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From the September-October 2009 issue of Union Democracy Review #181
IAM election needless. All 20 officers coast in.
The constitution of the International Association of Machinists provides for the election of international officers by direct membership vote. But machinists are not actually burdened with the chore of casting ballots because it's so difficult for any dissident to get nominated that no one runs against the administration. So it was in January this year when the election committee (more accurately, the non-election committee) announced that all candidates of the administration for all 20 posts, including president, secretary treasurer, vice president, law committee, and AFL-CIO and CLC Delegates were automatically declared elected.
Wannabe candidates must be nominated by at least 25 locals to get on the ballot. The election committee reported that only the administration candidates --- each with over 300 local nominations --- made it. It's not clear whether there was even a single errant nomination from anywhere, no reference to any local nomination for anyone else, not even a possible token nomination for a local favorite son. However, the committee did note that, for one technical reason or another, the returns from around 150 locals were not included in the count. How many of these locals, if any, nominated independent candidates or local favorites is not known.
The fate, or career, of one IAM member who wanted to run for president, Robert Korzuch, is known. He is a member of Lodge 2339N in New Jersey, a 5,400-member local of flight attendants. As a gadfly critic of the IAM international leadership, he runs a website, issues a stream of e-mail, and can supply a thick sheaf of documents to record his experience. In short, the international obviously found him to be an intolerable irritant.
On November 4, 2008 Korzuch announced his candidacy for IAM international president in 2009 against incumbent Thomas Buffenbarger. Events moved swiftly. Three weeks later, on November 24, Korzuch received a 22-line letter from the international informing him that: "you are hereby permanently disqualified from holding any office or representing members of the IAM in any capacity." Korzuch had once been local president for a single term in 2003 - 2006. Digging into the books for 2005, a time when Korzuch was in office, the auditor reported that he had discovered unexplained old items of about $24,000. The quick and drastic penalty was justified, according to the IAM general secretary treasurer, " in order to secure and preserve the remaining assets of the lodge."
Despite the bar on his holding office, Korzuch persisted in acting like a candidate. And ironically, the international replied to his "candidate" inquiries as though it accepted him as an aspiring candidate (perhaps to undercut possibility of any post-election challenge.) Did any locals try to nominate him? From the election committee report, we cannot say.
Articles on the IAM:
IAM election needless. All 20 officers
coast in
IAM Maine
shipyard local reminds us: It's hard to resist a repressive trusteeship
Relentless
attack on democracy in the Machinists Union
IAM
Local 2339N: Nasty aftermath to a Trusteeship
Maine
shipbuilders protest vs. IAM trusteeship
Court to IAM:
Inform members of their rights
U.S. Appeals Court says:
Let your people know!
Update:
Still Subverting Union Democracy in 2005
SHORTS:
photocopying hiring hall records, longshore reform victory, peace pipe
for SEIU and CNA? and more.
Links
to IAM member websites
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