Contracts are Printed
Copies of our new Collective Bargaining Agreement (July 1, 2012-March 30, 2015) have been printed and are being distributed as we speak.  Local 3657 members in the field should have received your copies already and Members in Headquarters should be receiving them in the next few days.  If you don’t receive your copy of the contract, please let us know and we’ll be happy to get one to you!

As a reminder, an electronic version of our contract can be downloaded from the Local 3657 Website athttps://uswlocal3657.org/important-documents-for-members/

International Union Holiday/State of the Union Address
Every year, the International Union holds a holiday celebration in headquarters.  This year’s event is tomorrow, December 4, at 2pm Eastern Time.  To kick of the celebration, President Gerard and the other officers often provide a brief ‘State of the Union’ address updating us all on the progress we’ve made over the past year and outlining some of the union’s key priorities for the following year.

While this is always an interesting presentation for those of us in the building, we recognize that historically 3657 members in the field have not had an opportunity to hear the State of the Union addresses.  To give everyone an opportunity to hear from the officers, we’ll be live streaming their addresses on the Local 3657 website.  We invite all 3657 members in the field to tune in to https://uswlocal3657.org/live-stream/ at 2pm Eastern Time to hear President Gerard and the other officers address the union.

Next Local Union Meeting Moved
Because of the Holiday Shutdown and vacation schedules we have moved next month’s meeting.  The December Local 3657 Meeting will be on Thursday, December 20 at 12:30 eastern in the Lobby Conference Room.  As always this meeting will be livestreamed at https://uswlocal3657.org/live-stream/

**We apologize for the technical problems with the live streaming during last week’s meeting.  We’ve worked out the glitches and we hope we can provide more seamless livestreaming of meetings in the future.

AFL-CIO Martin Luther King Day Observance
The AFL-CIO will be holding the annual Martin Luther King Day Observance in Philadelphia, PA on January 17-20.  The event will kick off with a day of volunteering in the Philadelphia community on the 18^th and educational sessions on the 19^th and 20^th.   At this month’s local union meeting we agreed to send two people (one from the field, one from headquarters) to the entire weekend-long conference, and up to 10 people to the one-day volunteer event on Friday, January 18.

The volunteer event is a great opportunity for the labor movement to get together in a real and visible way and help out people in our communities.  I know that we are all very busy, but I would strongly encourage any of you who have the capacity to think about traveling to Philadelphia to stand with our union sisters and brothers in helping out our communities.

For full details or to add your name to the list to participate, please e-mail Lori Bookwood (lbookwood@usw.org) by December 14.

Draft Meeting Minutes are on the USWLocal3657.org Website! 
As everyone knows, we have completely overhauled our local union’s website and now we have a fully functional site.  The preliminary meeting minutes from our last local union meeting are now available online atwww.USWLocal3657.org.  Because the new site is much easier to manage and post to, we anticipate being able to keep the information that’s up on the website much more current and up-to-date.

A New Kind of Unionism
Fight Back Pittsburgh, a project that is being spearheaded by our organizing committee is having a special educational event in headquarters at 6:30 pm on Tuesday, December 4 called “A New Kind of Unionism.”  The workshop will explore different approaches to collective action at work and open a discussion on possibilities for new types of worker organizing in Pittsburgh.

If you can’t make it in person you can watch it live streamed online at www.FightBackPittsburgh.org

Thank You All! 
There is really a ton of amazing work happening in this local union and I wanted to take a minute to start to recognize some of the amazing work that’s been done over the past few weeks.

THANK YOU to everyone who donated to the Hurricane Sandy relief effort!  We raised more than $2,100 to help Steelworkers who have been impacted by that terrible storm.

THANK YOU to the Fundraising and Recreation committee who organized an incredible holiday fellowship event for those of us in the building!

THANK YOU to everyone who signed up to provide holiday presents to striking or locked out members through our Women of Steel’s Gift Tree.  So far we have had enough people sign up to buy presents that we’ll be able to provide each striking or locked out child with three presents.

THANK YOU to everyone who showed up to Fight Back Pittsburgh’s rally at Costco in support of the striking workers at Palermo’s Pizza.  We had a great turnout and a really successful event!