These are letters to the McGill’s staff members posted on: http://spop.addr.com
My
initial letter from Jan.17, 2005 was describing a
methodical abuse of the lowest ranking staff member by our union. There were only three documents shown: The
first from the previous MUNACA lawyer (Erick), the second from the VP Labour
and the third from the protesting member.
This short presentation caused quite a hysterical reaction among some
of the MUNACA activists. The initial
letter is placed at the end of the all texts below.
After reading
this, I would suggest checking my updates from the top. Please note that my first letter caused my
cosmic speed suspension from the “union” with only a 20-hour warning before a
“trial”, and this, without presenting any evidences. On top of that there still hasn’t been any
presented description of my “crime” justifying this action.
The case is
still developing and being re-updated from time to time. In my “pictures” you can see MUNACA union as an expensive, vicious
circle of mutual abuses and my objective is to break this destructive
development. Maybe some
from you will agree with my strategy, when others may not. Feel free to inform me about your opinion.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Subject: Update
summarizing a situation before Special Meeting of BOR on March 22, 2005. This situation describes my open letter from
March 22, 2005 to a narrow circle of Munaca representatives. It is presented below in a shortened version
(printed in blue). However, instead
of causing their deeper reflections it only provoked them to be more aggressive
– Who are they or why are our “activists” behaving
so strangely?
----------------
March 22, 2005 (published now for a wider audience - April 8, 2005)
Hi all,
I really liked your discussion (before I was included in our activists’
circle, but not after this letter) about the
interpretation of Munaca’s by-laws - even with the openly declared intention of
collectively “killing” me because of my activities. The only problem is that the executives are
trying to eliminate me as well, and without respect for law, which bothers some
of the more ethical representatives.
This is a typical internal power struggle
that’s very emotional for the people involved.
The whole thing has come totally out of the blue. Everybody knew our Presidents well, and would
never have predicted such a bizarre escalation of sanctions against me (each
week, new ones are added). We already
had many internal quarrels due to strong opinions, but the limits were known
and not pushed further. In this light,
I do not feel angry towards for example Dot and Maria. It is easy for the people around them to
manipulate them and exploit their emotions.
Similarly predictable is the involvement of the lawyers constantly
adding their “legal gasoline” to the originally small fire behind the
scenes. Their parasitic style of work
and intentions were already exposed and makes them more dogged.
The most dangerous action for them was a
written request from our member (in November) for a written explanation for
their refusal of a grievance that was previously enthusiastically supported by
the preceding lawyer, Eric. Maria’s
role, as the VP Labour, was limited to signing this document. The well articulated response in the
neglected member’s request for a written explanation from November represented
a big threat to all the Munaca notables, who preferred not to explain their key
decisions to the ordinary members. The
situation became more uncomfortable for them after my presentation of this
issue at the December meeting of T-Council when everybody (even the VP, Kevin
Whittaker) spontaneously agreed that not providing the written explanation
after abandoning the already developed grievance procedure was not
acceptable. It was so obvious to all the
representatives at this time that during this meeting, Council members did not
even want to check or receive copies of my three documents regarding this
strange situation. These are now
published at: www.spop.addr.com/psyche.htm in the bottom part. Kevin reported this December’s T-Council
opinion to his executive circle, and the case of the abused member demanding a
correction of his salary according to the posted job offer by the University
was immediately frozen. “Killing” the
messenger (me) became the priority.
However, this scenario would never be considered too drastic by the
executives and lawyers. Otherwise, the
Munaca member would get his answer in legal due time, or the issue would be
discussed at the following T-Council meetings.
Let me introduce a “movie plot” about our
small organization: It’s being watched and infiltrated, as is routinely done in
some important institutions of this sparsely populated country. In the national security circles, nobody
cares about protecting our rights, salaries or respectful treatment by
employers. These issues are absolutely
marginal to their agents. The whole idea
is to maintain constant social control. This one factor allows them to feel
important and prevents them being haunted by deeper ethical concerns. This special “underground army” of
psychologically screened people with a second paid job and the belief in
serving society’s best interests are busy monitoring attitudes and
opinions. Their challenge is to keep
control over their territories. They
usually don’t get orders on how to influence local developments, so they have
the freedom to play the role of involved activists who care about the
manipulated majority. They are only
expected to act, according to orders from above, on very special
occasions. The financial bozos who
really rule us appreciate their readiness to sabotage any independent social
movement. Similarly convinced of their
internally blessed mission to control the masses are some key figures in
government bodies serving more directly the interests of the strongest
financial circles. This is after receiving their blessing to be nominated as
the top candidates at the main elections.
It is quite difficult to distinguish this
fifth column of lost souls paralyzing the efficiency of our democracy, and
recognize their social provocations aimed to divert our attention from really strategic
issues. Nevertheless, their resistance
to direct communication between people is the best way of recognizing
them. Most of them prefer the top-down
mode and don’t like the bottom-up flow of information or orders. The latter is
actually very limited, but loudly declared as the best marker of our Western
democracy.
However, the most sensitive places for this
“underground army” are the bigger institutions, where the power of money and
influence cannot be challenged by a free flow of opinions about management,
their policies, qualifications and objectives.
The growing concentration of power in fewer hands is happening
everywhere and more injustices are being introduced into our democratic
system—but discussing such problems in socially strategic places has become
sensitive. There is a policy of “social
control”. A good example that this is
feasible for the circles of real power and influence is the almost perfect system
of self-censorship in the global media.
Our formally free journalists would never risk losing their jobs to
publish true stories about the connections between the financial rulers and the
political circus entertaining the masses.
This happened only once, in the Montreal Gazette about five years ago,
and now we know that in Canada over 80% of the mass media market belongs to one
family.
Anyway, back to our local level: The
double-paid activists I mentioned earlier would not normally care about
Munaca’s executives or lawyers being forced to resign after exposure of their
questionable acts. However, the
possibility of such exposure is too dangerous in our faked democracy. Democratic improvement of our administration
with the help of open channels of communication would create much pressure at
higher levels. The popularity of freely growing opinions in this form would
simply not be acceptable to the fundamental structures of power practically
unchanged since the Cold War. Imagine a
really free exchange of information and opinion on campus or among employees in
government. We’d lose interest in the media! We wouldn’t want their selected
news, opinions and editorials any more.
It is evident that the media are covering less and less of the truth.
This frustrates many, but still represents a guideline for the enslaved minds
of the system’s guards at our levels.
That is why the creation of something close to a free discussion forum
(with no censors!) at our level is always going to be killed, and my case
represents a good example. Our
situation is not unique and even in many more healthy unions such discussion
forums are a priori dismissed.
Returning to my mission: I want to activate
members by communicating directly with them. You may have subconscious
resistance (as the representatives) towards this. I promote activity and this
pressures you to do the same, for by not doing it your authority is eroded
because the members start to regard you as the people who hide information, or
who are lazy and not competent for the job. Certainly, nobody likes to be exposed
for not working enough or making mistakes in our never controlled Munaca. Our lawyers, who practically run this
institution, would be pretty “offended”, and HR would be pretty scared, if
there were more open presentation of personal opinions about managers’
work. In this situation the “sleeping
cells” are more than ready to help, even without direct orders from above. Thus
begins the coordinated campaign to eliminate me.
Try to recall the most active members at
your Councils, BOR and meetings behind closed doors. Who requested the
secrecy? You must be very strong-minded
not to become cynical after working in such lack of transparency. Be especially
careful about people approaching you praising your active participation in this
union. To boost your importance they will tell you how passive the majority is.
They will then give a brief historical review about how crowds are so lowly and
simply motivated, including a description of typical abuses of the system by
the workers if given too much of freedom.
The expected conclusion is that the masses always need careful
monitoring by a few smarter people, in order to maintain social order.
This sort of questionable service usually
doesn’t require sophisticated recruitment mechanisms, indeed there are suitable
recruits already working in despotically-run organizations: they recognize
themselves and come out of nowhere like fruit flies. This was already obvious
many years ago, and was a reason why the tenure of top positions has typically
been limited to 4-8 years. The best
situation was a total replacement of the governments’ members after the
elections. Why on earth do we have in
our Munaca cliques of activists staying over 11 years and willing to reside
longer in higher positions?
So I have many good reasons to be concerned
about my safety at this stage. Please, try to read my first letter from
Article 16.B. was used by the all T-Council
members about two weeks ago to block my presence at my T-Council meeting. Afterwards, I was strangely invited to
participate in the next trial by one member who similarly voted before to
remove me from the previous meeting.
That member “explained” to me in February that his vote to suspend me at
the first meeting was done in opposition to his personal opinion. I was informed that, “because the majority
had already formed a strong block against you, it would not be wise to expose
my own true views also, seeing how the results of voting had no chance to be
overturned”. Now the same person is very
keen to take from me the case of the abused member, wishing to help the
executives and lawyers save face. At
stake is the already demanded written answer to the November letter of the
abused member, but some people want to dilute this confrontation using the
By-laws and forgetting their own opinions presented on December 8th. It seems that my T-Council is very sensitive
about maintaining not only its importance, but also the vertical order of
Munaca.
For myself, as surely for the majority, the
most important thing for people in any organization is the protection of their
interests, dignity and humanity. I do
not want to judge my T-Council colleagues, because I do not know them and their
true motives due to the imposed pressures on them. At the same time, I do not want to confirm
their untrue statement that they were trying to communicate with me before
their secretly prepared action. I was
informed only 20 hours prior to their prepared trial. It is a very tricky statement that “T-Council
has taken this matter very seriously, and [it was] pleaded with the member in
question to work within the By-Laws to further his concerns.” At the same time, somebody just “forgot” to
confirm at the next two internal T-Council “trials” that the first and main
accusation against me (on February 9) for “distributing all three documents
concerning the member represented by me without his permission” was totally
untrue. This top T-representative heard a very different story directly from
the abused member, but refused to repeat this testimony at the critical moments
and became quite angry when I tried to dig out this confirmation in front of
other people.
I am frustrated and disappointed by this
whole crazy development, but I believe in people. So far, at the most critical moments I have
always been approached by some good souls warning me about the existing
danger. The results of today’s meeting
could have good and bad extremes. I do not want to influence your vote. The most important thing is that you keep all
the problems clearly in mind. Let me
dedicate to you the title of my favourite author, an anthropologist: “Beast
or Angel? Choices that make us human.”
Yours truly,
Slawomir
- - -- - -- ----- --- --- ----------------
Subject: Letter connected with the Munaca’s 2005 election
April 7, 2005
Dear Friends,
It’s hard swimming alone against the stream,
especially one consisting of Munaca activists. They like to shout among
themselves but outwardly stay silent.
They pretend not to notice that the majority of members simply ignore
them. We are forced by law to pay union
dues but are tired of this inner circle with its “behind closed doors” policies
and nominal activity, lacking long-term strategies protecting our rights.
My solution was first to activate members by
communicating with them directly, but this became unbearable for our lawyers,
executives and representatives. In this
situation, to run for the position of President was too risky. The only way for me to continue this mission
is to anchor myself inside the Munaca Politburo
with its five chairs. Among them, only
a shadowy VP position is guaranteeing my survival in Munaca’s mini-world, which
mimics McGill’s Monarchy of Money&Manipulations in order to isolate
us. You can support my VP nomination
with its mission of protecting your individual autonomy and dignity in our
despotically-run organization.
My ability to shake this organization, and the importance of members’ duty to put everything in “democratic order”:
a) Over the last seven weeks, four or five special
BOR and Council meetings have been secretly (bar one) organized with the aim to
harass and break me down. During the
March meeting (the last one known to me), all the representatives agreed with
the agenda presented below (*). My name was given at the end, as the person to
be removed from the Association, and nobody protested this unlawful change of
agenda at the meeting. This Special BOR
was a carefully arranged gathering organized after working hours, with all the
representatives (but one) willing to arrive and not question this
development. It was also requested a top
secrecy for this process!
(*) Subject: special BOR
Importance: High
I'm calling a
Special BOR meeting for next Tuesday
President MUNACA
b). The www.munaca.com
website was used to publish public bulletins denouncing me as the number one
enemy of this organization. It means
that nothing more important for this “union” was going on in the last four
months.
c). I must also admit that my latest attempt to demand from
Munaca President Maria Ruocco and her lawyers (Marco Romani and George Marceau)
a written and legally sound explanation (for their one-sentence refusal to
process the already initiated grievance) has been dismissed this week with the
approval of the new T-Council Chair Mark Orchard-Webb. In fact this publicized element was the main
cause for my removal from the Munaca office.
These people still do everything possible to save the face of the executives
and prove that the lowest-ranking workers are not respected with their basic
rights. But let’s not give up. We can
still exert pressure.
So
the situation is absolutely abnormal. Please be aware that my position, as
candidate for Vice President, is very fragile—there are people around who are very
underhand. I had hoped that newly
recruited representatives would be able to resist the internal pressure of
becoming typical apparatchiks, but I guess they’ve bowed to external
pressure. Even though trusted by many,
the CRO behaved very strangely. He
refused to present a list of the candidates and their pen sketches after the
closing date for the receipt of nominations.
This sort of secrecy increases the possibility for manipulation of the
positions or changing the pen sketches by some (for example by my rivals – it
makes sense). Also, the candidates were
not informed earlier about the changed rules for this election, and my pen
sketch was modified secretly.
If you read my letter of
That
is why I am not angry or trying to judge even the most aggressive Munaca
representatives. I believe that
promoting open dialogue between people and cultivating them is fruitful. However, these dialogues must occur inside
ourselves as well. This is why I still
have doubts whether I should become more involved with these underhand union
movements. Are we all ready? I also have doubts when I note that each year
fewer and fewer people are participating in our circus elections – consistently
on all levels from top down.
If you don’t vote for me you’ll help me concentrate
on other social ventures that I hope to present soon. This seems contradictory,
but it is a serious internal dilemma. I
don’t imagine even the best-elected candidates can save our stinking Munaca,
corporations and governments. However, I
am optimistic that somehow, solutions will be found, and I wish you the same
optimism!
Yours truly,
Slawomir Poplawski
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Update summarizing a Special Meeting of BOR on
Subject: The last MUNACA two Special Meetings and a
training session
Dear Friend,
The Special BOR Meeting took place on March 10, and
Marco (the lawyer) absolutely had to be there—it wasn’t possible to isolate him
any longer. The first issue concerned
inconsistent electoral procedures and proved that the Munaca executives, like
the T-Council members whom they
influence, prefer to play with the rules instead of respecting them. When it’s convenient they use “The Robert’s
Bible”, and when they’re troubled they use the by-laws. Our sharpest representative exposed this
“flexibility” and the President, Dot Luk, had to apologize and promise to stop
such games. The members then agreed to
respect Munaca by-laws only, which made it easy for the majority to accept the
previously questioned nomination by the Executives of the CRO already selected
by them for the coming Executives’ election.
This means that after this apology the representatives turned a blind
eye to the dilemma raised earlier by another scrupulous representative: “It's patently ridiculous to have the Executive Board
appoint a CRO
for the Executive Elections - it reeks of conflict of interest!”
The most valuable result of all this was the demand
that our Executives respect the law, and the revelation that a lot of rules had
been broken in connection with the campaign against me. The President repeated that my “suspension
and removal” had been lawful as far as the legal service was concerned. She didn’t predict that our sharpest Munaca
representative would expose a fundamental illegality of the T-Council decision:
the phrase “suspension” only occurs in article 13.i. and the term “removal” in
article 15.B.i. The representatives agreed that using them together was
unlawful.
The lawyer had to answer this question: “Why did he accept this action as legally
sound and give a positive opinion for all the sanctions?” He had a brief moment of consternation, then
confidently stated: “T-Council action
concerning Poplawski was presented to me only orally and I didn’t have a chance
to see this document.” Well, the
T-Council Bulletin was e-mailed to members on February 10 and has been posted
on the board in the Munaca office since then. Surely Marco can’t claim he’s
blind, or blocked from the www.Munaca.com website? Anyway, instead of his initial protest that
he was manipulated by the President, who used his name to justify illegal
sanctions, he’s just stating that he cannot determine right now my status or
the validity of the T-Council decision.
He is just promising to study the case and consult with George Marceau
(paid, incidentally, $500 per hour). So
a meeting that was supposed to clarify my case ended in doubts about the
qualifications, intentions and morale of the
The next day (March 11), these doubts deepened. It
was a three-hour Munaca training session conducted by Marco and our
super-lawyer, George Marceau. We were
supposed to learn about the art of negotiating contracts, but instead there was
a heated discussion. Marceau made the controversial suggestion that the casual
workers be assimilated into Munaca. He
thought it would be “workable” for the lawyers. (I thought it would be
lucrative for the lawyers.) As the
discussion continued it revealed a crafty administrative policy of not only
hiring casuals to do our contract work, but also using them to break our
collective agreement. Our naďve Munaca negotiators created a loophole in the
last contract that allowed for this and it was spotted by another sharp
representative while reading an underhand annex in our collective
agreement. I would provide a more
detailed report for you, but the President said at this meeting that I was
still “suspended and removed.” This supposedly satisfies her decision
not to liberate me for this meeting. Her
statement was made in front of our two lawyers, who preferred not to react.
Funnily enough, my protest that I would demand a separate $500/h training was
similarly ignored. Instead of defending
my rights and the legal regulations, George said nothing, but his red face
showed he was uncomfortable. My point
is that George and Marco consume the biggest portion of our union fees, and so
bear the heaviest obligation to be fair to members. They don’t have to be elegant, just
ethical. Even an off-duty policeman can
be prosecuted for ignoring a criminal deed in his private life. Marco’s silence contradicts his previous
legal statements that the T-Council decision was proper as his later promise to
study it once more. George’s expertise was requested, yet he was silent
precisely when he should have intervened. This situation shows MUNACA union as an expensive, vicious
circle of mutual abuses and my objective is to break this destructive
development.
I think that a letter to the Bar Association is in
order: These lawyers turned a blind eye to Munaca illegalities perpetrated at
the expense of a psychologically harassed member. It would be good if my grievance were
accompanied by some of your letters supporting my claim about the Munaca
injustices. I would be most grateful for your support. Nothing much will happen to the lawyers (the
Below, I address the T-Council colleagues who were
planning on
I note that there is no precise description of my
“crimes” against Munaca. Why not? Are
some people afraid of being ridiculed by members after quoting my “sins” that
hurt them so much? Are the executives
entitled to use Munaca lawyers and resources to attack me for exposing their
questionable work? Shouldn’t they rather
use a privately paid legal service if they are so sure about my improper
actions?
Recently, higher authorities told the T-Council representatives
that article 13 on its own was too weak and invalid, and the added word
“removal” belonged to article 15.
However, they accepted in February Scot’s arguments that I cannot be “alleged to have been delinquent in my
duties” as article 15 states, and article 13 was used after the VP pushed
for voting in the middle of an unfinished discussion. Last Wednesday some T-representatives
expressed their worries that the special BOR meeting would refuse their previous
decision, so they drew up an internal petition signed by 5 representatives to
remove me permanently at the next meeting. This means that the person (me)
serving the previous sentence (which was implemented without waiting for the
instructed appeal to BOR) is going to be sentenced once more—with still silent
lawyers. The T-representatives forget that I was only defending our member who
was ill-treated first by our administration and now by Munaca. I was acting according to the mandate
described in articles 9B and 16A. First,
the VP Labour ignored me as the representative, and after I complained, the
next working day the grievance was closed.
My protest about this at the next T-Council meeting in December was
received with full understanding, and even the VP Finance, Kevin, admitted that
such treatment was unacceptable. The
case was supposed to be solved after Kevin discussed the T-Council opinion with
his executive colleagues. The case was
urgent for the person I represented, and also for us, who needed to understand
the reasons behind the refusal. Maria
and Dot were supposed to push the lawyers to submit asap their explanation for
the grievance’s rejection. This is the
only possible interpretation, because it was impossible to agree with the
Chair’s December statement that nothing important was on our agenda and the
January meeting probably would not take place.
The time for the meeting passed and our abused member still did not get
his answer. Who was more loyal and
abiding of the union’s rules until now?
The case of the member’s case was attacked with no reason, with untrue
statements, behind closed doors and in a nasty atmosphere of blackmail—so why
now does the representative involved become the priority at Munaca?
The whole circus around me with the actual
accusations hidden, and by-laws handily used and changed, is pure psychological
harassment. It’s an attempt to awaken atavistic herd instincts to humiliate
individuals who think differently. This
approach establishes a new precedent for similar treatment of McGill staff
members by the administration. That
situation must be changed and your letters supporting my request to the Bar
Association are warmly welcomed.
Yours truly,
Slawomir Poplawski
P.S. This letter below was e-mailed last Friday by
the T-Council and no explanation about my status was attached:
A petition has been submitted to the Chair of T-Council which
reads,
"In light of Mr. S.
Poplawski past and present behavior we request to implement Article 15Bi of the
MUNACA By-Laws"
Since this petition has been signed by more than 1/3 of Mr. S. Polawski's
Classification Council I am required to inscribe a motion to remove Mr. S.
Polawski from Council on the agenda of the next Council meeting. If this motion
is adopted by a three quarters majority of full T-Council then the position
shall be declared vacant. In the
interest of returning to normal business as quickly as possible, I am calling a
special meeting of T Council to deal with this matter. Location: MUNACA office
Date:
And no more news for me about results of
this meeting. WHY?
- - -- ---- ---- -------
---- -- - - -- - -- - -
Subject: Update referring to the Special Meeting on
Re: two pictures from Munaca’s nest on
Dear Munaca Friend,
I think our members need more inside information about this union. It would help them understand how the Munaca
“black box” functions. Just a few
snapshots from our BOG or Council meetings can show how about $400 per year
from our pockets is used. You’ll also
see that the biggest crime in this union is saying that some Munaca presidents,
liberated from their professional tasks, are paid to address members’
work-related problems. This means that
after compulsory payments of our union fees we can only pray that we’ll be
served sincerely, professionally and with the respect.
Sincerely,
Slawomir Poplawski
- - - - - - - --- - - - - - -- - - - -
- - --
The last BOR meeting:
Good news: In January, the executive body was finally forced to present
its monthly reports to the BOR and to show their quarterly financial reports
after 11 years of many questionable games with the members, as with their
representatives. This is an improvement
on the carefully prepared “financial compost” that used to be submitted for
annual AGMs. Now, more precise questions can be asked. For example, the last PE
Bulletin gave the false impression that MUNACA had spent enormous amounts of
money in a superior court challenge concerning the integrity of the McGill
administration. But a sharp new
representative asked a simple “money question” at the last meeting and the
president had to admit that the approx. $12,000 quoted in the budget was
related to some phone bills and correspondence of one lawyer from the Marceau
legal firm, and not to the Superior Court intervention initiated by somebody
else (but portrayed as Munaca’s big legal effort for the proper implementation
of Pay Equity rules). The same member also nailed the president with her budget
question about $1500 given to one single lawyer for a 3-hour training session,
which was in fact a general lecture on unions and their legal rights, and could
have been given for a fraction of the price.
Now we know the special status enjoyed by Munaca lawyers, we can
understand the discriminative treatment of our Board of Representatives by some
of the five executives. At the meeting, another member requested that extra BOR
meetings be organized to accommodate the growing number of important issues.
The VP Finance Kevin W. patronized the BOR representatives by saying that
liberating them for one additional meeting cost $400 and the union must limit
additional meetings. The message behind
this was that this union’s priority is to secure good payments for one lawyer
($1500) talking about routine topics and restrict the remainder ($400) to the
(mostly volunteer) 10-15 members to debate new issues. By the way, the last BOR was rescheduled in
such a way that the lawyer was for the first time absent. He explained to me yesterday that he was at
court when we had the BOR, but this wouldn’t have happened had the President
not rescheduled the meeting in the first place. The legal issues were the most
important items at this meeting, and the lawyer’s presence had priority. So the third member requested Marco’s
(lawyer) obligatory attendance at the next meeting, as there were too many
legal issues requiring his interpretation.
The Executive Report states: “Three (3) council communiqués were sent
out recently.” So they know about
the suspended T-Council member (me); but instead of including this topic in the
agenda (BOR’s statutory ratification being at stake), they approved the
unlawful posting by stating: “As usual, these are posted on our web site”.
This constitutes an unlawful distribution of the T-Council bulletin, for it was
not approved by the BOG.
The President, Dot, also presented in a very murky way the CRO/DRO
candidates for the coming election, so five representatives requested a Special
Meeting:
“
However, the executives waited seven days (not two)
before organizing this meeting, which will go ahead today after 5 p.m. in the
Munaca office. It seems that they wanted to wait for the T-Council (dominated
by their power and influence) to plan a suitable response to the “infidels”
questioning their motives, morale and qualifications.
A snapshot of the last
T-Council meeting (
This controversial T-Council
meeting started with the non-approval of the last meeting’s minutes, which in
the opinion of VP Kevin Whittaker were
TOO LONG. He is going to edit them
into a shorter version for the April meeting.
He is an even better “amender of documents” than Dot Luk, who at the
last BOR meeting refused to include in the minutes her statement that “it is
not the member’s business to ask with whom she goes for lunches.” The issue was if the executive members should
be allowed to meet privately with HR notables, as some restrictions are imposed
in many public and private organizations for obvious reasons. It will be
interesting to see what is cut in Whittaker’s version of the shortest T-Council
meeting, which was entirely focused on my unlawful suspension for exposing the
disgraceful treatment of another member. I was provocatively requested by the
Chair to leave the room, as the five members were going to discuss me. The
Chair and the VP were troubled for at least five minutes by my request that
they present the regulation justifying my removal. Their nervous study of the by-laws was only
broken by some aggressive remarks toward me by the usually absent representative,
Maria Panaritou. She made a big effort
to attend the meeting this time, and did not like the meeting being lengthened
by my legitimate questions. The quick solution presented by Kevin and Hélčne
St-Croix was article 16-B, which only refers to the grievance procedures. They agreed that it did not reflect my case,
but interpreted it as being “in the same spirit.” I said this was a bizarre interpretation,
for Munaca is an open organization with the duty of representing members’
rights at all BOR and Council meetings. Some members then said our lawyer could
help. The Chair left, but instead of
returning with the lawyer or the President, she announced that security or the
police had been called to remove me from the building. Nobody protested, and in this situation I was
not sure if these people, truly agitated by the pre-arranged action, would be
able to tell the police the truth. It
was very humiliating, but my only choice was to leave the room. In the meantime I had a very interesting
conversation in a corridor with Marco, the lawyer, who could not really answer
my question about the legal aspects of the T-Council actions, but was quite
sympathetic and open when we started talking about human integrity and higher
values. Unfortunately, this was too much for the President, Dot, who could hear
our conversation from the upper floor: She rudely ordered Marco to stop talking
to me.
Article 15 of Munaca’s
by-laws will be used by the T-Council if today’s BOR suspends their previous
verdict against me. At the end of the
last meeting, the Chair announced the latest petition to remove me from office
in case previous sanctions are not approved.
This article states that: “a motion for removal from office shall be
inscribed on the agenda of the next Council Meeting.”
It was surely pre-arranged,
but does it serve the interests of Munaca or their Presidents? Absolutely not. So far, it has been the McGill administration
trying to do everything possible to stop my publishing in the Reporter,
Tribune, Gazette, Daily and the webspace. Even my biggest opponent, the previous Munaca
President, Allan, whom I criticized much harder, was always able to praise my
informative work as in the union’s best interests. Possible there is somebody
else above the union who is putting intense pressure on our poor activists as a
way of testing locally a more general solution for staff members who are too
uppity?
Just a reminder that BOR
meetings are open to all MUNACA members. If you want to know more about
this issue, please feel free to attend today’s meeting at the MUNACA office at
Your reporter
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Subject: Update referring to my suspension on
Open
letter to MUNACA BOR
Subject: Union cleansing
Dear
members of our BOR,
All
unions with their representatives are supposed to be respected watchdogs who
protect union members. However, after
over 11 years of existence, our MUNACA seems to be a contented lapdog barking
over the shoulders of the real players.
Its members are mostly kept in the dark, or misinformed in very rare
official communications.
We
can hear the lapdog barking when we read the latest
bulletin at: http://www.MUNACA.com/bulletins/20050210-pay-equity-bulletin.pdf.
Especially problematic are two highlighted sentences in this document directly
“attacking” our Administration over 10 weeks after one ministerial agency had
already challenged McGill top management.
Sorry for my comparison, but it represents my strong first impression
after reading this document and I believe that by sharing our feelings we can
improve this union.
The
decision in November to inspect the McGill PE Plan was made by the Pay Equity
Commission and not by our union.
MUNACA’s participation as an equal partner of the administration in a
local pay equity committee (with our President heading this body) was crucial
in 2000-2001 when preparing the basic data for the final PE Plan. The re-writing of the tasks and duties of our
staff members was not done attentively by all union representatives: Some
people had extra protection from the MUNACA commission when their job
descriptions were set up, to the point of getting special job categories. At the same time, numerous workers were just
neglected and slung together in the same job classification, because this made
it easier for the administration to keep the salary scales low, while the
MUNACA representatives did not much care about the unknown members. In 2001, the most important action was to
protest against and expose this consistent administrative policy of doctoring
job categorizations, but our Presidents remained silent. This is why this “union” must admit today “that some MUNACA members also filed
complaints with the PEC.” Many people perceived how biased and degraded was
the MUNACA “partnership” with the administration, and so they were prompted to
contact this institution directly. I
even have proof that the MUNACA President won’t accept the complaint faxed to
her about a bizarre job description, and cooperates with the administration in
covering up this case.
All
these irregularities explain an absurd situation where some activists react
hysterically when criticized for their mediocre work. They do not even see the amusing peculiarity
of their overreaction, when they ostracized one member who dared to use his
legitimate right to express a general opinion about the low quality of the
union’s performance. In fact, this
member was trying to treat seriously his duty of defending the rights of the
abused union member, but this side of the matter has been carefully censored.
Instead,
MUNACA announced (http://www.MUNACA.com/bulletins/20050210-t-council-bulletin.pdf):
"That Mr. Slawomir Poplawski be removed from
T-Council” because he “keeps publishing
via e-mail [and] such conduct being prejudicial to the good name of the
A
hilarious response to my last two letters (www.spop.addr.com/psyche.htm)
confirms the biggest accusation that can be made against any union: that it is
incapable of equally protecting the members’ interest. It reveals also that our two top Presidents,
completely liberated from university tasks to work full-time for MUNACA, feel
no obligation whatsoever to serve their members. Our union fees force the employer to provide them
with new offices and free them for union work.
This latter element must be especially exposed, as during my MUNACA
trial the top “judge” from my T-Council had a quite funny explanation for not
answering the member represented by me. According to her, the President was
deeply offended by this member’s statement that she was paid by his union fees.
His words were: “Please allow me to
assure you that I regard it as very much my business and also allow me to point
out to you that as my representative whose salary is partly paid for by my dues
your DUTY is to represent ME and MY INTERESTS to the fullest capacity of the
The
officially provided reason for organizing the Feb. 09 trial was “receiving official complaints” just one day before. MUNACA’s letter said:
“
Hi all,
Just a reminder that we have a meeting
tomorrow at
- election of a new Chair for T-council
- inappropriate behaviour from a T-council
member and possible course of actions to take”.
The trial was justified because of only “one call” received by the Chair
the day before, in which a member protested about my letter of
The Chair was the most visible person at this surreal trial on Feb.
09. She used her red book “Robert’s Rules of Order”—MUNACA’s “Mao
book”— to find the best way of justifying my removal. (At the same time the agitated activists
didn’t want to hear my argument that their legal study should be to check in
this red book about a fundamental rule already broken by the executive body:
This concerned their basic duty to provide written answers in a fixed
timeframe.) Finally, the “Mao book” was
rejected in favour of MUNACA’s internal regulation number 13. During this “trial” the Chair was also used
untrue statement from the Presidents that I was not authorized by the member to
provide information about his abuse by the union.
Conclusions
The behaviour of these activists is that of the herd. They obey the will
of the current rulers and follow propaganda rather than their conscience or
common sense. There is a good reason why in our democracies (at least in the
healthy earlier stages), the top leaders can serve no more than one or two
terms. What about our union? Do we need the external intervention of big unions
financed by corporate power, or we can remove the evil ourselves?
I hope that the immediate suspension of the T-Council Chair by the BOR
members for her unacceptable manipulations and decisions can be the first step
toward improving the union. The Chair
is trying to realize (one month before leaving McGill for a better external
job) some dark objectives of the present MUNACA Presidents. For them, who do everything possible to keep
information secret, it is very inconvenient to have representatives informing
members about controversial internal issues and exposing the worst examples of
mistreatment of members. I am now the
second representative harassed in the last few months for attempting to improve
our decaying union. This situation is
unacceptable and must be changed.
Sincerely,
Slawomir Poplawski
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Subject: Update following my previous letter: “Hooray for the new Supplemental Health Plan”
Dear Friends,
My previous letter (from mid- January 2005)
describing a very bizarre treatment of one MUNACA member (see also at: http://www.spop.addr.com/psyche.htm)
needs updating, as wacky ways of the union’s acting is very unreasonable.
The day after my letter, our mistreated MUNACA
member received a telephone from the Vice-President with a very direct
question: “Did Poplawski receive documents from you?” Instead of being focused on solving the
presented problem, this notable was obviously hoping to prove that I was acting
without the victim’s authorization.
It was a very evident intimidation act, but my
protest about this questionable approach was totally ignored by Mrs. M.Ruocco
at our BOR meeting in that same afternoon.
Some days later I joined the first meeting of the Grievance Committee at the MUNACA office after three years of “break.” I hoped to receive an answer for this issue, but it was once more ignored during the meeting. Our lawyer was only instructing me that I should have consulted him and Maria before sending my letter. In my immediate response, I strongly expressed demand that the member should always receive a full written explanation for his written complaint. However, the lawyer had not answered it when knowing well that the written opinions represent a firm document that can be examined more meticulously in the future. He only offered empty phrases about allegedly already solving this problem. More honest in answering this question was our V.P. Labour telling me that in over 10 years of service for MUNACA, she had never been providing written answers in such situations. In fact, I know of even more evident cases of past and present presidents not providing adequate answers; cases that can be presented publicly.
The point now is that MUNACA notables still haven’t provided to this disappointed member their written explanation for the arbitrary canceling of the grievance case which was previously enthusiastically accepted. It seems that our representatives are afraid to expose mistreating the workers by the HR and are very angry for exposure of this issue. For such reasons tomorrow
it “will be
discussed: - inappropriate behaviour
from a T-council member and possible course of actions to take”.
Please provide me from time to time good coffee if I will be sent to the Boiler Room after the coordinated action of the MUNACA activists with the HR functionaries.
Regards,
Slawomir Poplawski
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This is my first letter also sent to the MUNACA executives that caused
my “suspension and removal” from this union
Subject: Hooray for the new Supplemental Health Plan
Dear Friends,
The naďve don’t get promoted. If you
are fool enough to value justice, freedom and democracy, you may well lose your
job for failing to understand “money language.”
McGill can be credited for innovation
in dispatching the naďve among its ranks: At the beginning of last year, a
boiler room was used to induce behavioural change in a worker (http://www.mcgilldaily.com/view.php?aid=2398
), and so far nobody has been officially praised or
reprimanded for this psychological experiment.
Now, the administration is screening statistical data about the growing
number of nervous breakdowns among McGill workers, and is testing a new tool to
fix the above-mentioned naďve people who cause problems for themselves and
others. That new tool: A supplemental
health plan doubling the money available for psychiatric consultations. Hooray!
Until yesterday I was planning to go
to Human Resources to fight the case of a worker totally ignored not only by
the administration, but also by his MUNACA (union?) presidents and THEIR lawyer. All he wants is his
salary to be adjusted to the level in the posting for the job he was appointed
to. He still cannot understand that
people like him, without strong patrons or connections, are less than zero, and
he cannot humbly agree with this. I, as
his union representative, was also naďve and tried in October to help him by
going to the MUNACA internal meeting for all activists and exposing the lousy
work of the executives. The result was
devastating: the next day he got a one-sentence letter saying that his case was
terminated. He still finds it hard to
accept that he is not a partner with his union or the HR notables. Instead of saying sorry for causing problems,
he dared to question their approach in the enclosed letter below, and has been
waiting two months for an answer.
Today, I’m thinking differently: I
plan to suggest to him that he use this new Supplemental Health Plan. It allows you to
contact almost freely the best specialists (McGill educated one hopes), who can
explain the secret of a peaceful life at McGill. This is about introducing a new mentality
into some “unpolished minds”, and probably our neighbour to the south can copy
the experiment. Instead of sending
thousands of soldiers into remote deserts, they should send an army of
psychologists. They could also invite
the most stubborn local militants directly to the local psychiatric clinics to
correct their thinking—as recently tried at McGill.
Regards,
Slawomir Poplawski
P.S. Please read below the internal
correspondence of the MUNACA member (his name is withheld). If you too fail to understand the logic
behind what’s bothering him, try to arrange your psychiatric appointment
(generously offered by McGill in close cooperation with the unions) as soon as
possible!
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This letter below is still ignored by the HR and MUNACA. You can view two previous letter from MUNACA
to this member at: http://www.spop.addr.com/psych.jpg . After clicking this link you must increase
the size of picture with a left bottom on your mouse – worth of seeing! The University administration also did not
bother to answer him.
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-
This letter was written by the
by the abused MUNACA member and is still not answered
Maria
Ruocco
Vice-President
Labour Relations,
MUNACA
Ms.
Ruocco,
I
am writing to you to demand an explanation of the complete about-face that you
have executed in regard to my grievance #03-650-24xx against the University
Human
Resources department for their violation of the collective agreement as set out
very accurately by you in your letter to Ms. Leake of
I
have repeatedly asked you for information regarding the progress of the
grievance during the last year and have received no communications from you
whatever until the early this month when you sent me a copy of another letter
to Ms. Leake from you in which you “confirm” that you will not be “pursuing the
grievance to arbitration and are closing the file”. You did not even have the courtesy to
enclose a note of explanation or comment to me on this complete reversal of
intent on your part. You seem to totally
disregard my interest or concern in this matter and are treating it as a matter
between you and Ms. Leake exclusively and by implication you seem to think it
is hardly any of my business at all.
Please
allow me to assure you that I regard it as very much my business and also allow
me to point out to you that as my representative whose salary is partly paid
for by my dues your DUTY is to represent ME and MY INTERESTS to the fullest
capacity of the Union. An important part
of that representation is full and
complete communications and you are clearly derelict in that regard which leads
me to ask which other aspects of your duty are also being neglected? And then I am told out of the blue that your
clear and cogent statement of grievance as set out in your first letter which
is entirely factual and true is to be disregarded and ignored. This at considerable financial loss and loss
of advancement to me, and all without a single word of explanation or apology.
Explain
to me why the undeniable facts set out in your first letter are no longer a
valid cause for action without further delay please.
XXXXX
YYYYYYY
Cc: Ms
Maria Ruocco
Ms Josephine Leake
Ms Dot Luk
