UAW Local 2250’s Kim Cook Bell to serve on international union’s new member ethics committee

By SHERI GASSAWAY
Correspondent

Kim Cook Bell, recording secretary for UAW Local 2250, has been selected to serve on the international union’s new Member Advisory Committee on Ethics.

One member and an alternate member were chosen from each of the UAW’s eight regions in a blind drawing. Cook Bell, of UAW Region 4, will serve as a member.

“I’m a blue-collar autoworker that fights for working people,” Cook Bell said. “I don’t have any super powers – just the heart to do what’s right for the people that work so hard to survive and take care of their families. I don’t know what this new endeavor will entail. I just know I’m ready.”

In addition to her duties as Local 2250 recording secretary, Cook Bell wears many hats. She is recording secretary of the International Union’s Women’s Advisory Council, a member of the Local 2250 Community Action Program, president of the St. Louis Chapter of the Coalition of Labor Union Women and an executive board member of the St. Louis Labor Council’s Diversity Group.

She previously served as chairperson of the Local 2250 Women’s Committee and as president of her region’s Women Advisory Council.

UAW ETHICS COMMITTEE
The new committee includes rank-and-file members of the UAW along with UAW Ethics Officer Wilma Liebman and UAW Public Review Board Co-chairs Professor Jim Brudney and Professor Janice Bellace. The committee will:

• Review the union’s existing internal rules and policies on ethical practices and financial matters.
• Develop, based on members’ individual experience, recommendations to the International Executive Board (IEB) for improving existing ethics guidelines, practices, policies, enforcement standards and education of these standards.
• Review the operation and function of the ethics ombudsman and ethics officer positions instituted by the UAW president and the IEB.
• Provide a dialogue between the ethics officer and the committee to enhance understanding, acceptance and operations of the ethics program.

Cook Bell will serve on the committee until the UAW’s 2022 Constitutional Convention.