Did somebody mention trolls?
If you read Owens letter back from when the local merger was put out he was against it. Why? Maybe because he was worried about the membership system wide not voting for him. Little did he know that 75% of the new 591 membership would be so apathetic they wouldn't even vote. Most of the votes they received were more due to their ability to label the other ticket as "Team Videtich". I doubt anyone voted on issues and the 75% that didn't vote were just sick of the political blame game and jockeying for their own position off the floor and in to a lifetime officer job.
But look at Owens, Peterson, JR, Rojas, Schiable, and Knapp now. Where are they? Not on the floor addressing member's issues. You have them writing letters, disappearing, or blaming people that aren't even there anymore. They sure did get motivated to get the 591 bylaws passed with their fat raises in them without a membership vote though. Oh wait, Bob says the International "gave" them the raises. Yeah, right. If the expended the same amount of energy and pressure on the International to get their bylaw change and raises through on equity and retiree emdical, we would have our money by now!
What has to happen, TWU or AMFA (I hope not), is that members get involved and vote the hacks out. Some are gone already that were blamed, right or wrong, for the mess we are in. The members need to wake up and steer this union in OUR direction. Get accountability and visibility for our dues. This is OUR union and it belongs to us.
We need to draft bylaw changes that strip them of their raises and directly tie it to what we all get or don't get. Submit a motion to have a report of how many hours are being paid to each officer for UBP and what we got for it. Make a motion to force officers that are on UBP to spend a significant amount that time on the floor answering our questions about equity, the BK, future plans for a JCBA, and what is happening with joining the TWU and IAM.
Yes Overspin we were so worried that we opted not to spend $4500 on a mailout from the International like Team Videtich did and instead spent $100 on Business cards with the names of who was on our slate.
The guys I spoke to who admit they didn't vote said to me that they instructed their wives to simply toss anything that had the TWU logo on it into the garbage, don't even open it. So all the money that Team Videitich spent on their fliers was for naught, they went the same place as 75% of the ballots, not only would these guys have not voted for team Videtich anyway but they never even read their schpeal. The members are apathetic because of Videtich's dream contract that we got stuck with. I admit that I'm rarely on the floor, and I miss that part because I always liked that part of the job, still cleaning up the mess the Little -Videtich team created by blowing up the five locals and then saying, there you go, rebuild it into something, and we have been doing just that. Instead of offering assistance they initiated a forensic audit, starting with Local 562. As any mechanic knows it takes a lot more time to put something together than to blow it apart. So in addition to trying to build 591 we had to deal with the Auditors who wanted details on every single transaction and even things like "Why is there an odd number of taxi receipts in Puerto Rico to and from the Hotel?
(In PR the Hotels do not provide bus service, I did meetings at the airport and went back to the Hotel in between and I asked one the Chairman if he could pick me up at the Hotel on his way into work.)
Spring is here, surely you could be out doing some yard work or something productive now couldn't you? Me I'll keep chugging along, next project is to set up an efficient more automated dues tracking system, have had discussions with local 100 and may adopt some of what they develop, that may leave me a little more time to get out and hear what the members have to say. Also through our State Conferenece pushing for changes in Sect 1167 to include Airlines so AA could not do what they just did again. have appointments with one Congressman before the Cope Conference after already meeting with a staffer and have Contacted the pilots Union that testified before congress about the need for reform especially concerning Airline workers.
So Overspin, what have you been doing the last year?
You seem to be worried about UBP, funny but I don't recall you asking about it when Gordon Clark was on UBP organizing for the IBT. Or what about Bob Vanderloo, or ,,,,,,,,,?
