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picket policy



(With apologies to all disinterested colleagues for being such a pain on this issue:)

Dear Brian, 
In looking through the "Certification FAQs" on the SFUFA website, I find the following:

"If we were certified, could we be forced to honour picket lines of other unions?

No. The decision to cross or not to cross a picket line is a matter of individual conscience, and no organization, unionized or not, has any ability to compel an individual to decide one way or other."

Among many slanted or misleading statements in the FAQ, this one seems to me flat-out false. The BCGEU, CUPE, and the BCTF all claim--and, I assume, enforce--the power to discipline members who cross picket lines of other unions. The penalties range from shaming to fines to expulsion--which, in the case of the teachers at least, is equivalent to getting fired. (The relevant sections from those unions' constitutions are below.) I don't know if these are the only unions in BC or elsewhere that claim this power, but I doubt it. Perhaps you, as a long-time and politically committed trade unionist, have more information. 

In any case, I am deeply puzzled by the statement above in the FAQ. I think it should be clarified or removed.

Best wishes,
JD Fleming

-------------------

BCGEU

A member commits a breach of duty when they ...

(f) cross a picket line of the BCGEU or another union;

... If the charges are sustained, the hearing panel may impose a penalty that fits with the breach of duty,  ... A penalty could include temporarily suspending or ending the respondent’s membership, imposing terms of membership, placing conditions on the member’s ability to hold office, fine, or some other form of discipline.

 

CUPE

If the accused is found guilty, the Trial Committee will decide any penalty and what, if anything, the accused must do or not do. The decision may include:

(i) a reprimand

(ii) a fine

(iii) a suspension or expulsion from membership

(iv) a ban against holding membership or office

(v) an order to stop doing the act or acts

complained of

(vi) an order to correct the act or acts complained

of

(vii) any other order that the Trial Committee finds

appropriate.

 

 

BCTF

1. determine appropriate publication of the finding of such breach;

2. issue a warning to the member;

3. issue a reprimand to the member;

4. impose a monetary fine on the member;

...

7. suspend the right of the member to hold office or

membership in, or receive specified benefits from, the BCTF and/or

any subsidiary bodies for a specific period of time;

8. expel from membership in the local and BCTF.


--
James Dougal Fleming
Associate Professor
Department of English
Simon Fraser University
778-782-4713

Burnaby ~ British Columbia ~ Canada

Upstairs was a room for travelers. ‘You know, I shall take it for the rest of my life,’ Vasili Ivanovich is reported to have said as soon as he had entered it. 
-- Vladimir Nabokov, "Cloud, Castle, Lake'