Brothers and Sisters,

I hope this article finds you and yours doing well and looking forward to Spring and some warmer weather. I want to take this time to talk about our newest journeyman Alejandro “Alex” Beltran. Alex joined Local 1237 right after graduating high school and has been an active member since day one. Alex, while an apprentice, joined the Executive Board to fill the position of Member at Large, he is currently a Trustee and is doing a great job. Alex is the first apprentice to do the new FIF exit exam. When I asked him what he thought about the exam he said, “it’s not easy, the welding was difficult because I haven’t done a lot of welding”. Congratulations Alex on a job well done, you just graduated from the University of Blue Collar/ Hard Knocks. 

On March 5^th the members who attended the Monthly Membership Meeting discussed where we should put our January 1, 2025, $3.25 wage increase. Contractually we need to allocate $0.35 for Health and Welfare, and $0.16 for the IUPAT Industry Pension. It was agreed upon by the members in attendance to invest $0.30 into Market Recovery. Below are the 3 options the members came up with. We will vote on them at next month’s Membership Meeting.

	Wages	Health & Welfare	IUPAT Pension	Annuity	Market Recovery	Hol/Vac
Option 1	$0.80	$0.35	$0.25	$0.75	$0.30	$0.80
Option 2	$0.84	$0.35	$0.16	$1.00	$0.30	$0.60
Option 3	$0.50	$0.35	$0.16	$1.44	$0.30	$0.50