Standing Committees

The argument has long been made in our Local that Standing Committees should be elected differently. Currently we elect the Chairpersons at General membership meetings and turn them loose to express their vision of any given committee, however they personally or members of the Executive Board see fit. If these generally elected chairpeople choose not to have a committee, hold any meetings or to deliberately keep the committee inactive, thats OK too.
In addition they get to go to conferences and choose the people they like as fellow attendees.
As long as they are elected or appointed at the General Membership meeting, anything goes. They are not really accountable unless something goes drastically wrong and they attract unfavourable attention to their political masters.
Usually whoever gets the nod from the Executive Board of the Local wins the election.
The Executives criteria thus far has been purely political, the main criteria being loyalty and obedience to the leadership.

The argument to have committees elect their own chairpersons was made by successive chairs and members of these committees at least until 1999.
One of the main reasons was that committees such as these have the potential to provide vital services to union members and thus ought to be free of political interference.
It would be avoiding the issue not to touch on the fact that members of these committees also wanted to avoid the atrocity of having leaderships unqualified sons/daughters parachuted in to head up these committees, often disregarding rules that other members have to adhere to and destroying the chances for active committee members to move up in any given committee.

In our local nepotism was and remains a prime reason for the argument to have committees elect their chairpeople.

Another reason was that this way committees would continue to build on past lessons/gains and
continue to function in spite of changes of leadership. In other words leadership changes would not result in service cuts or service to the membership being affected.

Presently the issue has surfaced again with an explosion that was not totally unexpected. Like other recent explosions in our Local they have built up over time.
There has been an increase in interest in Standing Committees as happens from time to time. Once again people are expressing that Chairpersons of these committees are not holding enough or any meetings, are not letting interested Union members know when Conferences and Conventions are taking place, are hand picking their pals to go to these events, are having secret meetings that the general membership don't find out about in order to elect each other for various perks, have unofficial meetings, last minute meetings, out-of-the-way meetings, impromptu meetings, invitation only meetings, sudden meetings.. the list goes on and on.
This is nothing new. Its old hat. However...please.......DO NOT blame the chairpersons of these committees. This is the system they inherited. The people are not to blame-It is the system that has failed. So! If you want change...you have to change the system.

This is generallyhow it would work, but the idea is not totally writ in stone;

• At the General Membership meeting where Committee Chairpersons were previously elected, members interested in participating in a committee would sign up for 3 committees in order of preference. Members would have voice and vote in their first committee of choice and voice only at the other two committees.
• Each Standing Committee would have an Executive Board member attached to it in order to serve as a liason with the Executive Board.
• Meetings dates would be assigned each committee, with provisions for special meetings worked out in each committee, thus eliminating those special meetings that previously excluded people.
• Each committee would have a chairperson, a co-chairperson and a recording secretary. This would give 3 people per committee experience in running a committee. This multiplied by 10 would keep 30 + previously unemployed activists from actively eyeing the leaderships' jobs.
• Minimum numbers should be established. This way prospective members cannot be told that a committee of 3 for example is full.
• Attendees for conferences and conventions should be chosen from within committees. People who do the work should get the perks-Not someones pal or relative. Insertion of someones pal and exclusion of active committee members destroys functioning committees.

This way of doing standing committees is immensely useful because it it is so inclusive and so uniquely democratic. Qualified people would be making choices based on the needs of the membership-Not just what is politically good for leadership. Membership services would not be sacrificed for egos.

Most importantly accountability would be established.