Brothers & Sisters,

If you have any escalators or moving walks being installed by Schindler let me know ASAP. Schindler is stating that the new escalators and moving walks that are being installed are not shipped with 3 wire pendant stations in spite of finding them on two different jobs being installed.

You may recall that in 2005 The IUEC lost Brother Glenn Martin, Local 41, to an on the job fatality that occurred due to the use of a three wire pendant station while installing an elevator. He was crushed when the three wire pendant cord was pinched and shorted the wires together making the stop switch inoperable.

If you are able, please take pictures of the pendants, note job location and employer and get the info back to me.

Attached are pictures of a Schindler three wire pendant station that was shipped to a job in Albany NY. I’ve asked Eric Buschick, Area Operations Manager with Schindler, to look into this serious safety hazard and get back to me. I was on the job and personally witnessed the material box being opened and then the pendant station box was opened.

The pictures are of the pendant station shipped to the job with all of the other material. As you can see, there are only three wires to the pendant. Up, down and common and only a three wire pin connector on the opposite end.

Michael Langer

IUEC Reg. Dir.

3-wire pendant.jpg

Vacations Article XII

(d) An employee with less than five (5) years of service must take all accumulated vacation up to fifteen (15) days in a calendar year. An employee with more than five (5) years of service must take all accumulated vacation, up to twenty (20) days in a calendar year. 

The companies have a right to ask you for notification of vacations, they do not have a right to call you in and make it mandatory for you to put it down in writting on January 1 your vacations. The reason being is that vacations time is accrued, you do not know January 1 if you will have any vacation time, they could lay you off tomorrow. If your employer wants to guarantee your job???

If they ask you to turn in now if you have anything schedualed they can, but it is unreasonable for them to insist on this or to tell you it is mandatory, it is not.

Nice to see they are off to a fine start!

The video presentation given by IUEC Local 18 Business Manager, Tony Gazzaniga, about the proposed dues restructuring has been posted in the IMPORTANT UPDATES area of the website. Please take the time to watch the video, and let other members know that the video is on the site.

You must have a login to the Local 18 website to view the video. If you currently are not registered with the site, you can do so here. Your login will be queued for approval after it is submitted.

Brothers and Sisters,

Hearing a lot of rumblings about the hall not sending apprentices to certain companies. Let me make this perfectly clear, the companies request man power off the list, we do not pick people off the list. There are currently 40 plus apprentices on the list and over 50 mechanics willing to accept the position as an assistant mechanic. If you are being told that the hall is not dispatching tell them to pound sand. We have plenty of manpower for the work out there they just do not want to utilize it. Every brother and sister deserves the right to go to work, to put food on our tables and to have health insurance. It is what all of you would expect. Next time you hear a rumor about the lack of manpower, tell your boss to call the hall and get the current out of work list. If you were on the list you would expect your brothers and sisters to do this for you.

Or better yet come to the next union meeting and find out the truth! From the NOT for PROFIT union.

Remember these are the same people that would like to give your work away to building engineers, would like you to sit and babysit while someone else does your work on the cab interiors or the cab flooring, the same companies that say you are not qualified to cut and cope machine beams, or that you cannot hoist and rig a machine.

The Following members name shall appear before the next regular meeting for consideration for their Gold Cards: Robert D. Dahlstrom #76023.

Brothers and Sisters,

Local 18 regrets to inform you of the passing of Honorary Member  Frank Schnitzler #71601.