At Local 117, we are so member focused that I rarely use my message to recognize the wonderful staff we are so blessed to have. This message is dedicated to them. As members, we expect nothing but the best from our staff. It’s easy to forget that in addition to providing Union representation, they are fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, grandparents, friends, nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles, fishing partners - you get the point.

The staff of Teamsters Local 117 works hard every day with little recognition of their efforts and talent. Our staff knows they are paid off the backs of labor. They know how demanding 17,000 bosses can be at times. I have worked closely with the staff of Local 117 for the better part of 25 years and I would like to share with you just how incredible this team is.

The staff at Local 117 is a team with unmatched dedication to advocating for members. Our staff is made of strong and caring individuals. They are character-driven, multi-skilled, reliable, and dependable. They maintain positive attitudes amidst negativity, and feel a personal responsibility to protect the livelihoods of our members and their children.

Recently I held a staff meeting and asked each staff person to independently write a personal vision statement that quickly summarizes who they are and what they believe in. The only direction I offered was that their statement should answer these questions:

• What do I want from my effort?
• What do I value?
• What do I want to accomplish?
• What do I believe in?

Many staff volunteered to share their statements with all of us at the meeting and they were very inspiring. Because these were personal vision statements, I won’t quote them in this article but I did place them in a program that created a Word Cloud. (A Word Cloud is an image in which the size of each word indicates how often it was used). Check out the results:

In closing, I want to publicly display my personal appreciation of my staff here at Local 117 and encourage all of our members to do the same.

In Solidarity,

John Scearcy
Secretary-Treasurer