How Undemocratic Is CUPE 3903 -- The Story Of Val

Nothing vanishes entirely.

These events were subject to legal disputes and settlements — among the terms of which we have been told there were gag orders. Nevertheless, as non-parties, we hope to responsibly outline certain germane, personally heard and eye-witnessed particulars. This tale needs telling not only to expose our radical, anti-democratic 3903 regime but, perhaps most importantly, to ensure these events do not vanish without trace — do not pass seamlessly into darkness.

Paul Moist calls CUPE Local 3903 “dysfunctional”. Fair enough. Brother Moist can’t know the tenth of it — how dysfunctional we really are — but he does have some clues.

It wasn’t always like that, though. Regardless how ideologically out of control — we never had such total meltdown before. Never even came close to getting ourselves legislated and administrated as in 2009.

Regardless how ideologically out of control, we never became completely dysfunctional. Not totally. Something always kept us functioning. More accurately, someone. Specifically, as anyone been around longer than four or five years knows, Val. Our singular 3903 staff rep.

What made Val so singular?  Not the way he put people at ease, that’s for sure.  Not with that way he had of looking at people one moment too long.  Making one feel like he knew precisely who did what onto whom last summer.  It wasn’t the little things that made Val singular.  It was the important things.  The way he stood up, crossed country miles and went to bat for members in distress.  The way he knew where everything was, what to do with it, who to take it to.  How no door could be shut in one’s face when Val said a word.

With Val on the job it didn’t matter how ideologically out of control we got.  It didn’t matter what Machiavellian machinating went on.  Local 3903 could not become totally dysfunctional with Val around to save the day — every day.  He kept us functioning collectively — and just as often kept us going personally.  That’s what made him so singular.  How singularly indispensable he was — to us.

But one day Val’s health began to visibly suffer.  The man who thrived on stress as an essential nutrient, who daily drove from Hamilton as if driven, went missing on stress leave.  Began taking stress days.  And due to how infinitely reliable Val had always been?  Due to how we all relied on him?  It was as if the ground itself had stumbled under our feet — or the stars staggered from their perfect spheres.

Nor was Val talking.  Wouldn’t say what trouble there was.  Fortunately, secrets were never what 3903s kept best.  From drunken boasting, from FaceBook pages, from accessible electronic listservs, enough puzzling pieces fell into general gossip — and too neatly into obvious place.  Yet none could regard what emerged as the big picture.  It was too small.  It was just nasty.

There was no help concluding 3903′s most radical ideologues were conspiring to purge Val from his position.  How?  Through targeted harassment.  Why?  Precisely because Val was so singularly indispensable to 3903 functioning.  Val’s indispensability meant that Local 3903 could not effectively be subjugated to the most radical agenda without first obtaining complete accord or unconditional obedience from him.  But Val would never place obedience to one faction before the whole 3903 functioning.  Therefore Val had to go.  Val had to be purged from his position.  Then, following Val’s purge, our most radical ideologues could either select a partisan staff rep from among their own — names were already being speculated and bandied about — or hire externally someone more dispensable.  Someone more easily replaced if disobedient to the radical ideologues’ agenda.

More regular 3903 members were not in the least surprised.  This was our radical ideologues’ standard operating procedure, after all.  Regular members daring to resist undemocratic, totalitarian initiatives had been endlessly targeted just this way.  Harassment, bullying, the atmosphere of persecution and fear.  We were not surprised.  We were shocked.  We were outraged when Val became the target.  What if the ideologues actually succeeded hijacking 3903 by purging Val?  How could Local 3903 function without him?  It couldn’t.  It would become a dysfunctional, ideological, totalitarian nightmare.

We heard there were grievances, by Val’s Local, against 3903.  We heard there were legal actions taken by Val.  We heard perhaps exaggerated horrors how our most radical ideologues were persecuting Val.  The more regular membership could not know what was or wasn’t true.  But we were all too familiar with our most radical ideologues.  Their penchant and zeal for persecuting.  There was no ignoring the conspiracy against Val involved particular malice — and entailed unpredictable harm.  That’s why so many senior regular members got up in arming to help Val.  Because we had been around long enough that, at one time or another, Val had helped each of us.  Personally.

It seemed like hundreds committed to helping Val.  About thirty — give or take — showed up.  But it was enough.  That became obvious soon as we walked into the general membership meeting.  We were more than enough.  Since there were maybe eleven other bodies in that room — even counting the partisan chair and the usual suspects on the podium.  We began to feel confident.

If not for our initial confidence?  We might sooner have recognized what totalitarian parody of membership-driven democracy was about to ensue.  When the first thing that partisan chair did was insert whatever our concerns were as agenda item five.  That much, though, we thought we were prepared for.  No way would we sit for six hours’ droning on agenda items one through four — just so agenda item five could never be addressed.

“Ninety percent everyone is here to address that,” we said.  Words to that effect.  “Better make it first priority job one, don’t you think?”

“Oh, yeah,”  demanded the partisan chair, ” Just what are you even here to address?”  Again, in words to that effect.

“We want you to stop persecuting Val,” we said.  And, “Stop oppressing Val.”  And “Stop harassing Val.”  And some of us simply said “Leave Val alone.”

The partisan chair did not respond.  He elected that moment to throw fits at us.  Started scream ranting how we were never to mention Val.  How our lawyers had said never to mention Val.  How illegal it therefore was for us to ever even mention Val.

That’s how it went forty-five minutes subsequent the appointed start time.  That chair absolutely refusing to let the meeting start.  Ranting, raving, threatening dire personal repercussions against anyone daring to mention Val.  And yet more odd?  All partisans of that raving chair seemed to have vanished.  They left their partisan chair ranting alone.  How come?  Were they too mortified by his public displaying to remain associated with it?  Hardly.  They were eye-witnessed in the hallway just outside.  Madly gabbling on their cellphones.  Giving street directions.  Repeatedly providing instructions how to locate and arrive at the meeting.

Some of us left then.  But most stayed.  Still believing we could help Val.  We still had our commanding majority — didn’t we?

No.  We didn’t.  Not after those forty-five minutes that chair ranted away.  Not after all the calls for partisan reinforcements had been placed.

Forty-five minutes subsequent appointed starting time?  Sufficient partisan reinforcements had arrived.  We were reduced to minority.  And the ring-leading, most radical of ideologues rose to the podium, silenced that raving chair and took charge of the meeting.  It was so well done, the way he took over.  So diplomatic.  So brilliant tactically.  Magnanimous, even.  As if to spare us further humiliation from collapsing chairs.  And, indeed, with his majority at beck to call, he could afford to be magnanimous.  All conclusions were foregone but his.

It was resolved that Val would never more be mentioned.  It was further resolved the minutes would be subjected to revision — as if Val had never been mentioned in the first place.

How undemocratic is CUPE Local 3903?  Utterly.  It has been hijacked into some dark totalitarian sub-space underneath our relatively free and democratic Canadian society.  What makes it totalitarian is not the radical agenda of the hijackers.  Nor is it how unpopular the hijackers’ agenda is.  Since their radical agenda sometimes proves popular indeed in 3903.  What makes 3903 totalitarian is how utterly undemocratically the hijackers’ agenda has and shall continue to be implemented.  Unless, of course, CUPE National were actually to do something about it in the course of 3903 Administration.

It can’t be true that everything has to come down to money.  But even only in financial terms — the totalitarian hijacking of 3903 instigated serial disasters from very first moments.  Long prior our spectacular meltdown, the speculation had been that — between 3903′s legal costs and settlement costs in the Val affair — three to five hundred thousand dollars were depleted from our strike fund.  We cannot know.  We cannot officially mention Val. Even unofficially, reference to Val has become taboo.  Finding out would require third-party forensic auditing.  Forensic auditing such as taking place this minute right now.  Is there enough CUPE National concern to open those books?  Nothing could offer greater hope for sanity and democracy in 3903 than resolution, however belated, regarding Val.  Because he alone stood best for us.

We believe Val’s story has to be told. Both for sake of human dignity and the possibility of restoring some democracy in 3903. We have sought, short of sacrificing the tale altogether, to avoid every specific reference that could compromise anyone’s identity in particulars. If you do recognize those involved? Then your familiarity with these events may well exceed ours. We encourage you to help us correct any inadvertent falsehood you can perceive in our account.