HEADLINE NEWS SEPTEMBER 2008!!!!!!!

Hope of my fading away after the KANGAROO ELECTION of 2006 was just wishful thinking on the part of Terry and his family staff.  It has been more than year since I’ve posted anything new on my website but, the hits just keep on coming, spread the word I’m BACK, and get plugged in!

 On 3/21/08, a Tim Estabrook commented about how nothing new had been posted by me and that was good, because he and his brothers were all working. Hey that’s great you & yours are working but, what about all the brothers & sisters who are not?  I believe your e-mail address @ SCABBY might just say it all.

Here are some facts that the working and retired members of this council area should consider when comparing YOUR job, wages and benefits to that of the TEAM:

0. A minority of working members get 2080 hours of work every year or full employment.  The TEAM is paid based on a 48 hour week, 40 regular and 8 hours overtime 52 weeks a year or 2496 hours per year, EVERY year.  That’s 416 hours more than a regular working member lucky enough to have FULL-TIME employment, which the majority of our members do not have.  The TEAM is paid way above regular working carpenter scale too because they are a first-class organization doing ALL your thinking!

0. Transportation costs for our working members are the responsibility of each of them and it comes from their wages. But not TD & TEAM; they get a new (gas-guzzling) Yukon to drive that’s maintained with the dues monies of hard working members and off the backs of our retired members. YOU pay for the gas, the car phones, maintenance, tires, car insurance, accidents, and liabilities so each can parade around town like they are somebody important. Most of the time they are displayed outside our hall Monday thru Friday but, on Saturday (overtime day), not so much! TD gets a special RIDE cause he is so much more important then the rest of them!

0. Got health insurance?  Haven’t got your 1200 hour requirement or maybe you fall one hour short NO-problem if your on the TEAM because you get 2496 hours standard every year. But if you’re a working member having $4.00 per hour deducted by your employer for your health insurance; multiply that by 1199 hours earned, its $4796.00 that you pay for and get NO insurance at all.  That’s $4.00 an hour you pay but get nothing for your money.  There are more members doing without than those with insurance.  For example, multiply how many that might be at $4796.00 times just one third of our membership (10,800), that’s over $17 million per year paid into the health & welfare fund by those without coverage. The retired members can’t even afford paying their premiums after the hours run out after retiring. Remember TD & Staff get an additional 416 hours more than each of do you every year. By the way the TEAM also gets FREE health care coverage for every year of service that they worked on the council upon retirement as an added perk for being a TEAM player, YOU get to pay for it!

0. Pension rates have DROPPED since Davis & CO. took over this council from a high of 3.65% to 1.5% for the working members. But that doesn’t matter to them because they are getting the full amount of hours every year plus OVERTIME hours paid in for them like clock work.  Besides getting all the hours you could possibly get EVERY year, plus receiving more than $20,000 extra per year in overtime, why would the TEAM want to be troubled by your needs as a working member? 

 The majority of you probably do not know about Sec: 59-B of the UBC Constitution & Laws.  This deals with the UBC Pension Plan Tax-Exempt Trust for each officer, representative, or employee of the UBC & J of America in which the membership pays an amount equal to13% of the monthly gross compensation for EACH of those mentioned above.  

 Let’s just do the math on Emperor Terry Davis on his LM filings of 2006, reported salary of $238,292.00.  He makes about $4,582 per week or $18,330 per month and WE pay him an extra $2,382 per month for his UBC Pension or about $28,595 per year. This is for just TD alone; there are about 43 more of them (THE TEAM), that you pay for EVERY month too.  

 This is an EXTRA PENSION you the working member PAYS for which I believe has been raised to 16%.  Unlike YOU, they get TWO PENSIONS, regular carpenters’ pension & the UBC Tax-Exempt Pension Plan.  Perhaps the rank & file membership of this district council should sit down and do the math on TD & The Team benefits and then compare it to YOURS!  

I have provided you with a complete copy of the 2006 KCMO district council officers and employee’s salary list reported in their LM reports filed with the Department of Labor.  You can see for yourself by going to www.UnionFacts.com for additional information.  You can also check on any other district council or the UBC by checking on this website.  You can click on an individual name and get a breakdown of their financial history that you might find interesting when comparing it to your own yearly RAISES! Check out the names on the banner carrying list, can you say NEPOTISM??  Do you care about abuse of power?  

The point of this website’s continued existence is to provide truthful information to the rank and file members of this district council so that WE can TAKE BACK OUR UNION beginning in MAY 2009!  Mark your calendars because that’s the ONLY TIME your VOTE will count brothers & sisters.  That’s the nomination month for local union officers and most importantly District Council Delegates.  The election will be held in JUNE 2009, and we must CLEAN-HOUSE on ALL levels to take our union back. The membership needs to plan for next year by picking non-TEAM players, keeping their names to themselves prior to nomination night, and turning out in mass to all local union meetings to ensure their nomination to office.  In June 2009, the membership should turn out in MASS again to ensure a free and fair election of those willing to represent the workers; NOT the Terry Davis & Company corporate elite TEAM we have now.  Once WE have newly elected council delegates in 2009, we can REMOVE Davis, his SON, and the “TEAM” from office in the August 2010, election for EST!  

This site has two sides to it, the public mail (Your Thoughts), and a private mail box that only I can see to ensure information and plans can be secured from RATS!  After putting pencil to paper and comparing your wages and benefits to that of your Team, you may feel free to thank the whole council full of “wanna-be” TEAM suck-asses who have already proved themselves by VOTING for TD in August 2006, by using this website.  ALL TD STAFFERS holding local union offices need to GO.  AND, ALL sitting CDC delegates need the BOOT too, that makes it simple.

All we need are good working member candidates for office within the locals and the council to take back the control of OUR union.  I had 400-500 of them gathered in August 2006, on my side of the street that election day.  All that’s needed now is for the rest of our membership to STAND UP, be there when needed, and VOTE to make change REAL in 2009 & 2010! 

If any of you don’t think you have the experience to hold a union office, the most important skill you really need to hold union office primarily is HONESTY, INTEGRITY, and a willingness to serve the membership, NOT yourself!!!  When you elect a man without honor to power and then allow him to hand-pick self-serving bullies to enforce his will upon the working class, you get what we have had here for 16 years, a dictatorship!  It’s why our nation is in crisis today, absolute corruption at the very top is killing both our Union and America!

Many members complain about their local union meetings being undemocratic because team members were elected to local union office to control the business and the discussions.  Members are afraid of the blackball if they question TD or UBC policy so they stop attending or caring until something affects them directly.

I hear a lot of bitching on the jobsites about TD & TEAM during break or over lunch but, no action!  I have had members say I’d join your local but, I do not want to be the first one to transfer because I need to work.  Well brothers & sisters that’s the kind of no-brain, no-balls, BS-excuse, that keeps them in power over YOU.  They use FEAR when boring you into apathy or into non-attendance does not work at your meetings.  It is the oldest trick of any dictatorship in history for God’s sake.  WAKE-UP, STAND-UP, grow a pair and take a count of how many THEY are and then how many WE are if we UNITE!  Do the math; 50 TEAM members on staff, 110 self-serving council delegates serving the staff, and maybe a few hundred more suck-asses in the wings waiting their turn to feed at the PIG trough at the membership’s expense.  The last council membership count was over 10,000, what are you afraid of?

Being a union member is more than just carrying a card, steady work, or just about any individual’s welfare by itself, it is about the good and welfare of the WHOLE group. A union’s real POWER exists within the sheer number of its members willing to stand together as one and fight injustice united.

 WHAT has YOUR local done to protect your rights from the TEAM since TD took over? Mine did not whine about it when the outside local members did not stand up with us.  Instead we put our money and our asses on the line and FOUGHT two years in Federal Court to get it back!  The question becomes this:  If your local has done nothing to regain your rights as an American Union member and you no longer attend your meetings because you feel that your voice does not count, why are you a member there at all?

 Council delegate strength is tied directly to the number of members a local has.  The larger the membership, the more delegates it seats, and the more powerful it becomes. One of the rights members still have is the right to transfer into ANY local union of their choice within the council area simply by notifying the council dues office in writing or in person that you wish to transfer your membership.  Both retired and working members have the right to do so no matter their location or trade in which they work within the council area without interference and yes Retirees count towards delegate strength.  ANY ATTEMPT by the TEAM (anyone), to interfere, intimidate, threaten, or coerce a member otherwise should be reported to this website and recorded in a personal log by the member involved including time, date, place, who, and what was said.     

 Divided, TD & Co. will continue to double-dip benefits, hire family members, give themselves unjust raises, and all the while be unaccountable to the members they are suppose to represent.  Does anyone else out there notice the TEAM similarity to Wall Street CEO’s lifestyle or Congress when the council is in session and the PORK- BARREL spending is flying?  Ask to see the council minutes provided your local union next meeting to see how thousands of YOUR dollars are being spent, while your Pension continues to drop.  Everyone had better be worried about how Terry (Greenspan) Davis & Co. has invested YOUR funds without your knowledge or input as the meltdown on Wall Street continues.

 Perhaps its time the entire membership pulls its head out of the sand, gets MAD, get INVOLVED, and demand the same ACCOUNTABILITY as our employers expect from us everyday before WE have nothing left and their golden-parachutes can deploy. The ball is in YOUR court.  Local 1635 has done all we can by ourselves, if we should go down it will be as MEN fighting until our last breath still retaining our HONOR! We will not go down as a frightened cur dog licking the hand that shoots it.  Which way will YOU go?

 Douglas M. Cornett