Wikipedia describes a Slate (elections) as follows: A slate is a group of candidates that run in multi-seat or multi-position elections on a common platform. The common platform may be because the candidates are all members of a political party, have the same or similar policies, or some other reason.
And now for the rest of the story:
A few years ago, there were a group of members that decided to run as a slate at Convention. At that time, it was obvious that the direction of the MGEU was headed off the rails in a direction that our founding members would never have condoned. Our president was on a personal vendetta against everyone that she felt had wronged her in some manner. There were a couple of firings and when questioned by board members they also suffered the wrath of this president. What is of note however is that when this group of members put their names forward they were slammed by our president and her friends for running a slate. These members never said otherwise, they acknowledged that they were running as a slate. What was never acknowledged by our president and her friends is that these were very capable people whose only goal was to put the MGEU back on track as a Labour Union and not the unscrupulous cluster of dogmatic individuals that we have today.
We do know that the president has actively solicited from her group of supporters a slate of individuals (Team Stay the Same) to run at Convention 2018. A slate?? The very same thing she and her friends criticized these other members of doing. How disingenuous is this? Wake up MGEU brothers and sisters, can we possibly afford another two years of this regime. Remember that it will soon be time for the Civil Service to bargain with an 8% decrease in staffing proposed and a set amount of increases to be had. Then there are all of the other groups within the MGEU that will also be up for negotiations. Look how well this unscrupulous cluster of dogmatic provincial officers, has done for us so far. Do we really want more of the same? Let’s elect some individuals that would like to move forward and are prepared to do what it takes to get there. There is no room for Team Stay the Same in our future!
As noted in the previous blog, our present forth vice-president wasted no time in coming forward for the position of first vice-president when our current first vice-president announced that he would be putting his name forward to run as president. We now know who will be running for the forth vice-president position and as predicted it is a friend and supporter of our current president. We will not say that this individual is not capable of being our forth vice-president but his political stripe would indicate that he may not be as labour friendly as we would like. Again, this individual is from rural Manitoba and will not change the fact that Winnipeg has absolutely no representation at the provincial level of our Union. The new Constitution was redesigned to insure there would be a fair representation by population throughout Manitoba. How soon we forget.
We noted that on Steinbach online Saturday May 12, 2018 that our president was making some comments related to the upcoming rationalization votes. Interesting read for a number of reasons, but specifically the last two paragraphs. Please refer to Steinbach online as we are not going to reprint what she said, however she claims that she has talked to our members in the Southern Health Authority and that they have made it clear that they want to remain with the MGEU. Well they voted for CUPE the last time because they couldn’t stand her bullying tactics, we hope they are reading the blog and find out nothing has changed. Maybe these comments were a figment of the president’s imagination just like many other comments she makes.
As we know there has been no indication made at this time that there will be a redo of the previous rationalization votes conducted in 2011-2012 for rural Manitoba. This is the only area where the MGEU was not successful as noted in a previous blog and for the reasons stated at that time. We know there is only one local of MGEU members from Health Care remaining in the Southern Health Authority and they number around 80 members. Hardly a resounding endorsement for the MGEU. Your subterfuge is astounding!
PS: It would appear that the Trades Director did not get the memo regarding who of the president’s friends would be running for which provincial table officer’s positions at Convention 2018. Word has it that this fellow declared his intent to run for the forth vice-president position. Shouldn’t be long now until we hear he has rescinded his intentions. Or maybe there is beginning to be dissension in the ranks! We now know that there are at least 4 members confirmed as running for forth vice-president! Let’s hope at least one of them is from Winnipeg. What do you say?
Anyone hear what the outcome was for the MacDonald Youth Services group that went out on strike awhile back? This is the group that our president made go back to work. Information appears to be hard to get regarding this group, but never fear we will persevere and bring you the information as we get it. Must be something fishy going on if we can’t get the information we are seeking at a faster rate than we have.