CUPE Weeklong School - Day 4 & 5

These were my days.

7am - Wake up/Shower
7:45am - Breakfast
9am - Class Starts: Awesome real examples of Labour Law... learning occurs.
12pm - Lunch
1pm - Continue with learning... apply what we have learned.
6pm - Supper
7:30pm - Study
11pm - Sleep. Repeat.

The course was so involved I wish it had been able to go on for another week. To me it seemed as if every story or occurrence was another stack of real experience I could use on a future issue.

Tonight is the BBQ. I look forward to a little more relaxing, and a little less reading.

I have really enjoyed this years week long school.

CUPE Weeklong School - Day 3

My second day of Labour Law has proven to be a jaw dropper. I have found out that I have made some pretty large leaps of faith in my own local and hope that when I get back I can right those mistakes. One of the issues I thought of was the recent raiding by AUPE. I had thought that the AUPE was covered under NUPGE. After listening to some arguments on raiding I find out that AUPE which used to be part of NUPGE was penalized in 2001. I am not sure if they are still a member of NUPGE, but if they are not it stands to reason that AUPE has nothing to loose by raiding other locals. In CUPE you must be affiliated to the national body, I am not sure if the same is true for NUPGE. Either way it has changed the way I look at our CLC partnerships in general.

Also of note is the fact that I didn't know the labour code as much as I should. The body seems so far removed from our local that I just thought it was something that the national reps needed to know. There is a lot more than just strike information held by the labour code and I will be diving right into that the minute I get home.

Mostly I have learned that many others that have had to fight issues have offered many good examples of what to expect with future issues. It is comforting to know what my members rights are in the case of filing grievances and I hope to translate that back to the members on issues that I will be dealing with in the future. There are so many rules, it seems like they just keep coming and overlapping the deeper I get into CUPE.

I am glad I have come to take Labour Law. This course is a precursor for Labour College. I am getting more and more excited to participate in that school. My guess would be that next year when they offer the course, I will be making plans to try to attend.

Otherwise the school is pushing forwards quite well. The tone so far has been different from last year. I would say it is more toned down and serious this year. A few more days to go though. Our evening fundraiser which will be for the victims of the Slave Lake fire should be extremely fun. We are continuing our friendly poker tournament where the proceeds will go to the cause.

The picture above is an call to mobilize put on by the privatization course. They are running a mock meeting where we (the students) are of local 9999 and we are organizing to vocalize our displeasure at an attempt by council (our teachers) to privatize our water treatment plants. We march tomorrow.

CUPE Weeklong School - Day 2

My day is still going (9:45pm). As much as Labour Law is interesting, the homework is bar none more than I have ever done (excluding reading convention booklets).

This is a great eye opener for those who haven't the slightest clue about the grievance procedures in place in today's union. My eyes hurt to even edit this. I am going to take a break and have a beer at the social which this year is put on totally by the members in attendance. In years previous CUPE Alberta has bought everyone a beer. Not so this event. Probably for the best. I mean we're grown adults, who I think can fork over a buck for our own beer.

Side Note: Another one of my birthdays spent at a CUPE week long school. Not a bad place to enjoy it. People here are all happy to learn and congregate with those brothers and sisters who are trying to better their union lives.

Day 2 we have a quiz and I eagerly look forward to it.

CUPE Weeklong School - Day 1

I have had the pleasure of attending my second weeklong school put on by CUPE Alberta. I will be taking Labour Law, which is a pre-requisite for the CLC labour school. From what I can gather the course is very well done and includes a little tiny bit of reading (another 3 inch binder) which will cover some examples and general rules of labour laws.

We have changed venues from Red Deer College to Olds College in hopes of sending a message to the Red Deer management who have decided to privatize a book store filled will CUPE members.

The dorms are near identical to those found in Red Deer. The only difference I can smell so far is our proximity to the farm life which is paramount to the courses offered here in Olds. It feels good to be away from the bustle of Red Deer, and I think I will be very impressed with the venue as chosen. Along with the location comes the lack of what we city folk take for granted, wireless access. From what I am told there is access but at the current moment it doesn’t extend to the dorm rooms, which is not really a big deal.

I did manage to get some much needed sleep though. After my last time through this program I was able to get a full night of sleep. I am sure that as the week progresses my sleep needs will be taxed as school life and the social aspect will start colliding. Many of the brothers and sisters in attendance are not from my local and this presents a good opportunity to find out what is happening in their neck of the woods.

Day 5 at the CLC: Short Day, we travel home.

Last evening there was a dance held at the Westin. I wasn’t able to make that event, but from what everyone tells me the hotel ballroom was packed and the band that played was awesome. Today after spending the morning packing my things, I made my way down to the convention. The mood was a lot different today compared to yesterday. The stage was stripped of all the delegate tables, many of the delegates who were eagerly waiting to get in were noticeably absent. The reason I suspect is that today the emphasis was more on the education of the membership instead of the business of the CLC.

The first speaker was talking about how we need to start embracing social media, and how using avenues like Facebook are vital to getting the information out to the members we represent.  It was also a message of caution on the boundaries that are broken when using social media. Not everyone needs to know certain information. Overall the information was interesting and those in attendance seemed to be actively listening to what was being said.

The day was ended short. Friday was considered a travel day back to our respective homes. As we said goodbye many issues were left unanswered and it would be up to our CLC representatives to struggle over their relevance at future board meetings.

I will take this opportunity to wrap up the week. I am quite impressed with the democracy that has occurred here today. The issues we will be striving for in the next 3 years are absolutely attainable but I fear will be very difficult to achieve. The Progressive Conservative majority that this country now follows has some very different views of how the federal level should be run. I think that it will be up to us to inform the populous that people need to have certain government run programs. It all comes down to your belief structure. Do you strive for personal wealth and personal sustainability? Or do you strive for community wealth and cooperation. At the federal level I hope that we all are striving for the later.

The past days have been at little overwhelming, but now that I know the rules if I am given the opportunity to participate next year I will gladly take up the opportunity. If I could go back and do one thing differently it would be to have had the program in my hands before I arrived in Vancouver. I received a binder that was 3 inches thick of information that I had to process over the course of the four days. With all of the programs running during the days and the evenings, I would be surprised if anyone could have thumbed through all the information handed to us as we registered.

Day 4 at the CLC

Day four was by far the realization that the CLC is something that is way bigger than any one any one organization that I have every been a part of. Overall the day was awesome, and my experience will be something I will remember for years to come. There was a weird ending to the day, but I have my suspicions that it was staged for day 5.

I am going to recap in the end after I go into a explaining a few points, and then bring it all together. What I saw was very interesting to my development to the union cause. Would I change a few things, of course. The level of the CLC requires the use of order that can take your breath away. Here are a few things I noticed.

Mic Muffins
I got be one of these "muffins" for CUPE. This idea was new to me, but it wasn't so out of the question. The most major problem with Resolutions is that those that stand behind them, also sit at a major seat in the CLC (Example: Paul Moist who is chair of one of the resolutions committees.). Consider that 0.5% of the convention floor is filled with active people who have valid points on the process. 2000 people for which 10 would like to speak on any given issue. Each person is given 3 minutes to share that point, and in most cases they go over their time trying to sum up. Equals thirty minutes of listening on one resolution. You can start to see that if you have an important point, you could miss your opportunity if the chair calls the question and tests the house. Which in a room this large is an important step in advancing the agenda.

So to further the cause I became one of those guys that sits in a chair at the appropriate pro/con microphone. When the resolution was to come up, the speaker for my chair would appear. The positive side to this is that good pro/con debate can take place with people who know the issues. The negative side to this is that as a new speaker on a hot issue, you will never ever get a chance to speak unless the previous list of speakers takes far less than their 3 minutes.

Motions on the Floor
No motion can be brought to the floor if another motion is currently being debated. So being an effective Chair at the CLC level means that everything is a motion, before a microphone is recognized.  Ingenious... and frustrating if you have an issue you wish to bring to the floor. Case in point, an "Action Caucus" was struck during the convention and they tried to mobilize a petition. However after the petition was signed, there was no appropriate method to introduce it to the floor because the daily agenda was already approved. Points of order do not come into play.

The importance of this factor is that the issues of the day can overtake the issues of the convention. Since convention is run every 3 years, certain resolutions need to be passed. However in the next point I digress into this.

The Undecided Resolutions
The kicker in all of this is why we don't necessarily need to OR absolutely need to spend more time on resolutions. If we don't get submitted resolutions covered at the floor, our national delegates will meet and decide on them at their closed door meetings. Good if your delegate is in the majority, bad if they are not. To compound this problem, the days events are split up into speakers, panels, resolutions, and entertainment. All of which play a role at the convention in furthering education, future direction, and participation by those in attendance.

Debate
I would like to say the CLC floor is more the real lack of debate. In a regular CUPE convention the debate on the floor follows the following method. If there is a PRO and CON microphone, the people who are lined up will alternate PRO, then CON. After debate has ended or the chair calls a successful question, the membership will vote on the issue weighing in on what they have heard. In the event of a referral the issue would then be brought back for further discussion.

The CLC follows a different structure. The chair will look out and see who is at the microphones, and recognizes them in whatever order they stood at their location. This resulted in many many PRO speeches that were all neither arguments for, but verbal stances to support the resolutions.

Now I am all for "RA RA" high energy feel good speeches, but we could have plowed through resolutions if the chair did not follow this method. I understand that some of the members were sent to push their resolutions forward, some like to hear themselves speak, and some who are climbing the movement ladder need to vocalize and get the message out there... but after you hear leader after leader continuously go over their 3 minutes, talking about how they admittedly support the resolution, it gets old fast.

This was my only real pet peeve at the convention. Since many of the resolutions presented to the floor neither required debate or would have had a chance of failing. In fact the composite resolutions or as I like to call them "super resolutions" were written in such verbiage as to not cause any real objection by the parties involved. To be honest some of the composite resolutions were so generic or all encompassing, it was hard for anyone to see any fault in their purpose.

Speeches
Lets say this whole convention was a string of words. Powerful words, important words, inspiring words. Needless to say a lot of listening was required. I enjoyed every minute of it. The whole process was so grande yet the rules were like our own hall. At our local meetings, we say our piece and we sit down. Sometimes we go long but most of the time we say what we feel and we move forward.

It seems that when you have such limited time at a microphone you tend to either say your piece and be content with that, or you continue daring the Chair to switch off your voice. Many who spoke were presidents of their national unions. All of them except one over the entire convention were unable to follow the 3 minute rule. At first the crowd despised the 3 minute rule, but by the end people could only respect it.

I will go away from this convention with a great understanding of how emotional speeches are required by those that lead at this level. Not the uncontrollable sobbing, or the loud yelling, but planned pronunciation in words that one speaks to masses.

Business of the Convention
If we were to deal with resolutions, and nothing else I would still be sitting in Vancouver weeks later. We would grind to a halt, listening to the debate. However what other important reasons would the delegation have to come to this event if not to decide who and what they will strive for in the years to come?

I'm not in a position where I could correct the balance a convention must try to attain when allotting time to the business of the organization in a convention. Tough questions for those who create agendas. For me this is an easy answer:
- Reschedule the speakers or panels for the evenings,
- Revamp the elections to be ballots submitted throughout the convention with candidates declared before the convention begins,
- Open the convention with very rapid introductions, and jump into resolutions.
- Plow, plow, plow through the issues. If the microphones are all PRO, call the question or refer to the CLC board.
- Live stream this event online! So much was information and so little of the 3.3 million union members affiliated to the CLC will ever hear about what went on here.

Overall Experience
All of my grumblings aside. I was very interested in the CLC. After seeing what goes on, I would be very interested in going back. That being said, our local should be involved on a more intimate level. If we really want to be part of the CLC in another capacity other than as a voter at the convention. We should be getting involved in the committees. Otherwise we risk sending our members to an event that we really only involve ourselves a few times each year.

As it stands right now, I think that we should be sending at the very least two union officers (From the Full time all the way to the (Executive-at-Large), and one member off the floor to help continue the education of our local. This year we sent five, all from the executive with 3 of the five as our full time officers. My personal belief is that the office needs to have one of the full time officers at all times in the office. Perhaps with technology my opinions may change, but not having those officers available to the membership is a risky move.

End of Day 4
So I said that convention ended a little weird on the Thursday. The day was getting long, and we were loosing quorum. One of the members was recognized on the microphone and questioned if we still had quorum. There was some confusion whether we did, and the Chair decided that we just had enough. So the member referred all the remaining motions to the CLC board for review. Which was passed by the membership and essentially ended the convention when it came to business. This move must have been planned because day 5 looks like it will be all educational.

It was weird because we had so much more business to go over. I would have thought we should have to delay the educational and just continue with business the next day until we really lost quorum. I'm new at this so I probably don't get the finer points to the convention, so I will hold my tongue on this one.

Since most of the elections were done, resolutions were referred and we were one day away from leaving. I prepared for Day 5 by riding the very impressive sky-train in the city.

Day 3 at the CLC: Today we hear Layton, more resolutions and perhaps have an election.

Yesterday we started once again into finalizing resolutions. Like I said before, the CLC chomps through resolutions like a carnivore. I believe the super resolutions encompassed 41 regular resolutions and about a handful of constitutional resolutions. Consider the absolute number of resolutions covered... quite impressive.

The democracy over the issues can be palpable. The afternoon was rife with very open and honest views on the issues at hand. We started into constitutional changes over things like raiding. A very open and interesting conversation emerged. Many on the floor detest the practice of raiding, but no one group could be singled out as a culprit. Needless to say the convention floor was adimate that raiding was not acceptable, and that by changing some rules, we would be able to better control the practice. I'm not sure about that, but I can tell from the reaction on the floor, the intention was clear. Stop the practice, and get back to organizing the unorganized.

Changing the constitution can be quite disruptive to groups, and the first late day referral was in my opinion the right move since the super resolution in question was so watered down it looked nothing like the combination of resolutions that created it.

Last night the young workers put on a forum panel which I attended. The result was good conversation with a union representative from Wisconsin and many interesting developments on the moment of the young workers in Canada. Afterwards the band Conscience, originally from Calgary, performed for us a few of their new tracks. I was impressed and finally tuckered out. Long days for me are a great motivator on why you sent us here in the first. place.

Today should be quite interesting, I hope to be able to upload some video. I have a problem with sound reverberation with my camera. I thought you should see what kinds of conversations occur in an event of this magnitude.

Stay tuned.

Day 2 at the CLC

Efficient use of time. I have to say that the CLC knows how to debate resolutions. Speeches abound mostly Pro for the resolutions (Over 90% so far). The super resolutions have covered a mulititude of fair-tax, child care, and retirement resolutions. For the most part these resolutions keep in tact the ideas behind the singular resolutions, but I have to admit they are a bit watered down. I guess we all have to water our wine down to get what we want. Overall the debate hasn't been too over the top. Personally I would like to see a quicker testing of the floor when we have so many pro speakers. However as it was pointed out today, at the CLC we recognize those that have waited in the lines instead of going Pro... Con, if oppositions exist. The chair has spoken, and in that made it very clear that testing the house is only done after about 7 speakers (or about 2 times through the microphones).

Otherwise, I am quite impressed with the momentum of this event. It is great to see so many people on or close to the same page on issues affecting our country. I have to point out that there was a pro-speaker today on the child care super resolution that reminded us that 30 years ago we were talking about the same issue of affordable child care. Personally it can be daunting to think that these issues could last that long. What I do know is that the CLC is setting themselves up for another 3 years of fighting issues that seem to effect regular people but must climb over the wall of big business and the profit monster that exists in these companies.

This event is absolutely massive, and I don't think I can under sell this basic fact. When we got here we were hearing that attendance would be in the 2500 range. What I am told is that number is closer to 1900. As I progress in CUPE I keep getting an even bigger picture of what a labour movement is. From local, to provincial, to national. I can now see another tier. The conference is all about groups of national unions. Were talking millions of workers represented here. This movement just achieved a critical mass in my mind that makes any worthwhile movement if implemented properly shine in the forefront of any politician willing to listen.

CLC Open for Business

I walked into the convention centre with my mouth open wide. This space is massive, there is a lot of people here and they all have a pretty good idea what they want to get out of this event. Many unions from all over Canada associated with the house of labour are in attendance. CUPE who is a major player in the union landscape disappears into the vast amount of unions in the building.

We have just spent most of the morning doing the intros. Big news is that the new leader of the opposition Jack Layton will be speaking on Wednesday instead of Thursday. Other than that the reports are coming out and we should be diving right into the meat of the resolutions.

One of the most interesting things I have seen is how the CLC deals with resolutions. The 4 day event needs to get through speakers, bureaucratic procedures, elections, and resolutions. It's amazing how much gets done. There is a booklet full of this years resolutions, and with the amount of debate on the floor it would impossible to get through all of them. So the CLC groups resolutions together to make them super resolutions (not the real title). They encompass large amounts of information that are similar. We handled 5 super resolutions and they collectively held 20 resolutions between them. There are weaknesses and strengths in each method.

The strength to this is that a resolution can pass with a very broad sense to its self covering many items. A weakness is we can pass a resolution based on a single issue or defeat it for the same reasons. If today was any indication of the next few days, there will be some very interesting debate and some very interesting theater.

I keep getting reminded that the discussions on these issues have happened many times over before it hits the floor. A lot of the discussion is just a reminder or short notes for those not in touch with that issue. Already there are a few people who have been up to the mic speaking on many issues. I am considering getting up to the mic and speaking on an issue, but I have to remind myself of how much bigger this event is. We are talking on a National level. Many of the local decisions, play only a small role in the larger picture.

I'm writing this as the Vancouver Canucks have just moved on to the next set of playoffs. Good thing too since the theme for this night will be staying in and studying the next days agenda items. There is so much information and events happening here, I feel like I could be up for 26 hours and still not have a handle on everything going on here in Vancouver.

One of the speakers was the Oscar-winning director Charles Ferguson (pictured above). He recently won an Oscar for the movie "Inside Job". Since I have seen this film earlier and I was very impressed that we had the pleasure of hearing him. His take on the state of the economy in the states was mostly about greed and the problems with a system that doesn't put in place adequate rules to keep financial institutions in line. The movie is being screened here at the hotel in about 30 min from writing this. Like I said so much going on, not enough time to do everything.

CLC Begins

This years Canadian Labour Congress is starting and you have sent 5 members to Vancouver to take part in the event. I will be submitting the days events online to help you understand what really goes on in the upper world of CUPE. So far the first day has been quite dry. CUPE Caucus held in the Fairmont has put us on the same page. There is a question however to how long the convention will go without a major disruption. Union raiding has become a hot button issue and some of us CUPE members would like to see some heated debate on the topic. We have a few CUPE endorsed members running for some of the positions and we will be looking to put our roughly 300 members in attendance to task. Rumor has it that we will see roughly 2500 people at this convention. Should be a very productive week.

Late Night Executive Meeting

Lot of issues to discuss. One of my longest meetings ever. 6pm to 10:30pm. Please come to the general meeting next week Tuesday May 10th, at 7pm.