A new set of by-laws has been proposed by the Executive Board to remedy deficiencies and improve Local operations. The draft by-laws can be downloaded here.

CUPE 3338 By-law Revisions
September 30, 2009
Background

The Local was certified in 1974 as ACUE Local 2. In May 1992 the Local became the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 3338. Primarily the membership is composed of support staff of Simon Fraser University. In the late 1970’s the Local agree to represent the support staff of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers – Vancouver Local. There are currently only two members of this second CUPW bargaining unit. In 1996 the Local organized the Food and Beverage Service workers of the Simon Fraser Student Society, then in 2007 we raided the custodial staff of Best Facilities Services from rat-union SWU Local 99. These third and fourth units are about 50 and 130 people respectively. In June of 2009 the membership also approved an application from CUPE Local 5396 to join their Local with ours. This amalgamation brought 3 new Units: the SFSS advocacy staff, the staff of the Graduate Student Society, and the staff of SFPIRG.

The Local has grown to over 1100 members, represented by 7 different collective agreements. Unfortunately, our by-laws have not kept pace with the changing structure of the Local. The current by-laws reflect only one dominant bargaining unit – employees of SFU. For example, the by-laws make reference to committees that are specific to SFU only (pension, joint university committees, etc.).

The Local’s meeting structure is also problematic for our diverse membership. The by-laws require a monthly general meeting, which historically has been held during lunch. We have an entire Unit that does shift work, and one Unit whose busiest time is lunch. For both these groups a lunch hour meeting is nearly impossible to attend. In addition, we inherited a bad collective agreement that makes no provisions for union participation. The inability of members to participate in the democratic decision making process of the Local is not tenable.

With these problem in mind the Executive Board struck a by-law subcommittee to make recommendations. The committee has now completed a draft proposal for consideration by the membership. Rather than a series of small amendments, which the committee felt would have been confusing to track, the proposal is instead a complete set of new by-laws. The intent is to adopt the new by-laws, thereby replacing our current by-laws in their entirety. Our timeline for consultation with the membership begins with introducing the by-law package at the September GM. We will make the by-laws available at all worksites in hardcopy, and will also publish the by-laws on-line. At the October GM we walk through the changes in detail and discuss any amendments. Any changes will be published. Ideally, we would like to see the new by-laws adopted at the November GM and have CUPE National’s approval for implementation by January 2010.  

Summary of Major Changes
The committee's recommendation is to move to a system in which the Local holds an Annual General Meeting to receive the Treasurer’s report, the Auditor’s report, adopt an annual budget, and ratify election results. The AGM will be held in November and general elections will conclude just prior to the meeting. The Local’s fiscal year would remain the same (January to December) and the terms of office will coincide with this schedule. The budget will be adopted prior to the start of the new fiscal year, rather than part way into the year.

The Local will also hold Special General Meetings, as needed, throughout the year. Only matters relating to the entire Local would require an SGM, such as financial matters and policy issues.

The Units will have more formal recognition within the by-laws, including the ability to determine rules for their own governance in compliance with the CUPE Constitution and our Local by-laws. Each Unit has different needs and will determine its own schedule to deal with matters relating to its own employment circumstances. For example, as SFU is a large unit it is most likely necessary to continue to meet either monthly or semesterly. Any Unit would have the ability to require monthly financial reports, or other information from the Executive Board or Local Committees.

The proposed by-laws reflect only those committees whose mandate is Local-wide. All Unit specific committees will be handled by the membership of those Units affected.

A detailed summary will be published after the October GM.

Timeline Overview
•    2009 - The need for by-laws amendments announced by president at many GMs
•    September - Proposed by-laws introduced at GM, published on-line
•    October - Union lunch hours/meeting with all units on by-law changes
•    October - Amendments debated and adopted into by-law package at Oct GM
•    November - Final draft of by-laws adopted and sent to National President for approval
•    November - Motion to extend terms of office and trustees audit to November 2010 AGM
•    January 2010 - New by-laws implemented

Unit Reference
#1 – Simon Fraser University support staff
#2 – Canadian Union of Postal Workers staff
#3 – SFSS Food and Beverage Service workers
#4 – Best Facilities Services workers
#5 – Simon Fraser Student Society, advocacy staff
#6 – Graduate Student Society staff
#7 – Simon Fraser Public Interest Research Group staff