On Tuesday, October 30th, our Local held a Unit-specific secret ballot vote on introducing a 1% 4-month levy (special assessment) to help improve our financial position. The results of this vote can be found here. Pursuant to article B.4.2(a) of the CUPE Constitution, the Executive Committee then submitted the levies, approved by Units 1 and 3, to the National President’s Office (NPO) for approval. Given that any levy would affect the entire Local, the NPO indicated this Unit-specific vote contravened the National Constitution and was ruled out of order. “Any assessment must be approved by a majority of members voting in a referendum or at a regular or special membership meeting” which, in the context of the Article, the NPO maintains means a majority of members of the Local in an all-Units vote.
The Executive Committee has called a Special General Membership Meeting (SGMM) for Tuesday, November 13th, 10:00 am to 1:00 pm, in Harry Crowe (109 Atkinson) to address this situation, as well as to address the situation this puts our Local in. Both the Executive Committee and our National Service Representative will be present to answer questions.
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