Were they secret ballots or not?
I blogged yesterday on the claim of a miner’s wife:
The woman, who declined to be named, was critical of the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU).
She said the union should have held a secret ballot on the Stockton strike, but instead asked miners for a show of hands.
I then updated the post to include this response from the EPMU:
The EPMU’s position on this is simple. The core allegation, that no secret ballot was held, is factually, verifiably false. There was a secret ballot at all sites as is union policy, and there are hundreds of miners who can vouch for that.
A West Coaster though has alerted me to this article in the Greymouth Star:
The Westport woman said the union should have held a secret ballot on the Stockton strike, but instead asked miners for a show of hands.
Those who wanted to keep working had been afraid of being victimised if they did not put their hands up, she said.
Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU) assistant national secretary Ged O’Connell said he was “absolutely 100% confident” that secret ballots were held nationwide. If they were not, union officials would have been breaching their duties.
“We would view that pretty seriously.”
However, the Greymouth Star has been told the Spring Creek vote was also a show of hands and not a secret ballot.
Mr O’Connell failed to respond to calls about that claim today.
Now I don’t know what happened, as I was not there. But that is two separate claims about two separate ballots in two separate towns. Whether or not there was a secret ballot is a matter of fact, and should be easy to ascertain – one needs miners who were at the meetings to speak on the record to clear it up.
November 21st, 2009 at 7:45 am
So What’s the penalty if they break their rules?
That they (if it is a closed shop) control someones access to work is a serious thing, which puts a completely different light on the issue, if they deliberately broke the rules and didn’t allow a secret ballot.
The question is why?
Was there a human rights breach as a result making the whole vote invalid and when is that going to be addressed by both the local and National EMPU leadership.
More importantly if the local executive of the union cannot keep to the rules and deliberately breached workers human rights then they should stand down and not sit for a considerably long time (10 yrs) as how can they ever be trusted again, even if it is a small minority of the union membership.
November 21st, 2009 at 8:23 am
DPF, if you think the miners are going to speak up then you don’t know how unions operate. That’s the reason they hold “show of hands” ballots in the first place. It’s a tactic as old as the hills when you’re unsure about whether the masses are going to fall in behind the “leadership”. Why do you think that all the comments so far have come from “the wives”?
November 21st, 2009 at 8:23 am
I imagine this is a case of the miner telling his wife a porky to cover his arse for having the week off. Honestly honey, I couldn’t vote to keep working, I was too scared…yeah right.
November 21st, 2009 at 8:48 am
Hah nothing’s changed, my granddad worked for a west coast mine, one time they were meeting to discuss some unpopular measure ( I forget the details ) that was being pushed by the national union HQ that the local branch were very divided about, the meeting cosisted of shouting matches, arguing and near violence breaking out, but in the end the measure just scraped through the vote. He had been against it but was prepared to go along with the majority vote, but when the next issue of the union rag came out, it had a description of the meeting that said the vote passed unanimously and everyone was enthusiastically praising this great idea of the union. He cancelled his membership and had nothing more to do with them for the rest of his life.
November 21st, 2009 at 8:50 am
The information I was given was that there was no secret ballot, and had there been there would have been no strike.
Sadly there are still a few union diehards well entrenched in the mines, these people will do anything to hold on to their “power”, these thugs are bullies and stand-over merchants of the highest order, remember union membership is voluntary not compulsory.
When someone eventually stands up to these thugs, and there aren’t very many of them, they may find their days are numbered.
November 21st, 2009 at 4:28 pm
cant the EPMU flunkies from the standard advise on this matter. lol.