During last week's Union meeting we took nominations for the North Transportation Chairperson role. As a result of this Scott Frye will be chairperson and Ray Weekly will be the Vice. Both positions only had one nomination in each, therefore no election was needed.
Over the last couple of weeks, the TCM and CHT Departments have announced that they’re going to be moving to a 5-day schedule from the 7-day drop schedule. This change is coming from a lack of volume scheduled in the 4th quarter of this year. This is not from us losing customers, but rather, the softening of the markets. TCM is anticipated to remain on this schedule for the 4th quarter and then for the majority of 2025. CHT however, has already started back tracking the plan. This is due to them pulling metal forward from next month, and they’ve told us that now the plan is to change sometime around the 1st week of October. This is all subject to change, as Chad Birge told me they’re pushing to sell as much spot metal as possible. I don’t see how these changes won’t eventually make it to the Finishing Department as well, as they are downstream from CHT and TCM.
I’ve had lots of questions concerning why we don’t take on more Can Sheet? Answer is that we are at compacity on the slitter and sending the metal to an outside processor is not a viable option for Can Sheet due to the lower profit margin in this product.
During my last meeting with Chad, he told me that they’re currently discussing manpower reallocation but have not talked about a reduction of forces.
Given these reduced schedules and the opportunity to free up some people this should be a great time for a CDP or Apprenticeship class. Again, these classes starting are directly being affected by the level of contracting out that the company is doing. Be sure that you are asking your leadership why we would rather have overpriced contractors performing this work instead of our own workforce? Having our people do the work not only allows our people the ability to move into craft roles, but also saves the company a significant amount of money and time.
We pick back up bargaining tomorrow (9/20/2024) over the overtime process.
We’re working on finalizing our plans for our event coming up on 10/12/2024. This event will start at 10am and will end whenever the TN vs. Fl game ends (game time has not been announced yet). There will be inflatables for the kids, cornhole, and a watch party for the UT vs. FL game. There will also be food trucks (TBD) selling food from 12pm-6pm.
If you are interested in volunteering for the upcoming car show that the Veterans of Steel are going to be participating in, please let Brian McConnell or myself know ASAP. The show will be on, 9/28/2024. We will start setting up around 7:00am and will be there until 4ish.
Please be questioning your supervisor at the start of every shift for the safety callouts that are sent out after every event. Also, be sure that we are following the SWIs and if they don’t have them for a job that has been assigned, make sure that we are requesting the proper people to come out and create one. Above all, if it’s not safe, STOP and get help! If you have any push back when attempting to perform a Safety Stop, inform your Department Chair, Plant Chair, or get directly in touch with me ASAP. We will get the issue addressed.
We still must remain really focused on quality and be sure that we’re stopping when something is not up to our standards. If it’s not up to how you were trained and a foreman is asking you to run anyway, get a hold of someone in the Union Leadership immediately and we will get it addressed.
Please be promoting and sharing the link to this update. I do my best to share it out on all platforms when it gets sent, but I can easily miss one. Thank you for all that you do and stay safe!