apprenticeship will be June 4th,5th,& 6th , 2001 with sign up beginning April 23rd, 2001 and running until May 4th, 2001 from 7:00 a.m. to 4:30p.m. in the Labor Relations office. Everyone is encouraged to take the test! Remember "When In Doubt, LOCK It Out!" In
Solidarity,
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