Transparency

Transparency

The dictionary describes transparency as follows: as used in science, engineering, business the humanities and other social contexts, is operating in such a way that it is easy for others to see what actions are performed.  It has been defined simply as “the perceived quality of intentionally shared information from a sender.  Transparency implies openness, communication and accountability.

For this president’s entire tenure, she has pegged her reign as being open, transparent and member driven. Accountability is NEVER mentioned.  As reported in the previous blog there is nothing about the MGEU that is “member driven.”  Our president is so self- absorbed that she forgets who puts her where she is, every two years.  As for open and transparent have you ever been able to get in touch with our president if you call?  (Friends excluded.)  Want your picture taken with our president, sure no problem.  Looks good in print.  She talks about her open- door policy, and it may be open but she is never there.  Roaming around the country on our dime and is NOT accessible.  She is always talking in the President’s Five minute Update about what she alone has done for us. Be clear Madame president you do nothing in a vacuum, you ARE accountable to us.

And now for the rest of the story:

Let’s look back to the beginning of our current president’s first two years in office.  We will not beleaguer the firing of the two Senior Directors five years ago except to say there was nothing open or transparent about what happened in this case.  For at least four years that we know of, prior to the firings, it was the wish of our president to be rid of all the MGEU Senior Staff.  Luckily or not for the remaining Director he was on vacation at the time as he was one of her main targets. What the president never said at the time was, that she accused the two Senior Directors of hiring back a fired staff person.  This was totally inaccurate, as he was never rehired by the two Senior Directors however, we will say that the president chose to pay this ex staff for the information provided, to prevent an unfair labour practice from occurring, so in retrospect she rehired him. This individual has sworn out an affidavit that states that at no time was he hired by the MGEU, or offered compensation except for a meal. He volunteered to come back to close some files that were pending after he was fired.

Our president, has since replaced two of the Directors with friends of hers.  Both have worked on her behalf to secure votes she needs to maintain her position as president.  The final director, a new hire, came to us with little or no experience in the labour movement.  These are the three “yes people” of the Senior Staff of the MGEU.  Did our president allow this new hire to be in charge of staff?  No, she kept this as her own purview so she would be ultimately be in charge of everything and in doing so, has made many mistakes.

Let’s look at her choice over the past few years on who attends the NUPGE Leadership School.  We know that there have been a number of applicants over the last few years.  Some of these members come from the Board of Directors and have been around for some time.  Our president, time and time again hand picks her friends and supporters to attend these kinds of schools, and let’s be frank, some of them are not rocket scientists.  This year she has decided to send our current third vice-president.  Let’s hope there are no aboriginal members from elsewhere in Canada attending this school, as this is the person that travels miles around aboriginal communities in Manitoba since she does not feel safe traveling through a reservation.

When a previous fourth vice-president became fed up with some of our president’s tactics, he announced he would be running against her in the next election for the president position.  What happened?  She hired him!  Problem solved.

When some Board members were asking too many questions what did she do?  She Section 9’d them, in short she disciplined them for standing up to her. Problem solved, as it was all her friends and supporters that sat on the Disciplinary Committee.  She appointed them!  Thank heavens the individuals disciplined were reinstated by an appeal to NUPGE, the national union.

When our president has issues she wants to insure are passed by the Board, she calls her friends and supporters and tells them what she wants and they do her bidding.  To be sure the issues she wants passed have everything to do with what she needs, or something that will benefit her supporters.

Any one of the previous blog examples also indicate she is NOT transparent!  What’s more, it has been revealed that when the Local that had taken a strike vote were advised by the president that the votes would not be counted as she stated that she had “made a deal” she further stated that only she, as the president, could decide if someone went on strike!  Transparent!  Open!  Member driven???????

This is what we keep electing as our president and vice-presidents, Convention after Convention.  We have decided, as a group, not to tell people what Union we belong to as we are ashamed of the lack of values this president and her friend and supporters display day after day. There is no accountability to the membership of the MGEU by this president and her friends. Saying this we have done yet another straw poll amoungst our group to determine where we would chose to go if we were part of the intermingling votes. Some of us are, and you may be surprised what they said and why.   NEXT BLOG

We know that this blog upsets the powers that be in the MGEU, but did you know, our president asked the Area Three Director running for Fourth Vice-president and former RCMP officer to call in some favors and find the bloggers.  Illegal!  We are only printing the truth.  We know of course that our president would give you her rendition of the truth and not remember what the truth really is.  Check the facts and decide for yourselves.

Member Driven?

“When an organization has members, and the members are the primary reason for the organizations existence, the key success factor is the ability to attract and retain the right members.  The organization will thrive only if it meets the needs of sufficient members.  An organization can have members and not be member driven.  There is no substitute for engagement with members.  If your group does not satisfy their needs, they will move on.”   (Member Driven Organizations/Debi Peverill/Pulse/LinkIn

And now for the rest of the story:

There is certainly one thing that we can give our president credit for and that is she is out and about all over this province on a regular basis.  Is she really engaging our membership to hear our issues and concerns?  The answer appears to be NO.  It is one thing to be out here in our communities but it is entirely another thing to bring our concerns back to our Board of Directors so they may be dealt with.  A better question yet would be why we elect our Area and Component Directors if not so they may bring our concerns to the Board Meetings to be dealt with.  There are a number of things that have happened over this president’s tenure that point to the fact that she is only looking out for herself and a few of her special friends.

The first thing that has become evident over the past six years is that we no longer have the close working relationships with our staff reps that we once enjoyed.  These are the individuals that we employ to look after our issues in the workplace.  We pay very good money from our dues for their expertise into matters with which most of us have very little experience.  We look towards our staff for the support and knowledge we need to ensure our members are receiving the very best advice and support that the MGEU is able to provide.  To stifle them and not allow them to be part of the big picture is an insult to our membership and to the staff!  The excluding of our staff members who service the Health Care Locals that will be impacted in the upcoming rationalization votes is absurd!  Who better knows our issues than our staff reps or does our president think she knows everything there is to know about health care because she claims to have held many different health care positions in the field.  We know some of her claims to fame are fake news.

There are at least five issues that have us questioning how our president could possibly say we are a “member driven union” when she has blatantly disregarded our Constitution?  To be sure there are more than just these five incidents that we will mention, but these five sure do indicate that whatever was done in these situations it benefited our president more than our members.

1.  Allowing the previous GOLICO Director to maintain his position even after he was no longer a GOLICO member.  Now this same member is seeking to be elected at Convention 2018 as our Fourth Vice-president.  Either the president or this member himself had an obligation under our Constitution to vacate this position.

2.  The Area Two  Director is fired from his position at work but our president allowed him to maintain his position on the Board of Directors pending an arbitration hearing.  He is then tapped by our president to work on the intermingling votes with no history in Health Care.  A financial reward to this individual who is presently working a new casual position.

3.  Area Five Director that has taken a position within a different Local than the one he was originally elected from and is maintaining his Area Five Director position also while working on the intermingling votes.

4.  The interference by our president into a strike that was “member driven” and was the responsibility of the said Staff Rep to conclude bargaining on this Locals behalf.  Our president went far outside her mandate as president and did ACTE bargaining unit work.

5.  Interfered in a Locals ability to count their strike vote and to proceed as mandated by their membership to either continue bargaining or to strike.  We have it on good authority that when questioned why the votes could not be counted our president stated she had made a deal with the Labour Secretariat to not count these votes.  Someone must have received some benefit for doing this and the only one we can think of is our president.  Was this action payback for saying on paper only that our president has a casual position in Home Care in Area Five?

We will throw another incident for free. The Community Support Component Director has been off work on a 50/50 time share between the MGEU and the RHA’s overseeing the EFT rollout in the Home Care Program. The rollout is over but our president is allowing this individual to take another year off work at the MGEU’s expense. You got it! Another friend and supporter of the president who will not be affected by the intermingling votes but has been tapped by our president to work on the campaign.

Of the six incidents mentioned above, four benefited the individual as well as our president in that they are all staunch supporters of our president and are part of her base of support.  The other two incidents did not benefit our membership in anyway, other than to make our president look good.  Remember folks this is what our president deems “member driven” but to the benefit of a small few.   Remember this also Ms. President, if you do not satisfy our needs we will move on!

PS: why would our president be in a parade in Selkirk Manitoba?  Don’t tell us it was in support of Health Care because we know for sure it was to support herself and to have a few more glamour shots taken!

Unscrupulous

Unscrupulous

The dictionary describes unscrupulous as follows: having or showing no moral principals; not honest or fair.  Synonyms: unprincipled, unethical, immoral, conscienceless, shameless, reprobate, exploitative, corrupt, dishonest, dishonorable, devious, underhanded, unsavory, disreputable, evil, wicked, villainous, Machiavellian etc.

And now for the rest of the story:

We have it on good authority that the Area 2 Director, who is presently off work due to disciplinary action by his employer, has been seconded to the rationalization vote committee.  What does this mean to us, the membership?  Well as part of this committee, he would be entitled to an apartment, meals, mileage and a stipend for the time he is away from his area, all at our expense.  What we understand is that he is only paying union dues as a casual employee at this time so this is a great reward to someone who should have resigned his Board position when he was fired.  Perhaps, he is also under contract to the MGEU for the duration of the Health Care campaign, as his two days a week casual position, driving a mobile lab truck around his area will probably not pay his bills.  Better yet, why would the MGEU put this person forward as a face for the MGEU?  Certainly, there had to be other members that are in good standing and not an embarrassment to this union that could have been seconded to this committee.  (THE PRESIDENT LOOKING AFTER HER FRIENDS AT A COST TO OUR GOOD NAME AND IF ONE LOOKS CLOSELY, IT IS THE USUAL CAST OF CHARACTERS, FRIENDS WITH AND WITHOUT BENEFITS WORKING ON BEHALF OF ALL OF US!)

We know there are presently seven Board Members working full time on the rationalization votes as well as a number of members from some of the Locals that stand to be affected by what happens with these votes, however there are others working on this campaign that will not be the least bit affected by the outcome of this process.  What are Civil Service members doing working on this campaign?  Your turn for problems is coming fast, look after your own, after all, what do you know about Health Care?  It is insulting to those of us that make significantly less money and less benefits, to have YOU telling us who to vote for!

We know that the president’s BFF a “retiree” has some experience with the previous MGEU campaign and the Area 5 Director was also part of the previous rationalization votes but, was a member of MAHCP at the time and did some work on behalf of his Union.  Both of these “experienced individuals” come to us through a losing campaign!  How is that for experience?   Just a note, the president’s BFF is currently under contract to the MGEU for the duration of the campaign even though the ACTE agreement does not allow for this to happen.  Let’s hope that what our MGEU committee members are doing to staff from other Unions, does not happen to our staff.  Oh right…. you are NOT allowed to participate!

Booing must be part of the MGEU’s repertoire when dealing with people other than the president’s personal favorites.  First, one of our members was booed at the MLF Convention by one of our Board Members and You guessed it is a friend and supporter of the president, and now we understand that there is booing going on when staff from other Unions also participating in the rationalization votes are seen.  What are you guys doing?  You, are embarrassing this membership by your childlike behaviors.   We have conducted a straw poll and none of this blogging group that are eligible to vote, will be voting MGEU.  Not only are we looking like a bunch of losers, but MGEU has jumped the gun and is out actively campaigning when we haven’t been given the go ahead to do so.  All these bad behaviors on behalf of our president and committee make us look like we are afraid and will play dirty to achieve our goals.  The word unscrupulous certainly fits.

There may be some light at the end of the tunnel for MGEU members.  We know that there are going to be some significant changes in the Home Care Program that will have a major impact on our president’s employment in the not too distant future.  One must wonder where she will pull her next job from.  Perhaps she will become a paramedic! (BUT NOT WITHOUT PROPER CERTIFICATION). she has tried to pass herself off as a paramedic before when she was nothing but a volunteer ambulance driver.
We the bloggers believe that we also are servicing the MGEU membership with invaluable information about the total lack of integrity on behalf of our president and her friends.  We would also like to have our hotels paid for when we come to the city for a meeting.  Mileage and meals would also be nice!  Fairness and equity for all……..oh right you do not believe in that, Ms. president!

Next thing you know our president will be calling the bloggers “fake news” just like someone else we know from the USA who thinks nothing of telling lies and using subterfuge to get his own way.

Beware other Unions, our leader is truly unscrupulous!