OLRB Dismisses Contractor Interference Complaint

[GoodTradeUnionist]

Hearing Joe read the OLRB decision last night gave me some time to think. 

Who was the lead brainiac (Speranza) that came up with the strategy?

Troy made hay of the absentee ballot in 2008, but fizzled in his efforts to get any traction.  Proving that bullying doesn't work in every situation. 

As for the OLRB decision, what a waste of money, time and energy. 

The fact that Speranza, Gullins, Hussey and Lloyd had to modify their initial claim for damages because they were absurd to the nth degree, and in the end came away with NOTHING, proves they are empty intellectual vessels.  A variation of the empty suit.

One year of wasted effort.  Perry, you will never hold a job in the brotherhood ever again, maybe not on the tools.  Who wants you? 

As for Al Cohen, I love you even if you are myopic in your hate for Joe. 

You guys lost.  Period.  Let me say it again, you got trounced.  No better yet, you got your asses handed back to you with a note that said, "pull my finger." 

Oh boy, did you guys get the shit kicked out of you. 

Gullins involvement at the OLRB (Redpath) was a bad enough debacle, you can now add this decision to your trophy case.

Absolute fools, and you guys still don't get it. 

Perry this is not a good omen for 2011. 

[353boy]

to BTU
mannnnn oh man can you spew hate
You should have one thousands of what these boys have for the organization... and that includes those of us who supported the action

you will never have the audacity to stand up like these boys to try and bring some form of Justice and fairness to the organization

what you don't see is that would only give all members the right and the opportunity to  stand up without any fear of repercussion by who ever is in power at the time ... today ... tomorrow or 2000 years from now...
and for that only you should feel sad cause the same sh... that has been happening for the past few electionsss will continue to happen

As to feeling love for Al..... heheheh......only if you were  a good looking lady with some major assets.....
haaaa i was going to put some stuff on here but out of respect for the ladies that might read this  .......
And by the way
 Hate is a wasted energy that I learned to avoid a long time ago..... but you do show sign of some good use of it on this site
So to conclude let me say that you should read those 6 pages again and see Just what the board said... and If you want to blame anybody wellllll many people helped pay for the action out of their own pocket and not the hall's pockets
what does that tell you ........that a lot of people give a shit enough to give up their own money.... what the f..... did you do??? but take another paycheck
any ways YOU have a great weekend

[PSperanza]

I hope to post that letter on this forum so we can understand what the vice chair's decision means. There is much to learn from that letter and GoodTradeUnionist's interpretation doesn't do it justice as you will see once we begin to examine the letter and what it says.

I believe the action pursued by the members involved was totally worth the effort and that it will have great impact for the future. It illustrated to me once again how the system has flaws and that there is a gap in the justice available to union members.

It also showed that local 353 officials would participate in opposing the action by sending high priced counsel into the proceedings to argue that the applicants (Gullins, Hussey, Lloyd, Speranza) had no standing to bring a complaint at the OLRB.

Vice Chair McKee ruled that we did have standing.

Local 353 officials spent $11,700.00 + $11,724.88 = $23,424.88 that we know of so far for senior lawyer Al Minsky to argue that the IBEW had dealt with the election challenges and we shouldn't be at the OLRB.

Our action dealt with contractor interference not with IBEW internal issues.

The local union administration would not allow the membership to debate and vote on a motion to pay for legal counsel to address contractor interference but spent at least $23,424.88 of our money to argue against members standing to address the issue and that we should not be at the OLRB to address those types of issues.

Our counsel argued that it was exactly the place to be.

At last night's June 2009 meeting President Barry Stevens accused the members who pursued the action of wasting local union money but consider what Al Minsky represented and the arguments he made and decide for yourself who is responsible for wasting members money.

Local 353 counsel argued that the action be dismissed because of delay. Vice Chair McKee found that delay is significant because after the election a contractor no longer had the opportunity to address the complaint, nor can the board order them to do so.

He also said that...

The acts complained of are not trivial , in the sense that the election was a close one, and may have been influenced by small factors. However, the acts complained of constitute acts or words by an employer that are directly or explicitly supportive of one side in an election. Such actions may well step over the line drawn by section 70, but it it is not so plain and obvious a violation of the act the matter is free from debate.

For these reasons, I conclude that there is no labour relations purpose in inquiring into this complaint. I do not mean to be unsympathetic to the applicants, even if union elections are generally a long way from polite debating society. To come close in an is no doubt disheartening for the unsuccessful candidate in every case. In this case, however, there is no labour relations purpose to be served by allowing this complaint to go forward. I therefore exercise the Board's discretion and decline to inquire into this complaint of a contravention of the act.

Now that is just a couple of paragraphs from the decision and  just couple of my impressions. Some of Mr. McKee's conclusions make sense but what they really do is point out to me the flaws in having legislation that puts so much onus on filing a complainint during an election about issues that may not be discovered till after the election. The contractor's actions had great effect on local 353 members and the election but what is being said is that the board can only affect the contractors action before the election and cannot hold them responsible for any damage they do to the election by their interference.

The context of this argument leads me to wonder about the IBEW First District because there were complaints lodged during the elections with the Phil Flemming's office in plenty of time to act on internal issues and in my opinion IO interfered by ordering the elected election judge to include the disputed absentee ballots with the rest of the ballots.

Also if the issue of delay is so critical in elections then why is it the IBEW International office does not act with expedience. If the the IBEW First District office had dealt with the challenge within weeks as Al Minsky stated at the hearing then why did it take till after the members of local 353 had filed a complaint at the OLRB for a decision to Robert Gullins challenge.

Also I have still not received a decision to the challenge I filed despite another promise that it would be delivered to me on the week of June 8, 2009 which was over today?

Just a few of my thoughts about this issue, I hope that the letter from Labour Board David A. McKee can be posted here for you all to read and discuss further.   


 

[353boy]

 In Response to our wonderful pres accusing some of our members of wasting our money ...  i did not want to embarrass the pres at the meeting but
 Just how much did that free trip to England cost the IBEW
did we learn anything out of it or
that we just were giving a reward to our pres for  helping win the last election with his political savvy
 I sure as shite did not get a report on just what the English did after Margaret thatcher screwed the unions.....
But that is just me... I. most of the time, want to know what i get for my money.... Just silly that way

All the serious faces at the  the head table last night also told me that some people were put on notice  and that it was not a total victory for the A team..... but they did spend 20 odd thousand dollars of our money to help the contractors.....against an action being carried out by some of our members
I see something wrong with that picture.... maybe it is just me
But i can only tell you what i can see   and think
so to one and all have a great weekend

[Jim Upper]

In Response to our wonderful pres accusing some of our members of wasting our money ...  i did not want to embarrass the pres at the meeting but
 Just how much did that free trip to England cost the IBEW
did we learn anything out of it or
that we just were giving a reward to our pres for  helping win the last election with his political savvy
 I sure as shite did not get a report on just what the English did after Margaret thatcher screwed the unions.....
But that is just me... I. most of the time, want to know what i get for my money.... Just silly that way

All the serious faces at the  the head table last night also told me that some people were put on notice  and that it was not a total victory for the A team..... but they did spend 20 odd thousand dollars of our money to help the contractors.....against an action being carried out by some of our members
I see something wrong with that picture.... maybe it is just me
But i can only tell you what i can see   and think
so to one and all have a great weekend

Interesting as to where the line is drawn between representation and maintaining friendly relations. One being at a distance might get that impression that the scales are a little heavy on one side. Now why would that be? Are both feet on the relations side?

[Highwaystar]

It also showed that local 353 officials would participate in opposing the action by sending high priced counsel into the proceedings to argue that the applicants (Gullins, Hussey, Lloyd, Speranza) had no standing to bring a complaint at the OLRB.

Vice Chair McKee ruled that we did have standing.

Local 353 officials spent $11,700.00 + $11,724.88 = $23,424.88 that we know of so far for senior lawyer Al Minsky to argue that the IBEW had dealt with the election challenges and we shouldn't be at the OLRB.

Our action dealt with contractor interference not with IBEW internal issues.

The local union administration would not allow the membership to debate and vote on a motion to pay for legal counsel to address contractor interference but spent at least $23,424.88 of our money to argue against members standing to address the issue and that we should not be at the OLRB to address those types of issues.

Our counsel argued that it was exactly the place to be.

At last night's June 2009 meeting President Barry Stevens accused the members who pursued the action of wasting local union money but consider what Al Minsky represented and the arguments he made and decide for yourself who is responsible for wasting members money.

The fact they stopped the members from using local union money and then threw our money around to stop the evidence from being brought to light says so much! Did they get the members permission to do that. How does Barry Stevens justify spending $24,000.00 to send a lawyer in to say that members have no right to go to the labour board to fight the contractors. This just another stinky situation for the Joe admin.

[PSperanza]

We are living in an amazing chapter of IBEW history brothers and sisters. Unfortuneately too many are too busy to be paying attention to what is happening. There are few of us however and hopefully between us we can make sure the facts are recorded and proper credit goes to all those who played rolls.

When a book was produced for Local 353 100th anniversary there were some versions of the local 353 history published from the perpective of the people who were incharge of producing the book. I guess that's the way it is with history.

What has transpired over the last few years has taken IBEW internal politics to places very few have ever been. Vice Chair McKee said it himself that there is very little case law to refer to in matters such as these.

I really hope some learned people chime in and give us their opinions on what we have discussed here. 

[Jim Upper]

The local union administration would not allow the membership to debate and vote on a motion to pay for legal counsel to address contractor interference but spent at least $23,424.88 of our money to argue against members standing to address the issue and that we should not be at the OLRB to address those types of issues.

Our counsel argued that it was exactly the place to be.

At last night's June 2009 meeting President Barry Stevens accused the members who pursued the action of wasting local union money but consider what Al Minsky represented and the arguments he made and decide for yourself who is responsible for wasting members money.

The fact they stopped the members from using local union money and then threw our money around to stop the evidence from being brought to light says so much! Did they get the members permission to do that. How does Barry Stevens justify spending $24,000.00 to send a lawyer in to say that members have no right to go to the labour board to fight the contractors. This just another stinky situation for the Joe admin.

The OLRB case did not directly include L.U. 353 as a respondent and that would indicate that the expenditure for a lawyer to intervene on behalf of 353 in that case was not warrented without approval from the floor. I don't know about 353 but that would be a chargeable offence in 303 as it was not a standing bill. If it were here you would have 60 days to file charges against your B.M. and President from the time that cheque was signed or cashed.

In addition one of our brothers (it appears he has gone to the darkside, he is closed lipped now except for attacking me now) suggested that  our L.U. start a budget process so that we could track all the expenditures of our L.U. and create a working budget. That idea was shot down by our B.M. who believes that no one can tell a B.M. how to run our office. So here we are in the 21st century and our union is being run like a owner operator where our B.M. believes he is the owner. It's a wonderful life brothers! Perhaps a budget would be a good campain strategy for the good side seeing as the opposition likes to hide the numbers.

[Conversationalist]

Hearing Joe read the OLRB decision last night gave me some time to think. 

Who was the lead brainiac (Speranza) that came up with the strategy?

Troy made hay of the absentee ballot in 2008, but fizzled in his efforts to get any traction.  Proving that bullying doesn't work in every situation. 

As for the OLRB decision, what a waste of money, time and energy. 

The fact that Speranza, Gullins, Hussey and Lloyd had to modify their initial claim for damages because they were absurd to the nth degree, and in the end came away with NOTHING, proves they are empty intellectual vessels.  A variation of the empty suit.

One year of wasted effort.  Perry, you will never hold a job in the brotherhood ever again, maybe not on the tools.  Who wants you? 

As for Al Cohen, I love you even if you are myopic in your hate for Joe. 

You guys lost.  Period.  Let me say it again, you got trounced.  No better yet, you got your asses handed back to you with a note that said, "pull my finger." 
Oh boy, did you guys get the shit kicked out of you. 

Gullins involvement at the OLRB (Redpath) was a bad enough debacle, you can now add this decision to your trophy case.

Absolute fools, and you guys still don't get it. 
w
Perry this is not a good omen for 2011. 

Hey GTU you were not threatening Perry Speranza with being blacklisted by the union or contractors were you? I would love to know how often Perry was laid off in the last five years? I wonder what governmental agency investigates blacklisting?
By the way I would just like people to take a moment and walk in the shoes of Perry Speranza as he tries to work in this union with the threats of people like GTU  and contractors that are in bed with this union. Not fun Im sure. Quite difficult to say the least.  And with there being no seniority in this union, no severance pay, being laid off with one hours notice under the guise of shortage of work etc blacklisting is TOO EASY.

By the way I wouldnt gloat over the dismissal of this application as a victory but more like a coverup and thats my opinion and I am sure members and public alike can agree with me as very important questions were not addressed.



Are 353 members questions or complaints not answered or dealt with because the union knows they can get away without doing anything as there is no one that will force them to do so and that is because union members cant afford legal representation of their own and the union freely will threaten lawsuit if the member persists in trying to enforce their rights?

[Conversationalist]

I hope to post that letter on this forum so we can understand what the vice chair's decision means. There is much to learn from that letter and GoodTradeUnionist's interpretation doesn't do it justice as you will see once we begin to examine the letter and what it says.

I believe the action pursued by the members involved was totally worth the effort and that it will have great impact for the future. It illustrated to me once again how the system has flaws and that there is a gap in the justice available to union members.

It also showed that local 353 officials would participate in opposing the action by sending high priced counsel into the proceedings to argue that the applicants (Gullins, Hussey, Lloyd, Speranza) had no standing to bring a complaint at the OLRB.

Vice Chair McKee ruled that we did have standing.

Local 353 officials spent $11,700.00 + $11,724.88 = $23,424.88 that we know of so far for senior lawyer Al Minsky to argue that the IBEW had dealt with the election challenges and we shouldn't be at the OLRB.

Our action dealt with contractor interference not with IBEW internal issues.

The local union administration would not allow the membership to debate and vote on a motion to pay for legal counsel to address contractor interference but spent at least $23,424.88 of our money to argue against members standing to address the issue and that we should not be at the OLRB to address those types of issues.

Our counsel argued that it was exactly the place to be.

At last night's June 2009 meeting President Barry Stevens accused the members who pursued the action of wasting local union money but consider what Al Minsky represented and the arguments he made and decide for yourself who is responsible for wasting members money.

Local 353 counsel argued that the action be dismissed because of delay. Vice Chair McKee found that delay is significant because after the election a contractor no longer had the opportunity to address the complaint, nor can the board order them to do so.

He also said that...

The acts complained of are not trivial , in the sense that the election was a close one, and may have been influenced by small factors. However, the acts complained of constitute acts or words by an employer that are directly or explicitly supportive of one side in an election. Such actions may well step over the line drawn by section 70, but it it is not so plain and obvious a violation of the act the matter is free from debate.

For these reasons, I conclude that there is no labour relations purpose in inquiring into this complaint. I do not mean to be unsympathetic to the applicants, even if union elections are generally a long way from polite debating society. To come close in an is no doubt disheartening for the unsuccessful candidate in every case. In this case, however, there is no labour relations purpose to be served by allowing this complaint to go forward. I therefore exercise the Board's discretion and decline to inquire into this complaint of a contravention of the act.

Now that is just a couple of paragraphs from the decision and  just couple of my impressions. Some of Mr. McKee's conclusions make sense but what they really do is point out to me the flaws in having legislation that puts so much onus on filing a complainint during an election about issues that may not be discovered till after the election. The contractor's actions had great effect on local 353 members and the election but what is being said is that the board can only affect the contractors action before the election and cannot hold them responsible for any damage they do to the election by their interference.

The context of this argument leads me to wonder about the IBEW First District because there were complaints lodged during the elections with the Phil Flemming's office in plenty of time to act on internal issues and in my opinion IO interfered by ordering the elected election judge to include the disputed absentee ballots with the rest of the ballots.

Also if the issue of delay is so critical in elections then why is it the IBEW International office does not act with expedience. If the the IBEW First District office had dealt with the challenge within weeks as Al Minsky stated at the hearing then why did it take till after the members of local 353 had filed a complaint at the OLRB for a decision to Robert Gullins challenge.

Also I have still not received a decision to the challenge I filed despite another promise that it would be delivered to me on the week of June 8, 2009 which was over today?

Just a few of my thoughts about this issue, I hope that the letter from Labour Board David A. McKee can be posted here for you all to read and discuss further.   


 

Perry the biggest flaw here revealed is that the union members are challenged by the union collective bargaining agreement and do not have legal counsel to help them understand this union bargaining agreement to the full extent and this vice chair clearly showed the flaw in that he stated that this claim should have been brought forward prior to the election and if 353 members had their own legal representation they would have been told this but 353 members had to follow the route of making their complaint to the IO first. So the vice chair hit the nail on the head and he should have seen this flaw himself and realized that this was of major importance and that he needed to set a precedent for the future so this does not happen again but because he wasnt willing to see this flaw or go forward on this flaw he took the easy route and dismissed it.

Thats my opinion anyways and will not be solved until someone with authority steps in anD changes this. The collective bargaining agreement fails the union member as seen here and it disadvantaged the members who brought this case forward to the OLRB because the union member does not have legal representation that is unbiased and for them and for their interests and their interests alone and no one is willing to DEAL WITH IT.

You are right when you state that its not until after the election that the irregularities become evident-case in point that the contractors telling members who to vote for cant be clearly shown until after they vote and also if you had paid legal representation that they would have told you to go forward prior to the election taking place. But again in favour of what you state-I became aware of a union contractor telling his employees who to vote for in this election of 2008 a few days before the run off election so that wouldnt give members enough time to take action now would it before the election ?

So clearly we see that a very important issue was dodged at the very entity that is supposed to be put in place to solve matters under the collective bargaining agreement.

[Conversationalist]

Another question I will ask is why did the vice chair allow the union lawyer to speak and thus incur a legal bill that 353 union funds paid for?  I ask this because the vice chair in dismissing this application cited that he did not believe that any labour relations purpose would be served by hearing this application and that the time delay from the applicants was also a factor but in my opinion since he allowed the union to speak and argue points he was thus making it a labour relations issue and then he should have questioned the union on why the IO took so long in ruling on the complaints.  That would fall under the duty of fair representation. You cant have it both ways.  You allow the union by means of lawyers to argue then it is your duty to ask the union/lawyers to answer questions which then also adds to the motion of not only contractor interference but also the duty of fair representation. I think that should be easy to understand. We dont need to add so much mumbo jumbo to make a point that is clear and concise. Then the flaw of the members not having unbiased paid legal representation at their disposal comes into play and adds more questions.

So whose side is the OLRB on?  Are they not paid from tax payers money including union members to look at every angle when they have a case or are they biased towards the unions? And does their being biased and leaning toward the unions complicate matters so that a simple case becomes complex and then they are not willing to explore all the avenues and ask tough questions? 
th
Union members suffer a double whammy-they have no paid legal representation and when they make an attempt out of their own pockets they are cut short and the union still continues to pay the lawyers for their fees from union funds to protect themselves from the members.

GTU or was it dubious distinction stated that any lawyer will take your money and say you have a good case, Well then what about the union lawyers? Anyone questioning their motives or is the union funds a never ending cash cow?

Then one of them stated that this action did not belong in the labour relations board yet the union paid a lawyer to argue there even though the members stated it was between them and the contractors and the lawyer received payment for their services from union funds so at which point did it not belong at the olrb and if it did not belong there like he stated then why did the union believe they had a right to send a lawyer there then? Wouldnt the labour board be able to decide this on their own without a union lawyer present being paid by each minute they were there or were working on it at the office? So was gtu or dubious distinction talking about the union lawyers when he stated that any lawyer will take your money and say you have a good case? Can they answer that?

[Conversationalist]

I bring up old posts and incidents just to prove that nothing new has changed for the benefit of the members and the one change in 353 that I see in the past few
years  only happened because of this forum and what it exposed as a serious problem with respect to members grievances . Time
will only tell if this in house counsel  is unbiased representation or not that is truly working for the members benefit .

The big  question though was - why was these pregnant female members grievances covered up and at the time these grievances were given to the IO in Washington and Mississauga
that in house counsel for grievances was not brought in then ?  That was as I stated before 7 years later . So in my opinion they were covered up and nothing was done until this forum exposed it publicly.

So why are they dragging their feet with Perry's case ? What are they waiting for?   Perry has made it public. How much money are union lawyers being paid to dissect every word posted on here to try and silence this site ? why does perry speranza not have paid representation to file a OLRB duty of fair representation action since he was fined $2000 in kangaroo court ?

Can perry use in house counsel for his grievance against the union that IO is not responding to?

All good questions worthy of an answer because the answers affect each and every member .