Union vs. Member or Member vs. Union?

Today I received a letter from my union

and I am being instructed from the union General Counsel that the websites that I legally own is a trade mark infringement and to cease and desist from infringing on that name by discontinuing the three named websites. I hope this letter was sent to all other sites resembling the name “ATU757” such as http://www.atu757.com and many others or is it just me?

This is a perfect example of union officials attempting to prevent a union member from holding separate meetings. The Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA) and The Union Members’ Bill of Rights might protect me if my Union decides to take action. Then again it might not.

Does Our Full Time Union Officer Honor Equality?

                Today after our Union Charter meeting our financial secretary approached me to inform me that the only communication I am allowed to conduct with her is via email. She continued to inform me that I am not authorized to post any recordings of her and walked away from me ignoring me. After the exposure of the meeting she invited me to on June 2^nd, 2011 I have to agree that the only secure communication with our Union Officers is documented communications. It has already been demonstrated to me that I will be told one thing and when I quote the statements made to me it is denied. In one room there were 4 people, 1 union member, 1 executive board officer and 2 full time officers. Who will the membership believe? The 1 member or the 3 officers? So I will respect this elected full time officer who swore to equally represent all members her request.

                It is not legal to release recordings of people engaged in private conversation without the knowledge of being recorded. I released a voice message left on my phone explaining about how credit cards play a key role in report numbers not matching. Was it legal for me to do this? Well she left a voice message on my phone. Did she know she was being recorded? How else would a get the message? Any time a person leaves a message on any recorded device I would have to say you know you are being recorded. The message I posted was an explanation why numbers are not matching. For our financial secretary to be so upset about that being post opens the door to why she might be so upset.

                In our meeting I never brought up the name of Tom Wallis yet the officers brought that name up a few times. Why was his name brought up? Is there worry I am making comparisons? Should there be worry? I was just pointing out that numbers are not matching and do not add up as presented to the membership. When I present clear documentation of this the conversation turned towards intimidating type comments and even an insult.

                Believe it or not I am now apparently limited to only communicate to our elected Financial Secretary via Email as instructed to me by our Financial Secretary. Earlier today our President commented to many members that it doesn’t matter if we like one or the other, we are still members of the same union. Our elected officers should be the role models of this and look at the example presented to me.

                If you would like a better understand of why our Financial Secretary is so upset with me you will have to do a little research. First you need to attend a union charter meeting and save the meeting minutes that is available for you to pick up at the table where you sign in. Save that because getting that same copy later is not an easy task. Then you have to wait for the following months meeting and attend that one. Make sure to again collect that meeting minutes for that month. Now you have two months’ worth of reports. Now you will have to do some math work. I will break it down for you here to help out.

1.       On the report that you collected from the first month find the year to date financial statement. On that page at the very bottom right side you will see a total number. Write that number down.

2.       On the report that you collected from the second month find the monthly financial statement. On that page towards the bottom right (if the auxiliary accounts are on the same page then count where it says “TriMet Auxiliary Accounts as a different page) you will see a total. Take that total and write it down. Here is where it can be a little tricky. If the first number you wrote down from the month before is a negative number that means our balance is currently in the negative and if the second number is also a negative number you will need to add both numbers together. If the first number is negative and the second is positive you need to subtract the second number from the first. If the first number is positive and the second number is negative you must subtract the second number from the first number. If both numbers are positive you add the two together. This will give you a total.

3.       Now look on the report you saved from the second meeting and locate the year to date financial statement. Match the total shown there and if they match then all is good. If they do not match something has been changed somewhere.

What you just did was take July 2010 – first month year to date and added the second months’ monthly report total. This should give you the new total of the July 2010 – second month year to date report. My complaint is I have looked at now the past 7 months and they do not match. My meeting with full time officers reveals that these reports are not meant to match and the members only get a general idea of about where our financial status stands. The only groups that get the respect of an accurate report are the US government and our International. We are on a different reporting system and our reports are able to be changed as sees fit by our full time officers. None of the numbers reported to us will match the LM2’s or the 9-90’s and to receive one of those reports it must be requested to our union or retrieved online from our government.

So do our full time officers offer us equality?

Are we offered the same respect as our government or international?
Does each member have the equal opportunity to communicate with elected officers the same way?

A meeting at ATU757 Office

          On June 2^nd, 2011 Evette asked to meet with me at the union office and I did. During this meeting other officers entered the room that Evette and I was meeting in. At one point there was 2 full time officers and one executive board officer in the room. There was another executive board officer in the next room.

          The executive board officer that was in the room next door later tells me that she closed the door of the room she was in because she didn’t want to get in the middle of it.

          The executive board officer that was in the room with me later posted a Facebook statement claiming the statements I quoted from that meeting was not true and then defriended me from Facebook.

          One of the full time officers in the room only nodded, giggled and agreed while the other full time officer made intimidating type statements and added an insult to finish off his comments to me.

          Is this what I am to expect from the elected officers that have been elected to protect the union and the membership?

          Can I expect that elected officers will protect each other and ignore presented documents?

          Can I expect that an elected officer will not tell the truth of actual events so that a fellow officer is protected?

          Will Officers lie to the membership to protect their position?

          Will an Officer ignore a member when in need?

          The June 2^nd, 2011 meeting I had demonstrated to me that the answer is yes.

21.7 Disclosure of Union Business.

No officer or member of the local union shall furnish to any unauthorized person a list of the names and addresses of the membership. All business of the local union must be kept strictly private from persons outside of the local union unless publication be authorized by the local union and persons giving out any information contrary to the local union shall after proceeding in accordance with the provisions of Section 22, if found guilty, be fined, suspended or expelled.

Printed Names
Signatures
Identification Numbers

These three items is enough information that when combined in list form is able to be considered a list of names and addresses.

Believe who you want

It has been stated that the two statements I claim Sam Schwarz made to me on June 2, 2011 at the union hall while I was meeting with Evette talking about the financial report was not made. The person stating this is Khris Alexander who states that he was at that meeting. It is true that Khris did not hear Sam’s threat statement. I do feel it is import to share some more factual information about that meeting so you can have more information to determine if Khris Alexander’s statement truly represents what took place.

On June 2, 2011 I meet with Evette at our union hall shortly before 1pm. She and I started talking about my concerns in her office with the office door open. Only Evette and I were in her office at that time. We had been talking for about 10 – 15 minutes when Sam (only Sam) walked in the room and joined the conversations. At this time it was only Evette, Sam and I in the room when Sam stated “By the way if you have a specific thing that you want to know about, you have to be specific. You can’t go on a fishing expedition because the department of labor is going to say you are on a fishing expedition and we are going to report that. I don’t know what Evette is going to do, I do not know what Jon is going to do but I am going to tell the membership hey you went on a fishing expedition. Is that what you want to hear?” Now to me that sure sounded like a threat or a type of intimidation. I am not worried who he tells what so that threat didn’t do much to me other than piss me off.

Khris entered the room about 3 – 5 minutes after Sam had entered and Sam’s “threat” had already been made, so of course Khris did not hear it. So Sam was in the room for about 15 minutes and Khris was in the room for about 10 minutes. Sam and Khris left to office together. Khris only heard the last 10 minutes of conversation and cannot truly account for all of what Sam had said to me.

You now have my side of the facts to look at as well. It is ok to believe what you want about who you want. It might matter what I say or it might not. The only documentation about that meeting I have is my notes, my copies of the Meeting Minutes from past meetings, my spread sheets of the reports and the reports reprinted for me by Evette that clearly show that the newly printed reports do not match the same reports that was given to us at our meetings. Not a single report Evette printed that day match any of the reports I had saved from our past meetings. That appears to be our union officer’s standard operational procedure. I am not bashing our union; I am standing up for my rights as a member to be reported accurately. I am sharing this information with other members to allow them the opportunity to do the same. If enough members feel the same as I do than maybe a change might be made. Fear and intimidation can only last so long. Sam use to scare and intimidate me and now he just pisses me off. I am sure I have pissed him of more than my share as well. I cannot and will not except the responses of “that is just how it is” and “you just have to accept it”. Our members do not have to accept anything they do not like.

On A Fishing Expedition?

On June 2^nd, 2011 I met with Evette Farra to talk about why the monthly reports that are presented to the membership do not match each other. During this meeting Sam Schwarz joined and made a few interesting comments. His first interesting comment he made to me was a threat. He states that because I am not requesting a specific item that he will tell the membership that I am on a “Fishing Expedition”. With him threating me with that I would like to step up to the membership and advise them that Sam Schwarz feels I am on a “Fishing Expedition”.

So what is my “Fishing Expedition”? On April 2011 our members had been presented a year to date financial statement from July 2010 to March 2011. On May 2011 our members had been presented a monthly financial statement and a year to date statement from July 2010 to April 2011. I looked at the YTD given to the membership in April 2011 then added the monthly statement given to the membership in May 2011 and the total of the two was $50,000.00 less than the total present on the YTD that was given to the membership on May 2011. This tells me numbers have been changed somewhere. If numbers are being changed then the reporting to the membership is not accurate. Both Sam and Evette confirmed that the reports will never match and will never be accurate to the members. Am I on a “Fishing Expedition”? YES! When I am reported to about our unions financial standings I want to be accurately informed and feel that the membership should have the respect to receive the same. Our union officer’s feel that it is not important enough, too time consuming and too costly to keep our membership accurately informed.

Now about respect, Sam Schwarz made another interesting comment to me stating “Is your brain the size of an M&M or if your brain was chocolate would it fill an M&M”. This is a clear example of the lack of respect our union Officers have for the membership. Though we are members in good standing and we pay our union dues don't be surprised if you contact an officer and you are insulted, intimidated or ignored. This is how much our officers respect us as members.

So in conclusion, our officers show little respect for the membership. They will give our members a report and then alter it shortly after reporting it. This makes the report given to the membership useless because an altered one has already replaced it. If a member does have questions they can end up being threatened, insulted and/or ignored and expected to accept that type of treatment. We have legal rights as members to have full access to accurate financial statements and our officers consistently deny use this access. My request was partly met and was limited; this is a violation of my member rights. Am I fishing for answers? YES I AM. I want to know our true standings and will share my information with all members interested to know the same. It appears our officers are more comfortable giving us as little information as possible and keeping us dependent on them.

So there you have it, our elected officers do not respect us enough to assure we have access to accurate information. If a member wants access it will most likely be limited and could include some intimidation and threats. This is if you make it past being ignored by the officers and required to go through the hoops they place in front of you. So label me as someone on a “Fishing Expedition” or even as a “Shopper”. When something catches my eye that appears wrong I am going to do what I can to find the answers.

PS If you have any copies of the past financial statements they are not of any use because none of them will ever match the information submitted to our International or Government. Only the LM2’s and 9-90’s are true, accurate and will not be altered after being reported. Of course the only we a member has access to these is they have to search for them online or submit a request that may or may not be approved.

A Meeting With Evette Farra Today

        I have been questioning the reports presented to us each month and have requested copies of the past Meeting Minutes so that I can investigate more. Currently I have had no reply about getting a copy of these minutes. Evette did call me last week and left a message stating that the reports might be off a little because of credit card receipts not being turned in on time. This excuse doesn’t make sense to me and from the message she left I thought she just wanted me to call her back. Evette called me today saying that I have not set up a meeting with her yet and that she is concerned about hearing I have been in communications with U.S. Department of Labor. I have had communications with the Department of Labor and received some advice from them about how numbers should match up and have agreed to keep them informed of my findings. Evette and I have arranged to meet today 06/02/11 at 1pm to go over my question. I am trying to keep an open mind about this and I am finding it hard because for me there is no reason a monthly and a year to date that are both presented at the same time should not match. I will report my findings and keep all members posted as best as I can.

Evettes message to me - http://www.atu757.net/EvetteMessage.mp3