IN PRAISE OF JAMBALAYA
I. THE MEETING
II. ELECTION BOARD RESULTS
III. RESOLUTION DETAILS
IV. THE ELECTION BOARD
V. NOT ALL WENT WELL, BUT THIS WAS A MAJOR VICTORY FOR
THE MEMBERS VOICE!
VI. PLEASE WRITE WITH YOUR IMPRESSIONS!
DEAR LOCAL 47 COLLEAGUES!,..
If you feed them they will come!, or if their voice is in serious
danger. We had a great turnout for our Cajun dinner before the
meeting! A big thank you to the FMA and other volunteers for
supplying a great meal!
I. THE MEETING
The meeting itself was attended by approx. 404 members! We’d
never seen so many members at a meeting! The RMA had sent
5-6 emails, at least one snail mail and even made phone calls to
their members to be at the meeting. One person even joked that
“Even the 6-figure July Check people came out! We had never
seen such a call out of their troops before,….. BUT,…..
-It was close, but RESOLUTION I WAS DEFEATED!, we still have
our quorum of 50!
BRAVO TO THE RANK AND FILE!
-It was close here too, but RESOLUTION II FAILED! The Board still
has to call a meeting on the spot if there is no quorum
and a resolution is on the ballot!
BRAVO TO THE RANK AND FILE AGAIN!
The RMA pulled out ALL the stops and the rank and file STILL
DEFEATED THE RESOLUTIONS THAT MATTERED THE MOST!!
BRAVO! THIS, if nothing else, should prove once and for all to
the general membership that you CAN make a difference if you
come to our meetings! The closeness of the votes should prove
how vital every single vote is!
Resolution III, which concerns whether those running for Officer
positions should also be listed in the Delegate portion PASSED.
But we can fix that later.
II. ELECTION BOARD RESULTS
Brian O’Connor – 239
Victoria Miskolczy – 171
Peter Quesada – 126
Phil O’Connor – 108
Rachel Berry – 93
We believe the two who won the positions: Brian O’Connor,
former President of the RMA, and Victoria Miskolczy, are certainly
in the RMA camp, but they are more than balanced by the other
three members of the Election Board.
III. RESOLUTION DETAILS
Resolutions required a 2/3 majority to win.
Resolution I –
Yes – 263
No – 141
Resolution FAILED!
We still have our quorum of 50!
THIS RESOLUTION WAS DEFEATED BY 4 VOTES! ONLY 4 VOTES!
This should re-enforce how important each and every vote is!
It was similarly close on the 2nd resolution.
Resolution II –
Yes – 255
No – 137
Resolution FAILED!
The board still has to open the meeting on the spot if there is no
quorum AND if a resolution is on the ballot!
Resolution III –
Yes – 275
No – 95
Resolution PASSED
This was the least important of the three, and we can fix this later.
You can also tell how many people had left by this time.
IV. THE ELECTION BOARD
We applaud the Election Board for their tireless work this evening!
THEY TRIPLE CHECKED ALL THE RESULTS TO MAKE SURE THEY
WERE ACCURATE AND SO THEY COULD NOT BE CHALLENGED ON
THEIR VALIDITY! While the meeting ended around 11, the board
did not announce it’s results until 12:45!,.. and they had already
spent hours tallying the votes repeatedly to make sure their
counts were good.
IV. NOT ALL WENT WELL, BUT THIS WAS STILL A MAJOR VICTORY
FOR THE RANK AND FILE MEMBER’S VOICE!
1) As the evening wore on, the RMA took control of the room.
A motion was passed that: forces all delegates to vote as a block,
with no deviation from the majority. This was brought up SOLELY
because David Schubach won a delegate spot and was done to
attempt to silence his possible disagreement with their positions,..
like, say, Voting for HAL as President of the AFM!!
2) They also voted to name the auditorium for Serena Williams
and her husband. After working for the Local for over 22 years,
this seemed more than appropriate.
3) They also rammed through a disjointed non-binding
resolution to try to force the AFM and the AFM president to
consult them on future contracts and to NOT allow them to
make back room deals without their input. Their statement was
much longer, but this was the gist. They can certainly send us
a copy if they want it printed verbatim.
This resolution of theirs seemed odd, considering the RMA
administration has NO trouble leaving RMA members who don’t
make above a certain about of money out of all RMA negotiations
themselves. Rather a double standard, wouldn’t you say?
There were other aspects to it, but at this point the room was
owned by the RMA and they was rubberstamping anything Phil
Ayling or Mark Sazer brought up.
VI. PLEASE WRITE WITH YOUR IMPRESSIONS!
We hope other members will write in with their impressions of
the meeting, we know there are things that were left out in our
description, and welcome members to “fill in the blanks”.
Hopefully the RMA will give it a rest. But if they don’t, now you
see how vital EVERY VOTE IS and how important it is you show up
at meetings!
BRAVISIMO, LOCAL BROTHERS AND SISTERS! BRAVISIMO!
We all deserve a slap on the back for our work tonight!
Until Next Time,
THE COMMITTEE FOR A MORE RESPONSIBLE LOCAL 47