What! 
No court order making them post their Constitution? 
My gosh, what type of a union is this. Don't they know that information is power and if their members get power they may take over? Perhaps someone should e-mail Buzz and tell him somebody accidentally posted the CAW Constitution on the WEB. Maybe they can sue their webmaster.
Union constitutions on the web
Might be good to make a list of union constitutions on the web:
This is the CAW's
They have a good section on - eek! - Ethical Practices See for yourself, it's on page 122. Here's a piece of it:
Health, Welfare and Retirement Funds
1. No official, representative or employee of the National Union or a Local Union will receive fees or salaries of any kind from a fund set up to provide health, welfare or retirement benefits, except for reasonable reimbursement provided for in a collective bargaining agreement and expressly approved by the National Executive Board.
2. No official, employee or other person acting as agent or representative of the National Union or a Local Union, who has responsibility or influence in administering health, welfare and retirement programs or placing insurance contracts, will have any compromising personal ties, direct or indirect, with outside agencies such as insurance carriers, brokers, or consultants doing business with health, welfare and retirement plans.
It looks like they've had this up on the web for a while. No court order needed.
And what's with all the ethical stuff? What the hell is that doin in a constitution. Some evil union reformers must have snuck that stuff in. Your right. Somebody better tell Buzz before this gets out of hand. 
With a founding father as in Mr.Bob White( with aid from Buzz),the CAW constitution is
arguably the best set of rules for a major union in Canada!
how would UFCW members go about getting these kinds of clauses into their constitution?
quote:
posted by Secret Agent:
Might be good to make a list of union constitutions on the web:...
Excellent idea Secret Agent. There is no better tool in my opinion to implent change in unions than to make public all relevant documents that will educate union members across the country as to what really is going on.
ABOUT UNIONS 
The International Constitution is amended at every International Convention.
The next International Convention is in 2003.
Amendment proposals are submitted by the local executive boards to the Constitution Committee, which shifts though and amends them before bringing them to a floor for a vote (Article 14).
The International Constitution itself is amended by a two-thirds vote of those delegates present and voting at the International Convention (Article 39).
Now there are several complaints that could be made about this system. An individual member can't submit an amendment; some executive board somewhere has to approve it. The Constitution Committee, which starts its work before the Convention itself, is able to ignore or to reshape proposed amendments. The whole process is designed to reach a consensus among a group of insiders primarily consisting of the leaders of the largest grocery locals and their allies in a very top-down International bureaucracy.
The biggest problem, however, is that most of the delegates are full-time officers and staff, people who have very little in common in terms of income, lifestyle or outlook with those whom they are supposed to represent.
On paper about 60-70 major grocery locals (and 1518 is one of the largest) control half the vote in the International. In practice the number of locals making up a majority of convention delegates is much smaller. In 1998 - the year of the last International Convention - many of the small locals didn't bother to send any delegates. As a result the number of large grocery locals that constituted a majority of the convention was about 30 or so.
Just think! A mere thirty (30) locals can control an International Convention!!
But what is NEEDED is people willing to run and win elections as delegates to the International Convention. That's how issues are raised and that's how change begins (at one level, anyway).
Take the example of Teamsters for a Democratic Union. In 1976 one guy stood to nominate himself for President of the Teamsters. That was it.
In 1991 a candidate backed by Teamsters for a Democratic Union won the presidency of that union.
The reformers had been organizing all along, and their presence grew with each International Convention.
The Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild's Constitution
(NOTE: This is a large document and will take approximately 60 seconds to load via a 56K modem connection!)
quote:
The Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild is one of three unions representing employees at the Washington, D.C. headquarters of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union.
The UFCW itself represents some 1.4 million workers in the retail food, meatpacking, poultry, and other food processing industries, as well as in health care, insurance, garment manufacturing and other sectors of the U.S. economy.
The Guild contract covers almost 80 professional and support staff at the UFCW's headquarters and another 7 staffers at UFCW's Harmerville, Pennsylvania office.
The Guild and UFCW management signed their first contract in 1999.
A generous reader has been emailing me links:
http://www.teamster.org/about/constitution/toc.htm
http://www.local157.com/constitution.htm
http://www.afscme.org/about/const_tc.htm
http://www.nacst.com/constitu.htm
http://www.iww.org/PDF/const2001sadd.pdf
http://www.uwua.org/newpage8.htm
http://www.nwu.org/natconst.htm
http://www.cueunion.org/general_info/constitution.php3
http://www.nstu.ns.ca/nstu/constitution/constitution.html
http://www.pea.org/constitu2.htm
http://www.opseu.org/constitution/toc.htm
http://www.aupe.org/images/Constitution%202001.pdf
http://www.apae.ca/constitution1.html
http://www.cepctvunion.com/cepcon.html
http://www.nursesunions.ca/constitution/index.shtml
http://www.actwu.ns.ca/docs/constitution/
edit: Forgot one 
http://www.bgpwu.ca/bgpwu/constitution.htm
A Constitution link on the front-page would be 
, something dedicated to the 'tutions.
A constitution causeway of sorts.
quote:
A Constitution link on the front-page would be , something dedicated to the 'tutions.
A constitution causeway of sorts.
Great idea siggy. Maybe some sort of link beside the union name on the front page so it is easy to associate.
ABOUT UNIONS
http://www.caw.ca/whoweare/CAWconstitution
ABOUT UNIONS
http://www.bcgeu.bc.ca/constitution.html
ABOUT UNIONS
Friends, a list of links to union constitutions online is a GREAT idea. It seems to me it would be good to establish either a new site or a new page on an existing site dedicated to such a list.
The trick is getting everyone to use a common site, getting the word out about its existence, and having someone dedicated to updating the list.
We might be able to host such a list on the AUD page, and in any case would post a prominent link to such a page, wherever it is hosted. Probably a good idea to host it on a US based website, given the LMRDA and other protections...
yours, Matt
http://www.utu1122.com/docs/utu%20constitution.pdf
ABOUT UNIONS
WHAT YOU ALL HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR THE CONSTITUTION OF UFW
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/~ljones/UFW/constitu.html
ABOUT UNIONS
UAW CONSTITUTION
http://www.angelfire.com/ca5/newsboard/constitution/index.html
ABOUT UNIONS
I'll do up a simple page this weekend and present it for approval and/or suggestions by everybody.
Links change all the time though, so maybe we should store local copies of the constitutions? That way we only have to update it when the constitutions are updated and/or new ones are found/added. I've got some disk space to spare.
IBEW CONSTITUTION
http://www.ibew769.com/library/constitution/
ABOUT UNIONS
CWA CONSTITUTIONhttp://www.cwa-st-jobaid.org/CWA_constitution_august_2001.pdf
ABOUT UNIONS
I was waiting to see if they'd ever post this. I think local union by-laws are more important than constitutions because locals can add things. It's my understanding, they just have to get them approved by some-one higher up. ufcw789 homepage
web page trying this again.
Maybe we should do a page for by-laws too?
WE COULD BUT THEY WOULD BE HARDER TO FIND.
ABOUT UNIONS
The CSN is awesome. Here's their constitution. Take time to read it: CSN
Maybe it's time to organize CSN affiliated unions accross Canada.
Here's their Statement of Principles
quote:
The CSN gives free rein to the expression of opinions;
This is my favourite. Ain't it beauteous? 
quote:
it attaches great value to rallying to decisions once the democratic process leading to them has been completed
This ones pretty too!
quote:
7.01 The CSN is a labour organization independent of all political parties, and it is forbidden to affiliate with any of them.
Am I dreaming?
quote:
All meetings of any organization provided for in this Constitution and By-laws are governed by the CSN's Code for Rules of Order.
What are these? Anything like Robert's Rules?
quote:
Each official delegate must either
If you ain't a member you don't get to go to the Convention, gotta like that!
quote:
The per capita is equal to .72% of gross pay.
???????
The CSN is a very interesting and enlightened organization. Do they organize or assist workers outside of Quebec? I think that their principles and their model of organization holds out a lot of hope for the future.