FEB 15, 2024
Helloooooo Everyone at CPKC Rail!
I am Michael Newman. Many of you may have already heard of me, and many of you may have even talked to me, or at least read some of my many emails that I’ve been known to send out rather frequently.
Well, I was an employee at Canpar for over 8 years and so I was a member of TC Local 1976 USW. An active member. Very active. But I am no longer at Canpar and so I am no longer a member of your local union. But that doesn’t mean I still don’t know a whole lot about this union and how it works or doesn’t. In fact, I now know more than I ever did before about how unions work because I had the privilege of working for a small, fantastic, independent union, NOW U. For one whole year I worked for the National Organized Workers Union as an organizer and I learned even more about how good unions work and how bad unions don’t.
I’m writing to you today to invite all of you to be part of new kind of union. A Member Based Union. A union which is run by the members and serves the members for the betterment of everyone who pays union dues. Because right now, in TC Local 1976 USW you don’t have that. Your union is paid for by the members but it is the Executives who benefit. You have an Executive Based Union. The union serves the Executives. The Executives DO NOT serve the members. I can safely say this because I know the difference. I worked for a Member Based Union. I worked for a union in which the Executives – the President, VP, and the Business Agents all worked seven days a week fighting to protect their members’ rights. They served their membership. They worked hard for their members.
You do not see this in an Executive Based Union. All the members constantly work, paying their union dues and never see their Executives doing much of anything. Certainly not winning their grievances. I experienced it for myself when I was a member. And many, many of my friends and fellow union members experienced it as well. Every time we make reasonable requests, we are ignored. Every time we file a grievance, it mostly ends up dropped or completely disappears. On the other hand, the Executives go off for fun trips and conferences paid for by the members and don’t really seem to do much of anything except have a good time on the members’ dime.
This is my experience and the experience of many members I have talked with. Our experiences count. How the union delt with us and the problems our members faced is a reflection of their inability to do much of anything.
What seemed to be one of their most favourite sayings was – “Sorry, there isn’t anything we can do. Sorry, we just can’t win.”
When I was a member of TC Local 1976 USW that’s all they seemed to say. They can’t win anything.
If anyone in a union tells you that they can’t win your grievance, that makes them a loser, doesn’t it?If you don’t win that means you lose.
A good union wins grievances because they take them to arbitration. And even if they sometimes lose in arbitration, they really win because they learned what not to do next time in order to win. By trying they learn. By learning they get better. So a good union keeps going back to arbitration because they know they will get better and so they will win. That’s what a good union does. It trains and practices by actively defending its members. That is the union I previously worked for. That was NOWU.
I never saw that in TC Local 1976. They always tried to drop your grievance and never go to arbitration. And so they never won.
They seemed to lose every grievance. In fact, they just lose your grievance all together because they can’t even find it! It’s literally lost. No one knows where it is.
Why should anyone want to be part of a loser union that keeps losing?
I worked for a small, independent union which prided itself on being a WINNER. They were a winning union, which took all of their grievances to arbitration and almost all the time came out WINNING for their members!
That’s what a union is supposed to do!A good union fights for its members.A bad union says there is nothing they can do, and does nothing.
This, of course is my opinion. But my opinion counts, as it is based on my experience. What I saw. What I heard. What I lived.
NOWU was a small union with less members and less money but they fought more grievances and went to more arbitration then any of those large unions out there. NOWU spent the members money on arbitration, on lawyers and fighting to protect their members rights.
TC Local 1976 USW has 5000 members and collects around $2 million dollars CDN a year in union dues, and charged rent on their offices they own in Montreal. But they rarely spend any money at all on fighting grievances and going to arbitration. So what do they spend all that money on?
YOU NEED TO DECIDE FOR YOURSELVES DO YOU HAVE A GOOD UNION OR A BAD UNION.
The experience of EVERY union member counts. Your experience counts. And every member needs to decide for themselves are they part of a good union or are they stuck in a bad union. To do that, every member needs to ask themselves questions to find this out. For example, ask yourself this:
“What exactly has this union ever done for me?”
If you don’t know off the top of your head, then probably nothing.But really to get a correct answer for that question, you need to ask the right people. You need to ask your union.
But who is the union? I thought I was the union? Or at least a member in it?
YOUR UNION IS THE PRESIDENT & THE VP / FST. NO ONE ELSE COUNTS.
In a Member Based Union, the Executives serve all the members, so the members make all of the decisions. The Executives are told what those decisions are, and then proceed to carry them out at the command of the members. This union is the members because all the members make all of the decisions. All the members hold regular meetings in order to make all of the decisions. Those who make the decisions are the union.
If your union holds regular union meetings in which you the members are making pertinent decisions, then you are a Member Based Union.
If you never have meetings, and never get to make any decisions, then you are an Executive Based Union, in which the members serve the Executives. In that case, the members can never be the union, because the union makes all the decisions and since the members never make any decisions, they can never be the union. The members just pay for everything, but decide nothing.
In the case of an Executive Based Union, those who make all the decisions for everyone are the union. And in that case there are only two people who make all the decisions so those two people are the union. It is the President and the Vice-President. No one else counts. There are of course more union Officers or Executive members but they don’t really matter. They are just there for show. All the actual decisions are made by the President and the Vice-President / Financial Secretary-Treasurer.
Former President Steven Hadden’s Favourite Answers
If any of you ever had the experience of interacting with former TC Local 1976 USW President Steven Hadden, you will be familiar with his favourite answers that he always seemed to give:
1. “The Executive Council makes the decisions.”2. “I have no vote.”The TC Local 1976 USW Executive Council was created in order to replace the members so the members cannot make any of the decisions.
The USW Constitution calls for a General Membership Meeting to be held for all members of the local union to attend. In this meeting, every member of the local union may participate and help make all of the decisions of what happens in that local union. A General Membership Meeting is supposed to take place at least once a month. All members may attend. All members may participate. All members make all decisions.
This is how it is supposed to work.
But that is not what TC Local 1976 USW does. They took all the decision making out of the hands of the membership and put it into the hands of the Executive Council.
The Executive Council is made up of the President, VP/FST, Chair of the Board of Trustees and the 3 District VPs (District 3, 5, 6) for a total of 6 members. As President Hadden says “I have no vote.” So when decisions are made all the others vote, and the President does not. Only the other 5 Executives vote. So the President can then claim that he or she did not make the decisions. “The Executive Council made the decisions.” But the strategy is to make it so others make the decisions so that the people in charge who really make all the decisions can never be blamed.
So the reality is that the President and the VP will tell everyone else what it is they want to do, and so the rest of the Executives on the Executive Council basically have to go along with them because the President and VP are paid full salaries and together control all of the money. For example, everyone is told that the Executive Council made the decisions which the members are not happy with, but the reality is the President and VP/FST have full control over that decisions and so make it. The Executive Council takes the blame. Meanwhile the members are entirely left out of the decision making process. The members are essentially eliminated and so what they want is eliminated as well. Their only purpose is to work at their jobs and pay union dues and never ask questions of the Executives who make all the decisions.
Every time your grievance is dropped or not pursued, it is the President and the VP that make that decision. They will claim it is the Grievance committee or the Executive Council or everyone else. They will never put their name on it. But those in charge make all the decisions and the President and the VP are the only two full time Executives with full time salaries. The VP/FST signs the cheques and so does the President.Those who sign the cheques make all the decisions in absence of accountability.
NO OVERSIGHT – NO ACCOUNTABILITY
The simple fact is that with this system, the Executive Based Union, in which the members are completely eliminated from the entire decision making process, there is no oversight. The President and the VP/FST tell everyone what they want to do. If the members on the council do not agree, then all the President and VP has to do is apply pressure on them. Since they control all of the money, they control how all of it is spent. Those who make the decisions can decide whatever they want to when there is no accountability.
The members have no say in anything.The members make all the money, but the President & VP/FST decide how to spend all of it.
They can do this because the members are not there to watch what they do. The members perform no oversight, so there is no accountability for any of the decisions that the President and the VP/FST make.
The USW Constitution calls for General Membership Meetings so that all the members may attend and oversee how the President and the VP/FST will spend the money. The President and the VP have to explain themselves on what they did working for the members. And when the members tell them what they want, the President and VP will have to follow it or explain why they did not. Therefore, there is accountability. The President and VP can not just do whatever they want to because the members are meeting at least once every month, overseeing what the President and VP are doing and holding them to account for not doing what the members wanted.THE PRESIDENT & VP & EXECUTIVE COUNCIL OVERSEE
THEMSELVES – THEY ARE THEIR OWN SUPERVISORS
That is why the Executive Based Union benefits the Executives. They make all of the decisions with no oversight except from themselves because the members are not involved at any level. Members have their unit meetings which have absolutely no power in decision making.The Executive Council, which does what it is told by the President and VP, oversee the actions of the President and VP. But they are dependent on the President and VP and there is no one overseeing the decisions of the Executive Council. They oversee themselves.
Think about your own job. What would happen if you did something wrong? Your Supervisor or Manager would correct you and there would be consequences if you did it again. But what if there was no Supervisor or Manager? You were your own Supervisor and Manager. You oversaw yourself everyday at work. So that when you did something wrong it was up to you to correct yourself. Wow. That could be fun. Pretty soon, you would figure out that you could do anything you like at work, including not working, and there are no consequences because you are overseeing yourself, so you do not have to hold yourself accountable for anything. You can do whatever you like because there is no one else holding you to account.
That is the system you have in place right now in the Executive Council. There is no oversight. There is no one holding them to account for what they do except themselves! What a joke. And the joke is on you the members. You are supposed to have General Membership Meetings so that the President and VP can account for what they do everyday. They should have to explain to the members what do they do to earn their money.
I am sure that all the members, when asked, can say exactly what they do everyday to earn their salary. They work hard and can list exactly all the tasks that they did to earn that money. But what does the President and VP do everyday to earn their salary? In fact, what is the salary of the President and VP? How much money do they make? And what do they do to earn all that money? These are the questions that members need to be able to ask their President and VP in order to hold them accountable.
Remember, the union dues keep rolling in automatically. Whether the President and the VP do work or do no work, the money keeps coming in, and they keep getting paid. And there is no one watching them for what they do because they are the bosses. They tell everyone else what to do. So who watches them. Currently, they watch themselves and account to no one.
THE PRESIDENT AND THE VP HAVE FULL LEGAL CONTROL OVER YOUR CONTRACT AND YOU CANNOT COMPEL THEM TO DO ANYTHING YOU ASK THEM TO DO.
Just think about it for yourself. Name one thing you have asked for and got. Now ask yourself the question, why do you have to ASK? If it is your union, because it is all your money, then you don’t have to ask. You tell. You tell the Executives how you want to spend all the union dues which you the members earned and paid into that union.
The President and the Vice-President DO NOT pay union dues.But they decide how to spend all the union dues and even more importantly what happens to your contract.
The union (which is the President and VP) have exclusive bargaining rights. This is interpreted by the labour board and all arbitration to mean that the union (your President and VP) have full legal control over that collective agreement and so have full decision making power.
In other words, the President and the VP can decide to do whatever they like with your contract and there is nothing you can do about it. You cannot make your President or VP follow your requests. You are essentially like a minor, like your children. Your children cannot make any legal decisions. You, as the parent make those decisions for them and they have no control over it. But children get to grow up, become 18 and gain the legal right to make their own decisions. In the union, you are a legal minor forever and never get to make the decisions. Your union (the President and the VP) are your parents and so they can treat you like children.
But never letting the members make any decisions that is exactly what they are doing. Treating you like kids. Because there is no accountability. There is no consequence for making decisions which the members do not agree with because there is no way to remove them – unless you can have elections.
FOR 45 YEARS THERE WERE NO ELECTIONS IN TC LOCAL 1976 USW.NO ELECTIONS MEANS NO ACCOUNTABILITY.
What can compel a President and VP to listen to the members and do what the members want is the fact that they can be replaced with other people who will listen to the members. This can happen if elections are held.
That is why for 45 years TC Local 1976 USW made sure that there were no elections. No elections were ever held because the membership did not understand how the election system worked. The system is designed so that only the incumbent executive officer gets nominated. Meanwhile, no one else is nominated so there are no election because there was only one nominee – the current executive. So they are acclaimed. They are not elected.
Being acclaimed is not the same as being elected. The members never got to make a decision because they were never able to nominate other members to run for the positions. In that system, there is no oversight and no accountability because there is no threat that the Executives can ever lose their positions because they can never be voted out.
For 45 years all the Executives appointed each other to be executives. Then every executive was acclaimed. There were never any elections, which means none of those executives ever had the support of the members because they were never elected.
That is why they wrongly claim they were elected when they were not.Read the descriptions. All these union executives claim they were elected when no election took place.
So the executives, the President and the VP/FST have never cared for getting the support of the members by being elected because there are no elections ever. So why would a union Officer ever care if the members were happy with them or not? It doesn’t matter because they can never be removed from their position, because they will always be acclaimed every three years because they will make sure no one else can ever get nominated.
That is a system which is rigged in favour of the Executive Base and does not serve the members.
The only way to hold your union (the President and the VP) accountable is to be able to hold an election in which the members can vote them out and replace them with new and different people.
That never ever happened before in the entire history of TC Local 1976 (since 1976) except for the very first time in 2021.For the first time ever, the members were able to get their fellow members nominated because for the first time ever they properly understood the nomination system.
ELECTIONS 2024 – YOUR CHANCE TO GET A MEMBER BASED UNION
The only way to hold your union, the President & Vice-President / Financial Secretary-Treasurer, accountable is to be able to vote them out of their office. To nominate candidates to run against them and to have all members vote in fair elections to replace them with a President and VP/FST who serve the members instead of themselves.
By doing this, you the members can change your local union from a Executive Based Union to a Member Based Union.With this one election, you can completely change the nature of your union from a selfish self-serving Executive Based union to a local union in which the members make all the decisions in a General Membership Meeting, just like it says in the USW Constitution.
That is the Executive Based System and yet the USW Constitution calls for a Member Based System in which the members make all of the decisions and the Executives follow orders and carry them out.
A long time ago when there was no cell phones and no ZOOM Meetings and long distances in between members this may have been a legitimate reason to not have a General Membership Meeting. But with today’s technology, it is no longer.
A ZOOM Meeting can be held for 500 members or even 5000 members. Everyone can attend. Everyone can make decisions. This is the union of the future. Going back to what the original union was. No executives, No presidents. No Vice-presidents. Just members meeting to make decisions among themselves that would benefit everyone equally.
That is a Member Based Union. That is the union of the future. That is the union I can show you all how to get.
ELECTIONS 2021 WERE PROTESTED BECAUSE PRESIDENT HADDEN COMMITTED MULTIPLE VIOLATIONS OF THE USW LOCAL UNION ELECTIONS MANUAL (LUEM)
So because myself, my friends and my union brothers and sisters all worked together, sharing information and what we learned with each other since 2018 we were able to figure the union election system out and get candidates nominated to force TC Local 1976 USW to have elections for the first time ever!
But former President Steven Hadden did not follow the rules. The Presidents and Vice-Presidents of TC Local 1976 USW have never ever been in elections. They have always been appointed and acclaimed based on their loyalty to the President who appoints them – not their loyalty to the members whom they are supposed to serve. That is why the members serve the Executives.
So for the first time in 45 years, the President faced the possibility of being voted out of his position. So former President Steven Hadden did not follow the rules found in the USW Local Union Elections Manual (LUEM). The members nominated Jeff Gough to be Chair of the Election Committee and 15 other members to be tellers to run the elections so they would be fair. Former President Hadden ignored these nominations even though they followed the LUEM. Instead, he picked his secretary to run the elections along with his friends. None of these tellers were approved by the members, even though it is required in the LUEM. That is a violation. A significant violation. There were other violations as well. Many members filed Election Protests and carried them through for over a year and a half. They never gave up. They saw them through to the end, and on November 10, 2022, Larry James personally presented his Election Protests to the International USW Executive Board. He also presented protests from Frank De Napoli and Jeff Gough. 40 days later on December 15, 2022, former President Steven Hadden “retired” immediately. Former President Steven Hadden had another year and a half left on his three year term. He was barely half way through and he “suddenly retires” 40 days after the International USW found that he had committed election violations because there are no exceptions in any of the approved bylaws of TC Local 1976 as required by the USW Constitution. It was clearly said by the USW that Larry James was right, that violations were committed by President Steven and as evident in the bylaws there were no exceptions allowing President Hadden to commit those violations.
Larry James, Frank De Napoli and Jeff Gough’s protests worked and got President Steven Hadden removed.
Steven Hadden was forced to retire. For example, in contrast former National Director of Canada Ken Neumann announced his retirement 1 year before he actually retired and took an entire year to tour around saying good bye to everyone. He then retired at the very end of his term. President Hadden just suddenly retired and announced it only two weeks before, then he disappeared from the scene. No tour. No fair well. No well wishing. He just quickly exited, because the members protested and stood up together and the International USW listened. They will never admit it, but it is very clear that they told President Steven Hadden to voluntarily “retire” or he would be removed (fired). The choice was his.
THE POWER OF THE MEMBERS WORKING TOGETHER
So the lesson from the elections of 2021 and the election protests launched by your union brothers is that by working together, sharing information with each other and constantly keeping in touch and discussing what they have learned, the members of TC Local 1976 have the power to completely change this local union around.
Before 2018, for over 40 years none of the members knew anything about the workings of this local union.In just a few short years, me and my many friends taught each other what we learned and together we educated ourselves and anyone around us who wanted to learn how this union works and how to change it.
INVITED TO HARNESS THE POWER OF THE MEMBERSHIP
All of you and anyone you know are invited to come and learn everything that we know. We are your fellow union members and we will teach you everything that we know about this local union. We will show you everything that you need to know to stand up to a bad union and turn it around and make it a good one. We will show you how to change an Executive Based Union into a Member Based Union which will equally benefit each and every one of you.
The secret is simple: Giving
I learned because several generous people gave of their time and knowledge and expertise about this union. They had access to what I did not. And they shared what they had learned and experienced with me. The result is I learned things – new things – and I shared it back with them. That is the real power of a union. No Executive Based Union has that power. They are weak and useless because they are selfish. They will share nothing with no one. Not even themselves. No Executive will share what they know with other Executives because they are in competition with each other. The ultimate goal of the Executive is to become the President or Vice-President so that they can earn a $180,000 CDN salary a year + expenses for the rest of their working life until they retire. Only two people can do this, but there are 9 officers. So seven Executives lose out. So they do not like each other very much as the President and Vice-President get all the money and perks, while the rest of them are left out of the big money win.
That is the system of the greedy Executive Based System.
Only the President & VP gain immense personal wealth, all paid for by you the members, while they share nothing and control everything.
What a useless waste of time, money and resources.
STAND UP TO YOUR USELESS UNION. I WILL SHOW YOU HOW.
All of you can defeat a greedy, selfish executive based union by working together and learning together.
I will show you how.
Anyone can call me anytime –
437-988-2853.
You can send me emails: newmantalksunion@gmail.com helloooooonewman@gmail.com
We will arrange regular ZOOM meetings at different times and days so that everyone can attend a meeting.We will all meet and discuss what this union is doing and what we can all do to change it for the betterment of all the members.
It is not that hard. In fact, it is rather easy.You just need to know how. I will show you.You just need to meet good people who will help each other to help themselves.I will introduce you to such good people. I am very fortunate to know many of them.And I look forward to meeting many more.
In Solidarity,
Michael Newman