Recall no, charges, a Trial and subsequent removal if found "guilty', yes, but Sonny Hall maintained that Local unions can put recall in their Bylaws, they just dont want it to apply to the International. We tried to put in recall for International officers at the Convention but it never even made it to the floor.
There's a proceedure where members on a Local level can bring forth charges against Officials but only for cause. The "cause" must be a violation of the Constitution. "No Confidence" is not considered a cause. Locals can put it in their Bylaws that members can recall for any reason but the International doesnt like it. Our first attempt to add Recall to our Bylaws was rejected, when we pointed out that several TWU Locals already have recall in their bylaws it was later approved.
However at the International Level they are immune from any membership driven action, except of course, decertification. So the members choice is accept it as is or decertify, I think they should have more options and the Resolutions we presented at the Convention sought to bring more accountability to the members but as you know, they were all rejected, they never even were read to the Convention, they were in the book but never read like the Resolutions the International wanted to pass. We had to make a motion to even discuss the resolution, which was rejected. At the Convention I had asked several of Rojer Toussaints team why they voted against certain resolutions, liike the electronic balloting they used, they claimed they didnt, when I pointed it out to them in the book they admitted that they never actually read them and just voted how Rojer told them to vote. Hopefully at the next Convention we will have better luck.
Members can only elect delegates, who then vote at the Convention for International officers, who then appoint division leaders. I feel thats wrong as well, the delegates from each division should vote for who heads their division. That would be like saying that we should be content to just elect Local and State officials and let them determine who the Governors, Congressmen , Senators and President should be, and on top of that we shouldnt even have the right to know how our elected leaders voted! Its wrong and it needs to be fixed, thats another Resolution that got voted down at the Convention, our local proposed that we use electronic voting at the Convention, one where each vote is recorded and then the membership would be given access to those records, so at least the delegates could be held accountable. Little actually commented in favor of electronic balloting after the fact because one vote between Donny Tyndall and challenger JRuiz went to a division of the house and the two vote counts taken were very different. Local 100 has over 40 EB members and they have used electronic voting with much success for several years.
The only ones who can recall International officers per the Constitution in reality is officials of the union after they conduct a Kangaroo Court. If one is accused by the membership and the International has no beef against the indivual accused more than likely the findings of the International will be that the charges are without merit, if one is accused by the International there is a 100% chance of conviction without any real evidence because the accusor appoints the Judge and Jury from within their ranks. How does the line go? "We're going to give him a fair trial followed by a first class hanging"
Some argue that "Just cause" should be the standard for removing elected Union officials because thats the standard that Unions use for termination. But there's a big difference here, being a union representative is a priviledge of confidence bestowed upon an individual by their peers, they are saying "You speak for me". If the members dont feel that way should this person still have that priviledge? Revocation of that priviledge is not the same as being fired because you return to your former position, you do not become unemployed, you still have your job. If someone goes out and gives a good line of BS during their campaign but then once in office does a complete flip should the members have to live with that for three years? No. Many forget that. Thats why we have recall in our bylaws. Every one of us knows that at any time the members can remove us and put us back on our box, and thats the way it should be.
On a Local level the TWU is very Democratic, or it can be depending on what the members put in the Bylaws. Our problem with accountability stems from the fact that we are split up into twenty one Locals so the International controls the contract, the Locals have little real say. From the system board to negotiations its their ball. This is not a problem for Locals 100, 555, 556 and most other Locals in the TWU. In those Locals they are the only Local under the contract, or contracts. The International doesnt really control administration or negotiations. So you dont have people there at the table from the Union side who are not accountable to the members like we have. John Samuelson(100), Tom McDaniels (556) and Gary Shultz (555)dont have International officials telling them they they should not ask for much because the employer may go bankrupt, they dont have International officials telling them that their members shouldnt expect an industry leading contract and they "should put this whole thing in their rear view mirror and do whats best for the company". They probably dont have International officials telling them every bit of doom and gloom there is, if they did they would probably tell the International to "get out". One way we could fix this is to become more like 556. While consolidating into one Local would undoubtably put control in either Texas or Oklahoma the fact is I'd rather have control in the hands of someone we as a whole chose and not someone who is making over $150k and not accountable to us. I want someone who knows that if he doesnt even try to produce an industry leading contract he will be back on his box.
