On Friday some of the workshops that we attended were "Building a Strong Reform Local" and "Building Teamster Reform from the shop floor up to the IBT." On Saturday we attended work shop classes like "Taking control of the work place Recognizing and Considering Employee Tasks," "The Hot Issues Under the Family Medical Leave Act," "Running for Local Union Office," "The Battle to Protect and Improve Pension and Health Care Benefits" and "Legal Rights on your Job and in the Union". The most important class that we attended was "Bargaining, Drafting, and Evaluating Contract Languages". On Sunday other classes that were very informative were "Strategic Grievance Handling," "Organizing to win a Strong Contract," "Contract Costs and Techniques for Bargaining" and "Stewards Rights"

Our Key note speaker on Friday Night was Dianne Bolton Local 174 from Seattle Nichele Filmore Local 391 Loberton North Carolina and Jim Rickert Local 429 Reading Pennsylvania. On Saturday our speakers were Sandy Pope Local 805 New York, Tom Griffith who is a Retired Eastern Region Frother locals that took control by running for offices against their present Executive Board and won and are now making the changes to better their locals for their members . A very surprising occurrence while we were attending one of the classes for Contract Negotiating was there were 2 contracts talked about. One of the contracts was the shown with the proper terminology and correct way to write a contract and the other was the perfect example of how NOT to write a contract. The contract shown to us that was how NOT to write a contract just happened to be the City of Chicago's contract. So if you asked us what we got out of this convention, it was a great deal of eye opening information. Once again we would like to thank all of the members of the TDU for informing us and embracing us.

LIST OF WORKSHOP INSTRUCTORS:
Scott Weber, Local 728, Atlanta, Georgia
Richard DeVries, Local 705, Chicago
Sandy Pope, Local 805, New York
Joe Fahey, Local 200, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Kevin McNiff, Local 82, Boston
WL Morris, BLET Division, Atlanta, Georgia
Eddie Freyta, Local 814, New York
Nichele Fulmore, Local 391, Lumberton, N. Carolina
Nancy Lesin, Labor Education, Boston
Sharley Richardson, University of Mass. Lowell
John Walsh, GCC, Local 767, Seattle, Washington
Robert Swartz, Attorney, Boston
David Thomsberry, Local 89, Louisville, Kentucky
Bill Zimmerman, Local 206, Oregon
Barbara Harvey, Attorney, Detroit, Michigan
Frank Bryant, Local 391, Greensboro, NC
Ann Curry Thompson, Attorney, Detroit, MI
Eric Robertson, Local 728, Atlanta, Georgia
Leon Rosenblatt, Attorney, Hartford, Conn.
David Levine, TDU Staff, Detroit, Michigan
Bob McNattin, Local 102, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Stefan Ostrach, Local 206, Oregon
Walter Taylor, Local 814, New York
Gary Brook, Local 705, Chicago
Robert Schartz, Attorney, Boston, Massacheuttes
Jim Rickert, Local 429, Reading, Pennsylvania
Tom Griffith, Retired Eastern Region Freight Director
TC Bundrant, Local 549, Tennessee
Willie Hardy, Retired Local 667, Memphis
Steve Earl, Union Representative and Labor Journalist

Fraternally yours,
Fighting For The Future Slate - Vince Tenuto, Joe Vercillo, Leo Duke Clark, Mary Koglin