24 The ELEVATOR CONSTRUCTOR Local Roundup Inevitably, my phone always rings the day after a meeting by someone wanting to know what happened at the meeting. We all have roughly 1300 brothers and sisters in Local 2. Five to ten percent of that is the usual turnout and we need to improve those numbers. As a union, we all need to stand together so they know we are all fighting together. In closing, this is the last month of the quarter, so make sure your union dues are paid for the second quarter. Please email pictures to be submitted in the journal as well as any comments, suggestions or near misses. 2023 dates to Remember: • March 22nd – Golden Rail breakfast at the Country House located at 5400 W. 127th Street at 9:00 a.m. • June 10th – picnic • September 16th – Golf outing at White Pines • October 14th – Paul Roth Dinner Dance Work safely. Work proudly. Union strong. Jeremy Trezise Jtrezise@iuec2.com LOCAL 3 Mike Terhune and his 50-year pin LOCAL 3 • St. Louis/Evansville, Missouri I’ve talked to some older construction mechanics and most of them have told me that when they installed an elevator if it had a shutdown that wasn’t due to misuse in the first year they took it as a personal affront. Now it seems that if some new installations run two weeks without a shutdown it is an anomaly. Before you get your panties in a square knot and want to kick my old feeble butt, I’m probably not talking about you. If you care, you are probably doing the best you can do with the equipment you are installing. Part of the problem is the materials we are given. Thirty or 40 years ago it took a grown man to hang a 48-inch door and now most apprentices can carry a door in each hand. If a door clutch is scraping the sill you don’t have to check door gibs or door shims or clutch shims; you can just grab it and twist it into place. Also, recently I’ve seen a few pictures of overhead machines standing up vertically where the machine beams pulled out of the floor or the machine pulled off the bedplate. Now I don’t know everything and what I know won’t fill a thimble and what I don’t know would overload a boxcar, but I think with 100% certainty I can state, “That is not supposed to happen!” Now maybe this was due to poor engineering and I am just hypothesizing here but maybe just maybe some boss was pushing for speed over integrity and someone yielded to the boss. If that was the case, I’m sure the boss took full responsibility and told everyone it was his fault and not the crew that did the installation. I’ve had bosses that would take the fall for their crews but those bosses are few and far between. We have all worked with guys that are freaks. They seem to be able to figure out every problem or fix anything thrown their way like it was no big deal while some of us have trouble calls that give us fits. Sometimes we don’t see the trees through the forest; other times it’s something that is beyond our skill set. That’s OK! In my opinion two of the strongest assets an elevator Retired Brother William Kettering receiving his Gold Card Brother Brian Reining and Brother Ray Sanzone at the Otis Nabisco job
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTkwNjkyNg==