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As we enter 2011, on this Tuesday January 11th, the first General Membership Meeting for Local 1014, we say good bye to two Labor Giants in the Fire Service Union world and we welcome in two new Union Leaders.
Today is a painful day for the entire Local 1014 Executive Board as we bid farewell to 2nd Vice President John Bishop and Director Paul Rusin. While John Bishop is retiring not only from Local 1014 Executive Board he also is officially retired from service after over 34 years as a rank and file firefighter and engineer. Paul Rusin is in the process of making the move from engineer to fire captain and will remain an active member of the Local.
John Bishop was the former President of the Covina Firefighters Association (WHO?) and worked hard to get to the County and has never looked back and is truly a Los Angeles County Fire Fighter, Local 1014 Blood Brother in every sense of the word. Paul Rusin was the former President of the El Monte Fire Fighters Association (WHO?) And Paul worked to get El Monte into the County and also bleeds Los Angeles County Fire Fighter, Local 1014 Blood in the purest sense.
If you thought you read a trend here in these two great labor leaders, you did! They come into Local 1014 at a time when we were facing tremendous adversity and rancor with Commerce threatening to leave the District and as a matter of fact some wrote it off as a done deal. Not us…we fought and John and Paul were part of the team that saved 3 stations worth of jobs! They have both served on negotiations committees, handled operational issues, member representation issues, exam appeals, personal issues, health and safety issues, single member issues and membership issues. They have both been leaders who served this membership with the standard for ethics and honesty and integrity in their work.
John Bishop served as our 2nd Vice President to finish his service and has taken on additional responsibilities and headaches as a result and performed at an expert level in all aspects of his service netting the members so many things in contract and in decisions and arbitrations at the local, state, and federal levels. He will be sorely missed, but deserves every minute of his hard earned retirement. Congratulations john B.
Paul Rusin similarly took on added duties surrounding our Contract Cities and the negotiations, elections, ballot initiatives, and all of the volatility that went along with that job. I have personally spent many nights and weekends at city council chambers far and wide with Paul trying to stay awake, texting our homes to stay in touch with our families awaiting our issue to speak for 3 minutes to scare a vote our way. Paul will be a great addition to the leadership team of Captains on our job and we wish him the best of luck in his new endeavors….Hurry up and promote him would ya chief? He has done so much for our job, not just the Union.
We also say welcome to two “New Guys” who are not really new at all…two seasoned veteranos who late in their career decided to take a step to move up to the Varsity and serve the members working as part of the Executive Board team. John Tuck and Al Mc Connell have a long standing record of membership advocacy for their stations, their battalions, their divisions. They have also served the Local in committee work and specially tasked projects throughout the years and have always been men you can count on to show up and man the phone banks and walk the precincts and lobby the Supervisors during contract negotiations.
Both men have more than 25 years Fire Fighting Experience serving at some of our busiest houses and share a grass roots, blue collar, never forget where you came from attitude. They will be great additions to the Executive Board of your Local. Congratulations to you both! (Or Condolences if your wives or families are reading this!)
Today, we begin laying out our next two year journey and our priorities, goals and objectives, problems and solutions and budgeting for the battles that await us. This will continue to be one of the most challenging times for any Local given the continued economic blight, but it will be a strong powerful journey for the strongest Union in the State of California if not the Nation and we will get it done together and in Solidarity as we take the long hard walk down that path.
It is going to be a very bumpy road folks, buckle up.
In Solidarity,
Dave Gillotte
President
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