June 2025

Greetings UAW siblings! I’m excited to write my first article as President of UAW Local 2256.  While it’s been over a year since assuming this role, I am now starting to feel somewhat comfortable in these shoes.  There is certainly a lot to learn because not only do I have to know and understand the Collective Bargaining Agreement with BCBSM, as the Unit Chair; but now I must become familiar with 18 other units and their collective bargaining agreements because of Local 2256 being an amalgamated local union.  We represent 19 different units within the Lansing area, that includes BCBSM, Accident Fund, Ingham County, City of Lansing, Libraries, and Potter Park Zoo to mention a few.

Part of what I am driven to do as the Local President is to bring more awareness to our current membership across all units, about what the UAW stands for, how this journey began and how we will work collectively in moving this union forward.  I want our members to understand and appreciate the value of being a UAW member.  I currently have an education committee that is excited to bring more education to this local by way of showing our members a little bit of our history as a Local, going back to Leon Hilton, the founder of this local.  It makes me proud to have members so eager to help in educating other members.  I have heard something repetitively over the last few months, that I never really heard about over my entire career as a UAW official, and that is, we must get back into the schools to begin educating our children about the UAW.  We need to be teaching our children before they graduate that there are a lot of good paying union jobs within the Lansing area with great benefits.  This is how we can encourage younger workers to get involved.  We have so many types of jobs, all of which do not require a college degree.  This is something I am very passionate about, and I hope more leaders will get on board too.  We can be those advocates for our own jobs.           

Lastly, I want to educate the membership about our standing committee’s as outlined in the UAW Constitution and how these committees should be utilized for education and awareness.  It is certainly a work in progress, and we will get there soon.  That’s all for now.  I hope everyone has a restful and enjoyable summer.

In Solidarity,

Amy