Good day industry partners. I hope this update finds your companies doing well.
I am the Eastern Region director responsible for the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida with Locals 1263, 2411, and 1000. I would like to communicate with you about what I am seeing in our area and what is coming.
The first half of 2022 has been very busy. Our work hours reporting takes a few months, due to reporting lag, however judging by the number of call-outs, the number of members on the out-of-work list, and the collaboration among all the locals in our council sharing resources, January through May have been very productive.
This is a great time to be a millwright as well as a contractor partner of the SSMRC. We greatly appreciate your communication on these call-outs as well as the flexibility you have shown in allowing us to staff your projects. I have seen a tremendous improvement in our collaboration, which has allowed us to improve our success rate.
Our region has held labor-management meetings in which we have communicated areas where we are doing well and areas where we can improve. These meetings are very beneficial to our relationships and allow us to learn what our partnering contractors’ needs are. We will continue to schedule these meetings with you so that we can continue to improve. It has been my experience that strong relationships and partnerships can conquer any roadblocks.
Local 1263 is currently hosting contract negotiations with our partners. We held our first meeting on May 11. Our proposal has been communicated, and we look forward to having a follow-up meeting on June 23. Local 1000 will also be hosting a wage negotiation for the market recovery rate on June 20. We look forward to participation from the respective contractors. I recently attended a continuing-education program held at the United Brotherhood of Carpenters’ International Training Center in Las Vegas. The focal point of this course was customer service. I left that training refocused on the importance of customer service. Our team is going to be developing a customer-service survey to send to our contractor partners later this year. I ask for your participation and honest replies. I will be presenting the results of that survey to my team at our end-of-year team meeting. I would like to know what we are doing well on and the areas where we can improve. I thank you in advance for your feedback and look forward to continued success.