As my regulars will recognize, yesterday (8 Nov 2007) I posted a piece which I called My Union and I. It was angry and it was harsh. My mood was in response to reading my pay advice, and I was again reminded that I pay my union, Cape Breton University Faculty Association, about $1,000 per annum.

What do I get for it?

Not very much.

But what really galls me is the fact that, in my judgement, my union betrayed me last January.

The union executive had already decided not to back my grievance, so I was flying solo. Ok. You can’t even get a court to help you if your union abandons you. The court will always side with the union. That’s the way life is. It is important not to get stuck on a point like this.

1. To review, the union had already abandoned me. I was managing my own grievance against the administration. It is crucial to grasp this context for what follows.

2. The administration wanted to deprive me of Step 1 in the grievance process. We disagreed over the interpretation of the collective agreement, and the admin wanted to go straight to Step 2. I regarded that as unfair.

3. I presented the facts of the case to the union executive, for their opinion, and I have an email, sent directly to me, which indicates that the union agreed wholly with my position, that my grievance should begin at Step 1.

4. A day or two later, I received a copy of a letter written, indeed signed, by two members of the union executive. It was addressed to the administration, with a copy to me. The letter states very clearly that the union agreed with my position. It then says, however, that in this case it agreed that the case could fittingly begin at Step 2.

5. The union did not discuss this with me. It did not advise me of what it was going to do. It just did it.

6. In my previous post I described this as a betrayal. The union executive colluded, in my estimate, with the administration and encouraged the action of depriving me of my right under the collective agreement.

7. What kind of words do you think I should use to describe such people?

At about 1400 or a little later this afternoon, one interested party, a member of faculty, barged through my door (it was slightly ajar) and pointed her/his finger in my face, saying, “Next time you want to call me a bastard, say it to my face.’

So I did.

_____________________________________________________

Needless to say, I was quite shocked by verbal violence from this person, and I couldn’t believe that such an individual would so blatantly violate the ‘be nice’ provisions of the university’s Human Rights Policy. And what was like totally shocking was that the person delivered her/his message and immediately turned tail, and, one might reasonably say, ran away. There seems to be a lot of that going around. Sort of like a Leftist academic version of white rabbit.

And yet, once I had pulled myself together with the help of a call to that CBU help line for people suffering hardship, I began to think, and I began to smile.

That person swallowed the bait – hook. line, and sinker. I got a reaction which, in my opinion, exposes the union executive. Now it has has revealed itself. I take the behaviour this afternoon as a clear confession of a bad conscience (question: does a Leftist believe in something so passé as conscience?). Anyone secure in her or his own mind about those actions in January 2007 would have challenged me on the facts, or even attempted a conciliatory explanation. Then a serious dialogue might begin, and this bleeding ulcer might be healed.

You know what? I doubt that the executive could give a damn. It is, in my judgement, very clear that the union executive wanted me to lose, because I regard its collective (allowing for some dissent) ideology as simple-minded nonsense. My actions in 2006 all went contrary to the required ideological beliefs of faculty, and the executive seized the opportunity to punish me.

I won’t be blogging about this often.

But it will never go away.

I would like to invite this Hero/ine of the People to a public debate. Here is the debating statement which I would propose.

Be it resolved that in writing the January letter to the administration, the union executive, having already taken itself out of the grievance process, behaved in a treacherous and pusillanimous manner, and should be held accountable for its disgraceful, discriminatory, and prejudicial behaviour.

Are you up for it?

Let the people decide.

___________________________________________________________________

I have decided that my time of waiting is over. I want answers from that union to which I am compelled to pay $1,000 per annum. For what?

You will remember my story last week.

I would now like to add two other points.

1. In my first case, played out in the summer and fall 2006, after the union refused to carry my case to arbitration and I was left alone, I asked whether, in the instance that I won the arbitration by myself, would the union then pay my expenses? The answer came back quickly: No. The union is not involved. It has nothing to do with the case. Interesting precedent.

2. In the second case, which I addressed last week, first the union sent a letter to the administration undermining my position. I was not party to the letter, I was not asked about it, I was not given an opportunity to object. The union just did it. In the period to follow, when I was moving toward arbitration under my own steam and with my own resources, I sent a letter to the union executive. The collective agreement indicates that in the instance of an arbitration, it is up to the union to request materials from the administration to be used in the defence. Because I was, due to union refusal, running the arbitration myself, the union refused to act in my behalf, thus reneging on its contractual duty.

So what we have here is this:

In the instance of the unwanted letter, the union intervened where I did not want it to, and where it had no place intervening.

In the second instance, the contract required the union to act, and it refused.

And What’s her/his name thinks I am out of order to use the term BASTARD? I’ve got some other words, too.

It is time to spread the word. It is time for the union membership to understand what its officers have been doing.

How about a flier in everyone’s mail box?

___________________________________________________________________________

In 2006 and 2007, I fear that I was obsessed with the collective agreement. I should have paid more attention to the by-laws of the Faculty Association.

Check this out:

Where applicable statutes and regulations permit, a member of UCCBFAUT may pursue action before a court or regulatory body as a private individual, at his or her own risk and expense, after UCCBFAUT has declined to participate in any further action. Under such circumstances, UCCBFAUT will make available to any such member and to his or her legal counsel any material in its possession provided that, in the judgment of a majority of the executive, the following two conditions are met: (1) the material sought is relevant to the action contemplated, and (2) permission is received from any other individual member who may have provided such material to UCCBFAUT on a confidential basis.

In both cases, I asked the Chief Grievance Office about the legal advice that CBUFA had received from the CAUT office in Ottawa. In both cases my request was refused.

In my humble opinion (and of course, I could be wrong, and I am just waiting for the union to give me an alternative narrative, and if they do and I find it believable, I will retract all these statements right here where I am making them) …

I SMELL A SCANDAL.

I HAVE BEEN BETRAYED, ABUSED, CHEATED, LIED TO …

… and they wonder why I should think of calling people BASTARDS.

This gang doesn’t even honour the by-laws of the association!