Stolen Stewards Council Election?

Laurence Green

As steward for Film, Fine Arts, I attended the Friday stewards' council meeting on May Day, having received my ballot package beforehand for the upcoming election of council representatives to the YUFA Executive, with Walter Whiteley and Ildiko Kovacs' terms ending. Our normal meeting chair, Chief Steward Suzie Young, was not in attendance, due to a scheduling conflict, so David Cabianca was chairing his first stewards' council. During the approval of the agenda and business arising from the minutes, Glendon English Steward Marcia Macaulay attempted to raise some questions about the election and in particular a rumoured legal opinion YUFA had sought.

The substance of Macaulay's position, which was initially challenged before she was given a time limit within which to speak, was that the terms of the election had been changed DURING the course of the election to include votes by members of the executive. There had been some activity on e-mail in the day or so before the stewards' council meeting, and most notably, both Ildiko Kovacs and Walter Whiteley, members of the Executive and the two standing council representatives, took public positions that YUFA Executive members should not cast ballots, while David Cabianca (who chaired the meeting) conceded that "past practice" may have been to exclude Executive members from voting, but he resented being "shamed into disenfranchisement" by a call for "honour."

In the week following the May 1 stewards' council meeting, there have been statements from Heidi Bishop, Arthur Hilliker and numerous others characterizing Macaulay's position as the opposite of trying to prevent the terms of the election from being changed during the election, but on the contrary, TRYING TO CHANGE the terms of the election underway. Both sides are accusing the other of committing the same infraction, but clearly only one is actually guilty.

Back to the May 1 meeting: Cabianca, supported by Monica Mulvihill, insisted that the legal opinion that defended the inclusion of votes by members of the YUFA Executive could not be shared at the meeting, and needed to be kept confidential and physically in the YUFA office. However, they also stated that any member of stewards' council was entitled to view and consider it... but only at the YUFA office. I was baffled why a meeting of ONLY members of the YUFA stewards' council could not be considered a secure and confidential IN CAMERA session where such sensitive information could be shared, rather than phyisically requiring everyone present, entitled to view the document, needed to visit the office, when the meeting was already underway. It is curious that at 3 or 4 of the last stewards' council meetings in a row, there have been extensive explorations into definitions of who is eligible to vote, but is being denied that right, and to whom are voting rights being extended without legitimacy. It has raised suspicions in many quarters about why all these questions and definitions seemed suddenly so unclear.

Macaulay spoke persuasively and eloquently that the legal opinion was flawed in that the lawyer had considered only two citations in the YUFA collective agreement and constitution where "stewards' council" was defined as including "the Executive members" thus enfranchising them, in contradiction of past practice, when the lawyer should have considered numerous other clauses where the function and constitution of "stewards' council" was more clearly defined as just the elected stewards, to which Executive members were welcome to attend, ex officio. Some stewards requested the counter argument be presented before any decision, and Mulvihill did her best to cite the relevant clauses and defend the legal opinion, to which she'd been privy. More stewards tried to participate in the discussion, but further debate was curtailed when question was called prematurely, in the interests of getting on with other agenda items. Given that the legal opinion was not made available to the meeting, Macauley cleverly did not make a motion specifically dependent on the legal opinion, but on the improper inclusion of "Executive ballots" which should be removed from the ballot box and not counted. This motion carried, by a significant majority.

When Executive members are free to move in one direction and attend stewards' council meetings, it is entirely beyond me why they feel they should control the movement of stewards in the other direction, and vote on which stewards "represent" THE STEWARDS on the YUFA Executive?!!? The stewards should elect "their" representatives to the YUFA Executive. If the Executive chooses the Council's representatives, then this isn't "representation." This seems self evident, but Macaulay made the case that this is supported by and reflected in YUFA's constitution and the collective agreement, as well. The stewards present, agreed and voted accordingly. After the motion carried, no one was prepared for it to be overturned this week, and accompanied by claims that THIS MOTION and the stewards who voted for it were trying to change the terms of the election, during the election... when from my perspective, and others, we were clearly trying to accomplish the opposite and PREVENT any procedural irregularities from skewing the election outcome.