Dear President Young:

I must first say thank you to the Executive Board and the membership for allowing me to represent our local at the 16^th International Civil & Human Rights Conference in Cincinnati, Ohio entitled the Power of the Ballot.

The conference was outstanding.  I thoroughly enjoyed it, Fred Redmond and Amanda Green-Hawkins did a wonderful job.  We were blessed to be honored and given presentations from several people including our wonderful President Leo Gerard, Dave McCall, Director, District 1, Douglas Sizemore, Mark Mallory, Mayor of Cincinnati, Stan Johnson, International Secretary-Treasurer, Ike Gittlen, Mike Scarver, Director, PAC, Hillary Chiz, Marsha Zakowski, Ann Flener, The Honorable Marcia Fudge, US Representative, 11^th District just to name a few of the presenters.  They all were great!

I was privileged to be in several workshops are they were entitled:  Effective Local Union Civil and Human Rights Committees and the 3 P’s – Program, Policies and Procedures and this workshop provided us with the basic tools for establishing a working civil and human rights committee; implementing the Union’s general program and commitment to civil & human rights; enforcing current policies and contract provisions; building effective civil and human rights committees; and investigating and resolving discriminatory complaints and problems.

The second workshop was Impact of Equal Employment Opportunity Laws in Arbitration Discrimination Cases and Decisions which helped us to demonstrate the relevance of federal anti-discrimination laws as a basis for the interpretation on collective bargaining non-discrimination provisions; the instructors reviewed and discussed several arbitration cases and decisions involving various types of discrimination and they helped us to become more knowledgeable of the importance of the laws through the grievance and arbitration process.

The third workshop was concerning the Affordable Care Act and Its Effect on Minorities and Women and this workshop was about the new laws could affect minorities and women, as well as children and students and what potential civil rights challenges lay ahead.

After long hours from 9:00AM until 5:00PM every day, the last workshop I took was Christianity and Social Justice, Right or Wrong?  The class was very relaxing and very informative.  When all is said and done, only what we do for the Master will last.

Thanks again for sending me and I am sending copies of everything that I received from the conference.  I am sending all the attachments to Janene for her to distribute to the Civil Rights Committee.

Sincerely,

Shirley A. Bellamy