Happy New Year!  We would like to wish all of you the very best it has to offer in 2010. 

Our Christmas Social and fund raiser was held on Saturday, December 12th.  We are proud to say the Membership, along with The City of Thompson Business community and the public, answered the call with a sellout event.  We are pleased to say we had members come forward to volunteer their time to ensure a successful USW event.  Thank you to Gord Medwid, Sheila Thompson, Tasha Ferguson, Cheryl Lantz  and  Warren Luky along with many more for donating, organizing and running the Social.  Special thanks go out to one of our local bands  “Monalith” and "After Dark Productions" who did a fabulous job entertaining a packed house. 

The event raised over $18,000, which was topped up by local 6166 to $30,000, which was then sent out to the members on strike. The funds were split amongst Sudbury ($15,000), Port Colborne ($6,200), Voisey Bay ($6,200) and Pine falls ($2,500). 

The USW, Local 7106, Flin Flon, also held a Social for our Striking Brothers and Sisters on the same evening and raised over $14,000.  Thank you to all who attended these 2 events.  All donations raised went toward Christmas presents for the children.

We are looking forward to accomplishing “Solidarity” throughout our Membership, as well as our future goals.  Our first challenge was to acquire the ability to communicate with our members on the floor through informational handouts and electronic messages.  In order to answer that challenge, we have set up a “CAT” (Communication Action Team).  This team has representatives from each area in the plant and they will have the ability to get information out on to the floor.  (Please note, the USW Local 6166 CAT group is available on Facebook.)  Members are encouraged to join to access information. 

SOAR will be starting up in the first quarter of 2010.  We are pleased to have found the perfect retiree to drive this program.  For those of you who are not familiar with the program, the SOAR Chapter consists of retirees linked to the USW to work on common problems affecting active members, as well as our retirees.  SOAR members will have a voice in our Union and may participate in Union meetings, however, they are not able to vote.  SOAR members across the country contribute to their community by means of fundraising, as well as lending a strong voice for our aging population.

We are also committed to improving our Steward Committee.  We will be offering various forms of training in the New Year, with a possibility of having Chief Stewards in each Department.  We are still faced with ongoing struggles in Health and Safety.  Incident investigation training is needed for both our new and current activists.  Additionally, we will be running a Harassment Awareness program.    

We urge our members to become involved in any capacity, after all - it’s our Union! 

In Solidarity,

Murray Nychyporuk