April 2023

Greetings, Brothers and Sisters,

I hope this edition finds you well, were are experiencing a changing season. You probably think I am talking about the weather, but I am not. The political season has begun to change here in Michigan in favor of the masses, not the few. Since our last edition, much progress has been made for the working class and our most vulnerable here in the mitten. With the passing of HB 4001 (Lowering Michigan Costs Plan), we begin to heal some of the damage we, as citizens, have lived through over the past decade. This bill phases out the retiree tax and expands earned income tax credits for our citizens that are most in need. On top of those accomplishments, our state legislators have restored prevailing wage and finally were able to repeal Right-to-Work. We all know RTW had nothing to do with actual working people and everything to do with breaking unions and providing more profits to corporations. As I stated at our last union meeting, for too long, we have uttered the phrase; elections have consequences. Now, finally, we can say elections have benefits. With all of this good, it is hard to believe I still have a dark cloud about me these days. This sadness stems from losing one of my good friends and an even better friend to this newspaper, the community and our Local Union. All of the fantastic legislative accomplishments I wrote of all had a little less glimmer on them as one very important person couldn’t witness them with all of us. Harold Foster was a great man; aside from being a wonderful husband and loving father and grandfather, he was the Editor-in-chief of our Lansing Labor News for over thirty years. Add his service as President of the Board at LAFCU for even longer, coupled with his accomplishments in his home community, and you can see that great man we all knew. It fills me with pride that I am a part of his Local because there is one undeniable thing about Harold; he was a UAW Local 652 man to the bone. I only knew Harold for a little over a decade, but I will miss his laugh, illuminating smile and friendship for the rest of my life. As you will see in this edition, we are adding photos, and if you knew Harold, he loved being on the taking end of photos but we have compiled some images of Harold to celebrate our wonderful friend. If Harold were here, he wouldn’t want all this attention. He would want us working for the membership. So, with this in mind, I will change gears to honor him once more. We are in our General Election time frame for Local 652. I wanted to tell you to review the following pages for our election notice. We will also post the information on our Local Union Boards in all Units and on our website: uawlocal652.com. I hope all who are able will take the time to participate in this election. We will not have another article until the fall, so I wish you all a happy and healthy summer.

In Solidarity,

Ben