Graphic Communicator photo by Herald Grandstaff

GCIU Vice Pres. Duncan K. Brown, who chairs the General Board Organizing Committee, gives a report at the March regular board meeting. At right is Organizing Director Bert Haft.

General Board members authorized GCIU Pres. George Tedeschi to add two lead organizers and seven organizers to the Organizing staff. All of the new organizers were recommended by Organizing Director Bert Haft to Tedeschi. The hires were approved at the regular board meeting in March.

Canada has a new lead organizer. He is Daniel McBride, who served three years as local union organizing coordinator and was a United Association Plumbers and Steamfitters local union business representative for six years. He was an apprentice plumber, plumber, steamfitter from 1981 to 1997. He succeeds Duncan K. Brown, who was Canada's GCIU organizer for 10 years before he became Canada's vice president without opposition in 2000.

A newly added lead U.S. organizer is Marty Keegan, who has served as Los Angeles 404M's organizing director since 1998. He began working in organizing in 1981, when he was lead senior organizer for the United Nurses of California.

New organizers are Thomas Jolley, John Duncan, Tremayne Johnson, Margaret Owen, Jorge Perez, Teresa Prall, and Rick Street.

Jolley has been a member of the General Board since 1996 from Atlanta 527S for the Southern Region. He left the General Board with his appointment as an organizer. He has a wide range of experience at the bench in the gravure press operations, starting his career in the printing/publishing industry in 1976.

Duncan has served as an intern GCIU organizer since March 2003. He progressed from a general worker to a press operator for Quebecor World between October 1979 and March 2003. He was a crew leader for 10 years.

Street was full-time president/business agent of Louisville 619M from 1998 to 2003 and has been an intern organizer on the Justice@Quebecor campaign. Among his credentials, he was an active member of the executive board and Organizing Committee chairman for the greater Louisville Central Labor Council.

Owen has served as an intern organizer/site leader since May 2003, when she started working on the Justice@Quebecor campaign in Covington, Tenn. She had been a lab technician from 1972 to 2003 and was secretary-treasurer and business representative of Richmond 670C from January 1989 to April 2003.

Prall began a GCIU part-time organizing internship in 2001 and became a full-time intern in 2003. Included in her wide-ranging background, she was a press operator for the Hawaii Newspaper Agency from 1987 to 1995. She was a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel press operator from 1995 to 2000 and a Waco Tribune Herald press operator from 2000 to 2003.

Johnson served as an intern organizer on the Justice@Quebecor campaign for a year. He had worked for 13 years at a Westvaco plant in Richmond, Va., in quality assurance, press inspector, and press palletizer. He served as a Local 670C shop steward for several years.

Perez has served as an intern organizer on the Justice@Quebecor project for more than a year. He was a Los Angeles 404M organizer. He organized the Area Trade Bindery in Burbank, Calif., plant with 280 workers. After the organizing victory, he was terminated from the plant.

John Duncan

Tremayne Johnson

Thomas Jolley

Marty Keegan

Daniel McBride

Margaret Owen

Jorge Perez

Teresa Prall

Rick Street