Meeting Postponed to February 1

Ice and snow caused Local 848 to postpone its January meeting until February 1 at 2PM at 2218 E Main in Grand Prairie. All members and families are welcome. Retirees are in limbo and have not held a 2nd Thursday meeting for several months. 

All our meetings are interesting.

A lot is going on in the labor movement. The UAW has its national convention this year. The AFL-CIO labor federation has terminated its Dallas and Tarrant Central Labor Councils. The first meeting of the new combined North Texas Area Labor Federation had to be postponed because of weather. The UAW has a prominent part in the new federation.

Federated unions under the AFL-CIO try to help one another. It is most evident in politics because hardly any local union can have a lot of effect. It takes all the unions together.

Under the leadership of the state federation, Texas AFL-CIO, all Texas unionists are working to elect a man from the International Association of Machinists, Taylor Rehmet, to the State Senate in a special election. Retirees organized in the Texas Alliance for Retired Americans are also lending a hand. Retirees have a big effect, especially in low-turnout elections.

Interestingly, results should be posted after the final day of voting, January 31. The race is closely watched because Rehmet may upset the anti-union billionaires. Even if he doesn't, he caused them plenty of problems and cost them around $5 million in campaign costs. The Rehmet campaign will spark plenty of discussion beginning February 1 as the all-important 2026 primary campaigns kick off.

After grueling screening processes, the Texas Committee on Political Education (COPE) conference made its statewide endorsements known on January 25. They are posted on http://texasaflcio.org/news. The latest round of questionable gerrymandering left our union hall in Congressional District 33 where one of the hottest races is underway. None of the candidates is expected at our February 1 meeting because they have all been invited to the much-larger union meeting at UAW 276, the General Motors local. Election day is March 3.

The three candidates running for the Democratic Party nomination are Colin Allred, Julie Johnson, and Zeeshan Hafeez. Allred and Johnson are both veterans of the House of Representatives. Hafeez has not held public office, but speaking at virtually all the protests has won him a considerable following, especially among the youth. Since the Texas AFL-CIO registered "no endorsement" in District 33, locals and individuals are free to support anybody they want. Local 848 members will undoubtedly be asked to work for any of the three.

Whenever our new Area Labor Federation gets it together, they start screening the candidates who aren't running statewide. "All politics is local," as the saying goes. There may  be some very exciting races close to home. Presumably, the local endorsements will be posted on the new website: https://northtxlabor.org/.

Electoral politics is hardly the most important thing that unions are involved in. Public employees are fighting layoffs, firings, and having their contracts torn up. Artificial intelligence is creating a jobs crisis. Minnesotans carried out the first general strike in decades (no work, no school, no shopping, no nothing) on January 23. 

Union members are mobilizing all over the nation.