Counting the Quarters
A huge thank you to the correspondents who wrote about the Region 5 all-candiates meeting last night - very interesting items....like this one...
Eddy Almeida promised to send everyone quarterly reports on union finances. That would be expenditures and revenues to date sometime after March, June, September, and December. Almeida says this is about "accountability" and "transparency."
The Insider says this is about micro-management and waste. Board members get financial statements 10 times a year at every Board meeting. Members who are interested in all the pennies can ask their EBM for copies and details. Members who don't need that level of penny-counting don't need more for their recycling bins.
There is no lack of transparency - all convention delegates and alternates get useful audited fincancial statements and convention receives, amends, and passes the annual budget.
Accountability? There is no lack of accountability either. Unlike locals, who have member trustees, OPSEU has to undergo a professional third-party audit - Certified Accountants. It doesn't get more accountable than that!
"Accountability" and "transparency" are the party lines that President candidate Pridham uses too.
It may be fair game to insinuate that the opponents are hiding things but in this case no one has to "show me the money." It is all right there for me, and you, and everyone to see.
Solidarity
Hey, you had my hopes up for a second there…
ReplyDeleteI read your claim that this blog aims to keep us “up to speed on the promises, claims, facts, and fictions of all candidates leading up to the OPSEU Convention.” So I thought that you might be interested in some kind of balanced discussion of the key issues facing the union.
But every one of your posts seems to focus either on criticizing Nancy Pridham and Eddy Almeida and some of their supporters, or on heaping nothing but praise on Smokey and Jamie Tocker.
Why so one-sided? How about listening to what both sides say, and subjecting then to the same level of scrutiny.
Further to my last post, let me help you out by taking a look at one of Smokey's statements.
ReplyDeleteAt the all candidates meeting in Toronto, Smokey clearly stated he never supported framework agreements. That’s a pretty direct statement on one of the most important issues facing our union, and one of the key issues in this election: how to take on the McGuinty wage freeze and the fight to defend public services.
This is an important issue, with candidates on all sides staking out positions. Fortunately the facts are easy to verify – by talking to anyone who was at the September 13 All Presidents consultation in Toronto, and by checking the minutes to the September 13 Executive Board Meeting that took place right afterwards. (http://www.opseu.org/board/minutes.htm)
So what about Smokey’s statement that he never supported framework agreements?
ReplyDeleteFirst, if he was opposed to negotiating framework agreements then why did a senior OPSEU staffer spend 90 minutes in the plenary session at the Sept. 13 all presidents’ consultation trying to turn the day into a demand-setting meeting? I don’t think OPSEU presidents usually let senior staff freelance at events like this. A another, more likely explanation might be that cobbling together some kind of mandate to negotiate framework agreements was in fact a big part of the agenda for the day. Or at least it was until the members spoke up and said it is our elected bargaining teams that do the bargaining in OPSEU.
Go Corrections!
Next, take a look at the minutes for the board meeting that took place in the evening of Sept. 13. There was only 1 item on the agenda for this meeting: What to do about the proposal to go to the consultations with the government, when members had just said they were not interested in allowing anyone but our elected bargaining teams to negotiate on our behalf.
See next post for the details…