A message from President Cyphers!

It has been quite a busy time for the International Chemical Workers Union Council the last few years. We have engaged a new accounting firm to assist in monitoring our finances and handling our reporting requirements, we have hired our first two full-time organizers and put them in the field, we have improved relations with our parent organization, the United Food & Commercial Workers Union, we have increased responsibilities for our Akron staff so that they can better serve the field staff and our members, we have put almost a quarter million dollars of improvements into our Cincinnati training center with a grand opening ceremony held on  June 30, and we have launched a new union-member only discount card benefit for all members of the ICWUC nationwide. We also are moving the ICWUC convention this October to a new hotel in Las Vegas instead of the one that we have been at for many years and we are planning on providing a lot of educational information for our locals this convention. Check the ICWUC web site for specifics. We hope all these items combined will bring our staff and our members to a higher level of pride in our union and will inspire everyone to tell an unorganized friend, relative, or any other worker about the benefits of becoming a member in our union. Our newly-revised rewards program for anyone who provides a lead to us also should make our members become more interested in talking about our union, since it provides up to $1000.00 for simply telling us about someone you know that needs a union and us winning that campaign. The more workers that we organize into our union the greater bargaining power we have with all our employers, so we all benefit from growth.

It has been a very trying time on our members, as well as the entire United States economy since 2008. The programs that President Obama put into place are finally beginning to bear fruit and the economy is showing signs of recovery, albeit it slower then we would wish. Remember the problems that he had when he took office. It was horrible. We were heading into the biggest depression since the 1030’s, joblessness was rampant, we were deeply involved in two wars, and we had already gone from being the biggest creditor country in the world to being the biggest debtor country in the world. This had taken place over the previous eight years under George Bush. We cannot forget where we were when President Obama took over. He now has us getting healthcare for all, he has put the National Labor Relations Board back to functioning fully, he has supported American workers in the global economy, he has put decent judges on the Supreme Court, and he has gotten the economy moving in the right direction instead of the direction it was going in when he took office. How can that be wrong in anyone’s mind? Does anyone honestly think we were better off two years ago then we are now? The only thanks he can get is for us to remember what was done to us prior to his being elected and not letting it happen again. If the same people come out to vote that supported him in November of 2008 we will maintain our Democratic majorities in both the House and the Senate. Maybe recovery isn’t as fast as everyone wants, but we were not even IN recovery when he took office, we were going down dramatically and unemployment and the deficit were enormous. Support our President and our fellow Democrats in November and please, tell all you know to do the same. We never want to go back to the “…Mission Accomplished…” days again because George Bush left us with a major “…Mission NOT Accomplished…” legacy.