As an active member who is concerned with our local union and the procedures applied at our meetings and in light of the performance and accomplishemnts boasted by brother Stevens in his election literature I would like take some time to review what in my opinion are memorable actions taken by him and his appointed commitees so that we can fairly and factualy discuss their merit or critisize as we feel is proper according to the facts.
I hope we can do it fairly and openly as is intended by the soverign laws of our land and the IBEW Constitution that recognizes them.
Brother Stevens makes some interesting claims of progressive action taken by himself and his appointed committees.
http://joefashion.ca/Stevens_&_White_Leaflet_Final.pdfAs a participant in every meeting (except those that I was unfairly banned from attending because of improper and wrong decisions made by the 353 trial board chaired by brother Stevens)
I would like to give my opinion on some issues I remember clearly and invite other members to remind me of some that I may have missed and also give their opinions.
I also invite brother Stevens to join this forum and give his opinions on the issues and participate in the discussion.
Here is what I have for starters...
In my opinion President Stevens has been overbearing and used his position to block questions intended for Business Manager/Financial Secretary Joe Fashion, he has interrupted speakers who have attempted to get answers on such important issues as the Retrocom Bankruptcy and loss of $31 million from our pension plan. Our members have brought progressive motions to the floor that he has not allowed to be debated as is proper according to the rules. He has not allowed motions to be debated on our floor but instead has told us he sends them to International office first to be ruled on. He has not read out letters regarding these so called decisions from I.O. but requires we take his word for it. My interpretation of Robert's Rules of Order is that a motion is legal and proper if does not conflict with the IBEW Constitution. Unless the chairman can point out why he is not allowing it then it should be allowed and be debated and voted on by the floor... then passed to the International office for review and acceptance
if it is a bylaw change. International office should not dictate to us what we do in our local and brother Stevens has acted as if he must first check with I.O. who then decide what we can debate on our floor. In my opinion this is improper and deprives the local 353 members of their rights as defined in the IBEW Constitution.
Legal motions not debated or accepted by Chairman/Stevens· Motion to prohibit contractor interference in our elections.
· Motion for local union electronically record meetings so as to be able to settle disputes and ensure accurate minutes.
· Motion to allow more detailed report on our market recovery funds and learn what contractors are getting funds.
Motions Ruled Out of Order By President Stevens· Motion to allow a candidate’s election debate prior to the 2008 election
· Motion to defining rules for use of the local 353 websites to publish the Election Publication including rules defining the fair use of local 353 members e-mail data
Motions Manipulated· Motion to ban electronic devices from union meetingsThis motion was declared passed after an amendment to the main motion was passed. Instead of allowing the main motion to be voted on Chairman Stevens ruled the motion was passed as the amended motion. This is improper and I communicated this scenario to brother Mike Powers the I.O. rep from eastern Canada who wrote a book on the proper interpretation of Robert’s rules of Order for IBEW meetings called Group Facilitation and Parliamentary procedure TIPS. He agreed with me that this procedure was improper. I filed charges with Phil Flemming but brother Flemming returned the charges to me and did not address them. He instead gave me his opinion that he did not feel the charges were within the context intended by the IBEW Consitution. He wrote to me in a letter “These particular charges are frivolous and not within the context intended by the IBEW Constitution; therefore I dismiss these charges” I strongly disagree and contend that the charges are exactly within the context intended by the IBEW Constitution and challenge his action of returning the charges to me without addressing them.
What was allowed to happen at our local 353 meeting is what the IBEW Constitution is place to prevent. In my opinion Brother Flemming has failed to uphold the IBEW Constitution by allowing the local 353 membership to be manipulated by officers who broke the rules to achieve their objective to pass what in my opinion is a rule that prevents true accountability by restricting a members ability to record meetings for his own purposes and to use as possible evidence to challenge inaccuracies. If members taped the meetings there would be evidence of any improper procedure.
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Motion to endorse a Canadian Union Members Bill of Rights (The motion was made but the chairman Stevens insisted on accepting it a “Notice of Motion” which is improper as only changes to our bylaws are notices of motion. Then the motion was not published in our newsletter as is the loca 353 policy and at the next meeting he suddenly changed his mind and decided we would debate it then, as a simple motion, in my opinion this was deliberate and improper manipulation. To achieve the advantage and catch supporters of that motion unprepared, it was no coincidence that a special paper entitled "Soaring Backwards Into The Future" that was produced anonymously and handed out to the membership who did not have time to read it and understand it. The result and combined effect was that the supporters of the motion did not have a fair opportunity to prepare and defend the motion that I believe addressed some basic right and freedoms that must be defined in law for union members. The opponents of the motion presented an orchestrated organized opposition participated in by the Chairman Stevens. These are the actions of manipulative chairman who broke the rules to achieve his objectives.
Committees In my opinion President/Chairman Barry Stevens has appointed so many committees that can all give long and sometimes very boring repetitive reports at our meetings that many members can't stand to sit through our meetings. According to the rules there is no time limit to committees reports and some committee chairmen take full and in my opinion unfair advantage. The worst offenders in my opinion are John Smith who sometimes takes as much as 12 minutes to delver a Building Trades report. Paul Barber has been reporting about how his Power Committee is going to set up a generator donated to the local for 3 years now (and still has not done) and after he is finished speaking I am squirming in my seat because I have it over and over so many times before. Steven Belenger’s Good of the Union Committee was responsible for recommending that members not be allowed to speak on more than one topic when they came to the microphone at Good Of The Union. Barry Stevens used this as a reason to interrupt members when he determined they were not on the same topic. In my opinion this is total an abuse of his position as President/Chairman and contrary to the IBEW Constitution which clearly states that a member has 7 minutes to speak, and no appointed committee can decide how he uses it or how many topics he wants to speak on. If this is an example of progressive action by committees then Steven Belanger should spend more time making sure he brings enough “cold” water not
warm water to the summer meetings and make no more excuses about how busy "looking after the business of Joe Fashion" (his definition of Bus reps' duty) for not providing a cooler with ice to make sure it is cold.
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