February 2012

“We had to remind them that you don’t mess with American Marines”    

- Gunnery Sgt. Brian Blonder, who led his Marines in a fierce battle in Afghanistan in 2008, earning him a Navy Cross.

            Silvis, Ill., is a small town by the Mississippi River, just outside the Quad Cities area of Illinois and Iowa. With a population of about 10,000, most people know, or are acquainted with, the Soliz family of Hero Street, reports Laura Edwards in The American Legion Magazine.

Occupy this…

I want to start by thanking the rank-and-file men and women of this department for their outstanding response to the “Occupy” demonstrations that impacted our city on Friday, January 13, 2012. It was an all-day ordeal, lasting from the very early morning until the late hours of the night.

One of the most important tasks any union may undertake is filing a grievance on behalf of a member.  And if the union is fortunate enough to possess a clause in its labor contract guaranteeing binding arbitration as the final step of the grievance process, that task becomes all the more critical insofar as an arbitration decision will determine what for all intents and purposes is to become the “law of the workplace.”