[1997] OLRB REP. MAY/JUNE 478
0649-96-T; 0397-97-M Canadian Union of Public Employees, Applicant v. Metro Toronto Civic Employees' Union, Local 43, Responding Party v. Darius Masalas, Harro Bauer, Woodrow A. Higgins, Danny Scheibli, Brian Morgan, Thomas Lenathen and Earl Gordon, Interveners
BEFORE: R. 0. MacDowell, Chair.
APPEARANCES: Raj Anand, Andrew Pinto, Ron Moreau and Gerry Lee for the applicant; no one for the responding party individually or separately; Darius Masalas, Harro Batter, Woodrow A. Higgins, Danny Scheibli, Brian Morgan, Thomas Lenathen and Earl Gordon on their own behalf.
DECISION OF THE BOARD; May 13, 1997
- To make this decision easier to read, the applicant Canadian Union of Public Employees will be referred to as "CUPE" or "the parent union", and Metro Toronto Civic Employees' Union, Local 43, will be referred to simply as "the local union" or "Local 43".
I
2, This is an application under section 89 of the Labour Relations Act, in which CUPE seeks the Board's consent to continue its supervision or control over Local 43, for a further six months. Local 43 was placed "under trusteeship" on May IS, 1996, 50 that an administrator appointed by the parent union could address serious financial and operational concerns within the Local. CUPE seeks an extension of that "trusteeship" until November 15, 1997, in order that there can bean orderly return to local autonomy.
On May 12, 1997, the Board held a hearing to receive representations from local union members potentially affected by the parent union's request for an extension of the trusteeship. Four interveners supported CUPE's request for an extension - with the reservation that, in their submission, six months was insufficient to deal with the problems which, they said, had been accumulating for some years. These four interveners thought that the trusteeship should be extended for a full year. Three interveners resisted the parent union's request for an extension of six months, suggesting that an extension of four weeks to four months would be sufficient to put the Local's affairs in order.
It was common ground that there were serious problems in the Local which warranted the imposition of trusteeship in May 1996, and that the administrator, Ron Moreau, has made significant and good faith efforts to find solutions for those problems (more accurately, to assist local union members and officials to develop their own solutions). In other words, there was really no dispute that some extension of' the trusteeship was in order. The only question was: "For how long"? And, in answering that question, it may be useful to briefly mention some of the problems that brought on the trusteeship in the first place, as well as some of the steps that have been taken to rectify the situation.
I do not think that it is necessary to deal with these matters in any detail. However, I do think that it is useful to sketch in the context in which the present application arises.
II
CUPE Local 43 is one of the largest CUPE locals, with 5,000 regular members (and 1500 seasonal members) who work at dozens of locations throughout Metropolitan Toronto. Local 43 has collective agreements with: the City of Toronto, the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto, the Parking Authority of Metropolitan Toronto, City Homes, and the Port Authority of Metropolitan Toronto. To service the needs of this diverse membership, the local has a network of officials, at various levels, elected and appointed, full-time and part-time, including: negotiating teams, health and safety committees, 118 stewards, and so on. The Board was advised that Local 43 has a budget of about $3 million which must, of course, be administered and accounted for by these local union officials (at various levels).
Local 43 has been in existence for decades; however, by early 1996, it was confronted with a series of problems that had been accumulating for some time. The Local owed the parent union over a million dollars, and was not paying its utility bills. There were widespread allegations of financial mismanagement - an accusation later confirmed by a forensic accountant, who found many of the Local's practices highly irregular. There were allegations of political corruption, election misconduct, manipulation of records, and the removal of stewards without cause or "due process". The grievance arbitration process was disorganized and ineffective, and there was an enormous backlog of unresolved WCB cases.
Rivals within the Local routinely traded insults and charges, so that there was an unprecedented number of trial proceedings between members, and a complete breakdown in the relationship between local union officials. There were civil proceedings and complaints to the Human Rights Commission. Membership meetings had become a forum for partisan bickering, occasionally punctuated by verbal abuse and violence - to the extent that the police had to be called and it became difficult to conduct ordinary union business.
By the spring of ] 996, the level of turmoil and dissension had reached a point that it began to attract media attention. Accordingly, on May 14, 1996, a special executive meeting of Local 43 unanimously requested the parent union s intervention. The Local was placed under trusteeship the following day, and Ron Moreau became its administrator.
Over the next few months, Moreau took steps to restore order and address the Local's many problems. All of the local officers were immediately removed (as contemplated by the CUPE constitution), but a number of them were kept on, as individuals, to assist in the transition - as were the negotiating team(s) and the steward body. Membership meetings were continued, and in the fall of 1996 (things slow down over the summer) members were invited to serve on a series of committees, whose task was to review and revise the union's operating rules. These committees were: fiscal review, election practices, grievance and arbitration, and, as a clearing house for all of the committees, a "bylaws review committee".
The Bylaw Review Committee was the most important one because the inadequacy of the existing bylaws (in substance and in application) was thought to be one of the main reasons for the Local's accumulating problems. The Bylaw Review Committee had to address such diverse issues as: the appropriate "managerial framework" for the Local; the role of union officers at various levels and their relationship to the membership; the payment of salaries, car allowances and per diems; election policies and practices; and so on. At the same time, Moreau commissioned auditors to review the Local's financial affairs from 1994 to the present, and initiated training programs for local officials, drawing on experienced personnel seconded from CUPE's national office.
Moreau's overall objectives can be simply stated: to put in place an effective mechanism for resolving employee grievances; to reduce the WCB backlog; to establish a schedule for repaying the Local's outstanding debt; to develop a system of financial controls to avoid difficulties of the kind that has arisen in the past; to encourage an effective leadership structure for what is admittedly a large and diverse local; and to create an effective framework for the conduct of local elections. The material filed by CUPE demonstrates, step by step, how the administrator has sought to accomplish those objectives. And, it is interesting to note that the objecting interveners do not quarrel with these goals, or challenge Moreau's good faith efforts to achieve them.
I do not think that it is necessary to review the details of Mr. Moreau's activities over the last year, the many meetings that have been held, or the deliberations of the various committees that have been established. It suffices to say that, in my view, there is nothing inappropriate in the steps taken by Mr. Moreau to restore the Local's financial and administrative integrity; moreover, I am satisfied that that process must be completed before full autonomy can be restored, with the conduct of local elections.
In my view, the restructuring currently in process will take several months to complete, and it is important that it be undertaken carefully and completed properly, or there may be a recurrence of the kinds of problems that produced the organizational breakdown before. Indeed, having heard the parties' representations, and reviewed the material in the file, it appears to me that six months is the absolute minimum extension necessary to restore order in the Local. In fact, a longer period may well be required; and to the extent that the members are "turned off' (as most of the interveners suggest they are), it may take some time and effort to reinvigorate local union democracy.
It is important to remember that a trade union is not like a corporation, where authority can be exercised "from the top down", by full-time managers imposing their wishes and wielding the threat of discharge. A trade union is more like a club: an organization of workers that conducts much of its business after hours or on weekends, when its members are available. And like a club, the local union relies, to a large extent, on part-time officials and volunteers who are not lawyers or accountants and who work for the good of the organization on their own time.
In this setting, it is unrealistic to expect a speedy resolution of the kinds of problems which have plagued this Local in recent years - unless the administrator were prepared to exercise truly dictatorial powers. But, of course, top-down imposition of solutions would risk poisoning the environment and alienating the membership even further. On balance, therefore, steady progress and participation are to be preferred, even if it takes more time.
On the basis of the material filed and the representations made, lam satisfied that following the imposition of the trusteeship, the parent union has taken reasonable steps to address and rectify the Local's many problems: financial and organizational. A full financial audit (1994-1997) is almost completed, most of the stewards have undergone training, the grievance-arbitration and WCB processes have been improved, and later this month the membership will begin debate on a new set of draft bylaws, which will pave the way for an election in the fall (the usual time for holding local elections). These are sensible steps, which are still in progress, and will take time to complete.
I am satisfied, therefore, that an extension of the trusteeship for a minimum of six months is required to ensure that these new systems are in fact viable and that they enjoy the broad adherence of the membership. Consequently, at the conclusion of the hearing on May 12, 1997, I indicated that the Board would give its consent to the minimum 6-month extension requested by CUPE. This written decision confirms that consent.
III
- Strictly speaking, there is no obligation to give specific notice of this decision to the 5,000 or more members of CUPE Local 43. But the parties all agree that it is desirable that notice of the extension of the trusteeship (until November 15, 1997) be brought to the attention of the members of Local 43 who may be interested. At the hearing, the parties canvassed two means of doing so:
(a) a mailing of this decision to the Local membership (which might also include an update from the administrator about the steps he has taken and how the process is to unfold over the next few months); and/or
(b) a distribution of this decision by the members' employers, along with their paycheques.
The problem with option (a) is that the Local's mailing list may be somewhat out of date. The problem with option (b) is that the employers took no part in these proceedings and might not welcome even the minor inconvenience of including a copy of this decision with their employees' paycheques - although, in this regard, the union has undertaken to reimburse the employers for any actual expenses involved.
Counsel for CUPE urged the Board to ascertain whether the employers would have any objections, and, if not, to make the appropriate (consent) order. Counsel observed that the employers were all public bodies with which Local 43 had had a collective-bargaining relationship for many years, so it was unlikely that they would raise any objection - provided that the union covered any actual costs involved. Counsel observed that while the members' addresses may have changed, they all have an interest in picking up their paycheques, so it is not unusual for employers to deliver information in this way.
There is something to be said for the submission that a notice accompanying a paycheque may get more attention than a notice in the mailbox; however, I have concluded that option (a) is preferred and is sufficient. I note, again, that there is no obligation to provide a copy of the Board's decision to anyone other than those who directly participated at the hearing. The question of providing union members with copies of the decision only arose because the parties all suggested that this might be a helpful and sensible thing to do. However, that said, the employers were neither a party to the OLRB proceeding nor would one ordinarily expect an employer to have any responsibility for distributing material concerning local union affairs. Finally, it appears that a general mailing by the administrator will reach virtually all of the local union's members (making any distribution by the employers redundant and unnecessary). And, of course, if there are particular problems, they can be raised with the employers directly; for, as I have already noted, Local 43 has a long-standing collective-bargaining relationship with each of the employers mentioned above.