UA Local 787
Local 787's Excellent Election Campaign
Get a jump on your opponent
Don't wait around for the nomination meeting; get your propaganda out early.
You have easy access to the membership list and office staff to help, you can really get ahead of the game by sending out literature you know your opponents won't have a snowballs chance in hell of responding to. You've already told the membership that you will phone each member and tell him or her not to vote for one certain member, follow through.
At membership meetings, you can have your officers tell your opponents to "sit down and shut up" or that perennial favourite, "you're out of order". This is a particularly good time to use the colourful language you have cultivated over the years.
Keep the opposition guessing
Plan secret area meetings. Inform the members of each area when their meeting will be as opposed to sending out one letter with all the dates of every meeting.
Your trips to these meetings won't cost you a cent, as all your expenses will be paid for by the membership. Your opponents can't afford to follow you everywhere.
If you prefer, have your re-election committee call each member by phone. It helps to make sure that most of the members attending are your supporters. If your opponents gets lucky and finds the meeting, make sure that you run him and any other opponents you have, into the ground for trailing you around the province. The afore-mentioned use of colourful language and a liberal amount of intimidation are just right for this scenario.
Keep a firm hand on campaign material
Make sure, and this is really important, that you censor your opponents campaign literature. (see fig1) This the only opportunity that they will have to counter any claims you may have made and you don't want to give them any opportunity to prove you wrong. If the opponent retaliates and complains to the UA head office, tell Patrick Perno, assistant to the General President, to keep his nose out of your union's elections, these are your rules and you're damn well going to stick to them.
Put a few obstacles in your opponent's path
All candidates are entitled to membership address labels to get their literature out to the members. Don't make it easy for them. Refuse to give the labels to them and if they complain to Patrick, stick a price tag of $750.00 for "office staff time". Coupled with the price of the postage and the fact that you've managed to keep them waiting until all the ballots have gone out, they will easily become frustrated and decide it isn't worth the effort or the expense.
Make liberal use of up to the minute technology
The union already has a web site. Get your election material on line. It doesn't matter that all candidates are supposed to get equal access, all's fair in war and elections!
A few polite suggestions
Give a call to anyone supporting your opponents and politely suggest it may not be in their best interest to circulate their campaign literature. OR, wait for them to distribute their candidate's material and then... remove it. Some of them are older and frail; they won't put up much of a fight! (see figs.2, 3, 4, & 5, material that was placed under windshields of member's vehicles at a union information meeting)
Ballots
The rules that were sent out by the UA, that have to comply with rules set out in the LMRDA as well as the UA Constitution, inform you that the ballots will be counted at the accountants office and the candidates will have an observer present. Scratch that one!
If it's clear a member has changed his mind and crossed out his first choice in favour of another candidate, allow that one. (see fig.6, for a page from the UA Local 787 Election 2000 ballot results, confirming procedures for the counting of ballots.) Remember that it's OK for you to be present at the union offices while the ballots are being counted, someone has to make sure all the..Oops..Your rules are followed.
If you win, and this is a no-brainer
Remember, any protest to the UA will be largely ignored. The General President has an opponent in this year's election and he wants your votes. He might even put you on his ballot committee!
You can remove any usurpers so they won't be a bother to you in the future; just charge them under sec.199 of the UA Constitution for circulating letters of falsehood and misrepresentation. There's also that by-law about spreading rumours that you neatly slipped passed the members. There is no such thing as free speech in your local.
Epilogue:
There was a protest to the election. Even though the union officials admitted to a lot of the accusations, the General President said that they couldn't re-run the entire election. He said that in order for that to happen the complainants would have to have caught the officials "with their hand in the cookie jar".
It was viewed however, that as one member had been subjected to adverse comments in literature mailed to the membership by the union officials, then his position would be run again.
The UA made no provision for the member to refute the literature. The member argued that, in the only free mail out by the union, the Local 787 newsletter, his material had been censored to the point where all that was left of the original was his name and the position he was running for. They replied that he could send out rebuttal literature at his own expense. You guess the outcome.