“The happiest of people don’t necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything they have.”
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Early in January, Chairman Yunghans, Financial Secretary Sister Bobbie Bennett, Retiree Chaplain Sister Mary Green, Brother Bill Bledsoe and I traveled to Palm Springs, California to represent the UAW Local 31 Retirees at the Leadership, Women’s, Civil and Human Rights and CAP Conference. The theme of this conference was “Holding Our Elected Officials Accountable, It’s Our Time to Stand Up!”
The Conference was attended by UAW International officers including President Bob King, Vice Presidents Joe Ashton and Jimmy Settles and Secretary-Treasurer Dennis Williams. After all the outstanding speeches, we were divided into different workshop groups until 5:00 pm. The meetings convened again on Tuesday morning at 9:00 am with each group reporting to their respective workshop. In one workshop there was a lot of discussion on getting “Papa John’s Pizza” out of different plants across the country after they announced that they were going to reduce their employees’ hours to avoid paying health care insurance. Another subject that was debated in our workshop was the importance of immigration to America, due to the fact that 90% of us were all once immigrants.
Chairman Yunghans and I returned from California with some kind of bad germs and had to be excused from the January regular membership meeting. Jack had to spend three days in the hospital.
On January 27, we attended the annual UAW MO-KAN Federal Credit Union Meeting where three new board members were elected.
At the bi-monthly Greater KC UAW Retiree Council meeting there was discussion on the upcoming local elections. It was also announced that the Region 5 Spring Seminar will be held at 9:00 am on Thursday, April 4, 2013 at UAW Local 31. Call the Union Hall to sign up.
Our Retiree executive board meeting on February 19 opened with prayer and the pledge of allegiance led by Sister Bobby Bennett. Jack announced that there would be a Joint Legislative Conference on March 24 – 27 in Jefferson City, MO.
The regular Retiree meeting was called to order at 11:00 and Sister Mary Green led us in prayer and the pledge of allegiance. After the roll call, minutes and financial report were read, Jack and our benefits representative, Cheryl Millican, spoke on benefit changes and the importance of having the current correct beneficiary on your insurance. GM will only pay the person you have listed.
Brother Glen Woods gave a clear and precise report and a handout of his Washington, DC trip to the National CAP Conference that he attended as our representative.
The newly elected Shop Chairman for the plant, Jorge Rodriguez, was introduced and he spoke about what is going on in the plant.
Our retiree Chaplain, Sister Mary Green will conduct a worship service for anyone who wishes to attend at the Union Hall on Sunday, March 17, 2013. All are invited.
The Greater Kansas City UAW CAP Council met on Wednesday, February 20 at Local 31. We were presented with a list of labor endorsed candidates for the Kansas Unified Government’s upcoming elections. You can contact the Union Hall at (913) 342-7330 for more information.
The date, time and location of the 23rd Annual California Reunion has been set. As in the past, the reunion will be held on Easter Weekend – March 29 & 30. This year it will be here in Kansas City at the Embassy Suites, 7640 Tiffany Springs Parkway (out near the airport).
For hotel reservations call (816) 891-7788 and for any other information contact the following:
Earl Traylor (913) 894-4667
Joe Hall (913) 784-5757
Dennis Litzey (913) 780-2710.
NEXT RETIREE
MEETING:
MARCH 19, 2013
11:00 AM
Bring a large covered dish – vegetable or salad.
Donate to the DAV, Kansas alone has 30,073 Disabled American Veterans.
W. J. McNeal,
Retiree Editor
