Union meeting synopsis

The following synopsis is what I heard at the meeting. As with any event which is recalled later from notes, there may be other perceptions of what happened. These are the most memorable events from today’s meeting. I don’t report anything specific since the union is so paranoid about the public/management getting a hold of any information.

I believe one of the reasons the union movement in this country is doing so poorly is because unions have indeed become a ‘secret society’. And that’s how the public view unions, as something more or less ‘devious’ that works in ‘secret’. If unions would actually include the public in the process it would be easier to get public support when dealing with issues that ultimately affect the public.

I’ve always had a tremendous respect for Jon Hunt after watching him conduct a union meeting.
Obviously a brilliant man, too bad things have gone so astray for him this past year.
He can function under the most extreme stress it appears, you would never know that the man was having such a bad couple of weeks watching him in action.

The first item was the issue of recording of meetings; they are very worried about being recorded, enough that Sandy Guengrich actually made a motion that all cell phones should be turned into Evette.
Motion failed something like 50-4.

First Transit is following the lead of Neil Macfarlane and lying about events that occur in its dispute with its unionized employees. The management over there refuses to return phone calls are among the unethical behavior being used in that dispute. An Unfair Labor Practice lawsuit is planned.

There were several arbitration's that resulted in members receiving full back pay.

The next picket at MacFarlanes house is scheduled for November 19th.

Jon did indeed serve the 4 days in jail, and he did that over the holiday. The news report that he did not was wrong.

Regarding Macfarlanes latest attempt to bully the union, Jon Hunt has sent a response over to Trimet about that. Again we have Macfarlane playing ‘bully boy’ and making decisions on his own without abiding by past practice and labor law. Nothing unusual about that, he is as anti union as Scott Walker although he pretends via internal posts that he is not. His actions betray his words.

Al Thomas got up and gave a speech in defense of Jon Hunt criticizing the members who are attacking him.

A member attacked Evette harshly, another member defended her.

The biggest surprise of the meeting was another PREFERRING OF CHARGES was filed against Jon Hunt.
Apparently this is based on his DUI conviction while on union business and using a union vehicle.

Jeff Ackerson made a passionate speech about honoring the process of charges and keeping it out of the management’s eye. This was in response to his witnessing the latest charges that ended up being published in the Oregonian being “left around tables” at the Merlo garage.

Jon sees nothing wrong with his trip to Romania, its in the "contract". I know there are other people that agree with that point of view.
We have all found out that a "contract" can indeed be violated (TRIMET?)
and just because something is in a contract why do you have to actually abide by that clause?

Personally I think Jon shows very bad judgement by going to Romania right now. It's of no real value obviously and another complete waste of tax payers money.
Evette got one up on Jon when he referred to "we made the decision" and she cut in and said "who made the decision?" Jon had to say "I made the decision".