Alcoa Davenport employees, families fill food baskets...

The Aluminium Plant Safety Blog has commented about how it seems that the news media only reports about safety incidents and metal prices. For whatever reason the new media declines to write about the good works our plants do for the surrounding communities. Here is a positive story that we found:

A little boy, 8, picked up a 5-pound ham from a table and put it in a basket. The , who attends Paul Norton School in Bettendorf and is a member of Cub Scout Pack 54, joined about 100 Alcoa employees and their families Thursday to pack 600 food baskets during the annual Alcoa Employees Christmas Basket campaign.

The little boy worked the line to earn his community service badge. “This is really a good idea to help people,” he said as he put a ham into another of the stream of passing baskets.

Alcoa spokesman said the basket campaign is a long-standing holiday tradition. “It was back in the 1950s, maybe 1957 or 1958,” he said. “There was a man out on disability, and the people in his department created food basket for him and his family for the holidays. That single food basket grew into this.”

The Alcoa spokesman pointed to the 100 or more people passing stations where a ham, bread, apples, oranges, green beans, apple juice, canned fruit mix, corn, canned pineapple and margarine were placed into the baskets — actually  boxes — they carried.

Each year, Alcoa employees nominate people who are in need of some holiday assistance. Basket recipients are  chosen by a committee. The plant manager at Alcoa Davenport Works, said he has been with the company for 25 years and stationed locally for 15. “Each plant has something it does for charity. This is unique to this plant.”

The vice president of United Steelworkers Local 105, said that Alcoa has about 2,500 employees. Of those, the local represents about 1,800. Other employees are represented by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1379.

“This year employees raised more than $16,000 for this event,” The vice president of United Steelworkers Local 105 said. “We raise the money in many different ways including bake sales, coffee funds, face-to-face donations, and some people give money as memorial donations. Alcoa’s Community Fund also helps with the program.”

An employee who has worked at Davenport Works for eight years, said this is the first year his schedule allowed him to help with baskets.

“Everybody can always use some help,” he said. “This says a lot about Alcoa’s employees and the people who work to make this happen and the people who provide the donations. It’s a great program.”

A retired Alcoa employee and president of the Davenport NAACP, was accompanied by several members of her church, Third Missionary Baptist Church in Davenport. “I would never miss this,” she said as she grabbed another basket to fill.

The retired Alcoa employee was accompanied, by young members of Third Missionary and Royal Neighbors Youth Council 20060.

“We have about 16 of our 26 kids here tonight,” the organizer of Third Missionary and Royal Neighbors Youth Council 20060 said. “It’s a great way for them to learn about giving to the community.”

It took about 40 minutes for all 600 baskets to be filled. Alcoa employees began delivering the baskets today.

The APSB talks with many aluminium plants about how to create a safety environment that promotes safety. Creating a family atmosphere is one method that we have seen that has been successful in encouraging a environment where worker safely is installed in everyone. Why? Well in most cases workers spend more time with their coworkers then their own family. Overtime you will hear people refer to their coworkers as their "2nd family". The goal is for safety to be a part of the worker. In other words, that worker is safe, and operating safe because safety is part of who he or her is. With that the workers know their coworker intimately. They know their family, parents, friends, etc. Those workers are looking out for each other because they know the worker's family, etc., and do not want to be visiting you in a hospital  or attending your funeral 

Back to this story. Which is representative to almost every Alcoa plant worldwide. The Aluminium Plant Safety Blog would like to congratulate Alcoa Davenport on the goodwill last holiday season. Hopefully, the Alcoa employee volunteers were able to pause during their own holiday celebration to acknowledge that without their individual work a family would have gone hungry.

From the APSB experience each Alcoa plant has a long history of goodwill with their surrounding communities. Alcoa like so many aluminium companies do not advertise the good works that their employees do. Which in all due respect to Alcoa and the other aluminium companies we disagree with not publicizing these great stories. The APSB has talked to many executives about this matter. How can a company with 10, 20, 30 or even 100 facilities publicize the goodwill their plants and workers do to their local communities? Great question. And the answer is…………….. Kidding aside, the APSB does not expect the multinational companies to publicize every instance of goodwill. We acknowledge that is impossible. But we hope that multinational companies would at least publicize on a regular basis. In other words, we’d take something, than what we currently see in our industry. Which is nothing.

Finally, please feel free to forward any positive stories of your plant’s goodwill to the APSB.

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