When it comes to the Board of Directors overseeing the administration of Community Living Renfrew County South, it becomes readily apparent that there is an awful lot of linkages to a long-standing local construction company, that being M. Sullivan and Sons.
Fully four of the eight-person membership have direct links to Sullivan. Two others are connected to Magellan Aerospace. One board member is connected to both.
I will not, in any way, make any attempt to disparage any of these people or minimize the terrific work they do behind the scenes in this community and in Arnprior. If it were not for people like these, life would be more of a challenge for those of us beset by disadvantages, be they mental or physical.
So I will congratulate them on their yeomen public service efforts, and further, will hold them up as prime examples of what it is to be both a good citizen and a good corporate citizen.
That being said, these folks all serve on the Board of Directors of CLRCS. According to that agency’s organizational chart, that means they have oversight over the administration of that same agency. On the chart, they sit directly above the Executive Director.
The same executive director who is playing hardball with members of OPSEU Local 472.
As one noses around the morass that is the Internet, one can find references to the executive director as being the the point person for contract negotiations, at least as they relate to non-monetary issues. One can also find other references that suggest the Board of Directors are, as well, party to the negotiations, albeit from their positions of relative anonymity. Not many people take the time to look a little more deeply at how things are run, or who they are run by.
Whether it’s the director alone, or the director in concert with the board, official local negotiations appear to be influenced by advice provided by hired consultants, possibly lawyers, and strategic communications firms.
Negotiation is a loose word to be using here, because CLRCS isn’t talking, instead telling their striking workers to, in effect, talk to the hand. They’ve indicated they’re prepared to talk if the union reps don’t talk about several items, which happen to be all the items on the table, especially outside of wages.
This is bad-faith bargaining writ large, and these folks — a Premier Ford word — may find themselves inadvertently complicit in it. Having read their bios, I have difficulty thinking that professionals such as these would be inadvertently involved in anything, all of them holding positions of responsibility and gravitas in the private sector. That holds true for the board president as well, a public-sector senior manager for the County of Renfrew.
Two of the board’s members, though, are decidedly not a part of Corporate Canada or public jurisdictions like Renfrew County. Two of them are community leaders in their own right, but with no corporate or governmental affiliation that i can determine. That means that non-corporate types hold only 25% of the board’s seats, which for a community-based organization, might be problematic.
Despite their social conscience and their very positive efforts in their communities, corporate types tend to view things from a fiscal perspective, or at the very least through a very significant fiscal lens. It wouldn’t be making much a leap to suggest that many of them, perhaps all of them, would consider themselves to be fiscal conservatives.
And that is problematic, especially within the context of a labour dispute.
However, that probably won’t come into play locally since I believe bargaining over money and wages is being handled at the provincial level, so their fiscal “prudence” won’t be a factor. However, their personal attitudes towards organized labour, as in unions, might be interesting to uncover. Fiscal conservatives tend also to be flat-out conservatives, and we live in Renfrew County. While that might be a stereotypical thing to say, any fair observer would be able to note that this is as conservative-minded a place as you’re going to find, so speculating that these folks wouldn’t have a lot of sympathy for striking workers in general wouldn’t necessarily be a stretch.
In fairness, both Magellan and Sullivan have relationships with unionized workers, as does the County of Renfrew. But the existence of unionized workers in their respective workplaces does not, in itself, mean anything. Many entities view the presence of unions as a “necessary evil” that must be tolerated. In other words, they work with them because they have to, not because they want to.
There is a legitimate point out there that perhaps this board, as currently constituted, doesn’t have the entire breadth of the community adequately represented. With 75% of your voting membership bestowed upon people from an exclusive corporate or executive background, it can be argued that this situation may actually skew decision-making in a manner not fully reflective of the community and its interests.
How was this board composed? Were they all just folks willing to lend an extra hand, people volunteering to make their community a better place? Or were they recruited? Perhaps by the very same executive director they purport to have oversight over? That wouldn’t be a good look. Nor should it be.
In yesterday’s piece regarding seniority, I mentioned the possibility of things like nepotism and favouritism as being possible by-products of the elimination of seniority. In today’s article, I raise the question of another ism, that being the practice of cronyism. With the Board of Directors tilted heavily in favour of corporate, business, and government types, there are going to be questions and perhaps scepticism.
This is not my optics problem, it’s theirs.
Nobody is here to criticize anyone for who they are or what they do. The point is very simply to illustrate the preponderance of a certain type of individual sitting on an important board with oversight powers and responsibility.
Good people to be sure, every last one of them I’ll bet. But that said, maybe they’re not the correct people in the perfect sense, as they seem to represent a certain professional demographic.
It’s hard for me to fathom how a board such as this one can watch over the dreadful negotiating stance of its own executive director, unless of course they’re in full-throated support.
Attempting to beat workers into the dust as a negotiating tactic should never look good on anyone’s resume and it shouldn’t look good on these folks either. They have the influence to get their side to the table, should they choose to exercise that influence.
So far, after five weeks, they have not.
And what does that say about them? As terrific as they are as human beings, nobody is perfect, and allowing this tactic to continue after five weeks is a perfect example of that imperfection.
Nobody is here to tell management to totally cave to anyone’s demands. But somebody is here to tell management to get to the table. Articulate your position in the light of day and then defend it.
This is what people with honour and integrity might do. People who take their mission statements seriously. You can see it in the actions they take and the words that they say. Doing and saying nothing is not acceptable.
So, the members of this board should be encouraged to measure up to their so-called and beautifully articulated core values. Maybe start treating these people, their own people, with the respect they’ve earned and should expect to receive, from the Board of Directors, the executive director, and anyone else.
They can start that by getting their side to the table. In good faith.
People are hurting.
It’s going to be hard not to put a lot of that on this Board of Directors if they continue to “hold their line.”
NEWSMAGRENFREW 