December 2025

Season's greetings, brothers and sisters. As we close out the year, I wanted to write to all of you about how grateful I am to be part of this Union family. This year in review has been one of unprecedented challenges for UAW Local 652; that said, I am still grateful to be part of this labor family. One of the biggest challenges we faced this year was losing the full use of our valued Vice President, Lena Wyeth. Lena has been an invaluable asset not only to me but to this entire membership, and losing her capacity early in 2025 has been felt by this President for sure. Coupled with Lena's return to material handling, we faced the retirement of our longtime maintenance and front desk man, Jeff. Though we saw his retirement coming, we understood replacing him was not an option. Not only because you can’t replace that kind of institutional knowledge, but also because we have been planning the extreme downsizing of our membership while we remodel our Lansing Grand River assembly plant. Since we learned of our $1.25 billion investment from the 2023 UAW/GM National Agreement, we have been planning how to manage the loss of income and keep the Union Hall open and available to the membership. Brother Matt Schneider and I, as the only two full-functioning officers, have understood from the start that the many tasks assigned and completed by those who have returned to the plant and departed would fall to our shoulders during this transition period. Planning to pick up that burden and actually doing all that work are two entirely different things. For the past six months, Matt has been excellent at learning all his new tasks and keeping this Local on track far better than I ever expected. Matt is a true asset to this membership, and I could not fathom another person taking on all the added tasks he has and not being even a bit more sour about it. For those who don’t know Matt, your Financial Secretary here at Local 652, he came out of the box as a snarky little pessimist, but as a worker, second to none, and this Local is all the better for having him. As you have read, there has been a lot happening around the Local this year, and I can assure you, this is only scratching the surface of all the activity. Doing all the routine maintenance, lawn care, cleaning, and all of the other small things that went unnoticed for so many years, on top of the jobs we have been elected to do, has not turned me sour either, though difficult, understanding it is necessary to set this Local up for success, only contributes to my grateful heart. I am thankful to have the team we have, I am thankful to have the Local we have, and most of all, I am grateful to be able to contribute in any small way, seen and unseen, to the bright and exciting future of UAW Local 652. I see 2026 presenting this Local with many more steep challenges that will demand even more from us, but I will leave that to next year. For now, I want to wish you all the happiness this time of year brings and peace to those who face challenges during the holidays. I would like to wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Ben