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How Undemocratic Is CUPE 3903 -- The Story Of Val
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How Undemocratic Is CUPE 3903 -- The Story Of Val
How Undemocratic Is CUPE 3903 -- The Story Of Val
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| Cupe Doll |
Posted: Fri Mar 26, 2010 3:42 pm
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Joined: 06 Jan 2010 Posts: 69 Location: Toronto |
Quote: .. democracy .. requires mechanisms to resolve disputes Any collective requires dispute resolution mechanisms. But genuine democracy can't depend and wait on dispute resolution. Since there are always disputes that cannot be resolved. This is a general problem. Never even mind legal systems. There are disputes that even separation, cultural fragmentation and civil wars cannot reconcile. So the question becomes whether democracy can somehow remain genuine even when there are irreconcileable differences between member institutions or individuals. And the answer, I think, is affirmative. Short answer: via truly voluntary membership. Longer answer: what truly voluntary membership entails. _________________ www.ultimatecultureclash.com |
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| wm pasz |
Posted: Fri Mar 26, 2010 8:49 pm
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Joined: 29 Jan 2006 Posts: 1219 Location: Toronto |
gb - cobbling together a group of laypeople and tossing them an LRB decision to review isn't going to do anything to hold the LRB's accountable nor is it going to ensure greater fairness of outcomes for DFR or other complainants.
Firstly, such a group can't make a decision in a vacuum. It's members would need to understand the legal framework in which the dispute arose and also the basic principles around procedural fairness. Q: Who is going to educate them about these matters? A: Some legally trained professional with expertise in these matters. (Translation: A judge, chair, or similar personage). If the DFR statutes and case law were to remain the same, the laypeople would get a good lecture about the narrow meaning of the words arbitrary, discriminatory, capricious and then about the need to defer to the experts at the LRB. The reason that the jury on which you served was able to function reasonably well was because the judge gave you some pretty pointed instructions about the law and what you were supposed to do. If he or she hadn't done so, you'd have made a highly subjective decision based in large part on your own mores and emotional reactions to whatever the issue might have been. I've been on a jury myself and can tell you that without the judge's instructions throughout the trial and as we went off to deliberate about a verdict, we'd have done exactly that. If anything, the whole experience highlighted for me the extent to which juries can be manipulated and jurors can be driven by their own biases. So the question is: Who would instruct this group of laypeople and what would they say? Even if the legal framework were changed to something that made more explicit a union's responsiblity to represent its members fairly and this was made very clear to a laypersons' appeal panel, I would be concerned that the laypeople might be more inclined to side with the employer. Workers are surprisingly ruthless with each other and it's as likely (maybe more so) that they would be swayed by suggestions that a DFR complainant was just a lazy malcontent who got himself in shit and expected the world to come to his defence as find in his favour. This is even more likely to be the case if the complainant worked in the public sector - given the current public disdain for public sector workers. So, all things considered, I don't think that this idea would do much to change the current state of DFR outcomes. To me it seems that a much simpler solution would be to eliminate DFR legislation and allow disputes about the quality of representation to proceed through the courts as contract disputes. Yes, you'd still have a big pompous ass presiding but at least he or she would be somewhat more knowledgable than the judicial wannabees who populate the kangaroo courts. Juries would receive better instructions and at least a few plaintiffs would get something out of the process. cd - I think that as much as we need dispute resolution processes in a democratic society, a truly democratic society should have fewer disputes. For instance, if we had democratic workplaces, there ought to be a lot of unemployed employment and labour lawyers. There are also other ways to resolve disputes - not everything should require the state's intervention. People really need a different way of being in the world. _________________ Time is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. Truth is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. You don't need anything else. - Malcolm X |
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| Cupe Doll |
Posted: Fri Mar 26, 2010 9:02 pm
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Joined: 06 Jan 2010 Posts: 69 Location: Toronto |
Really well put, WMP. I'm very impressed.
Quote: .. a truly democratic society should have fewer disputes. That's totally my intuitive starting point. But my experience counters that even if you start your genuine democracy bushel with only good apples? A bad one will find its way in there eventually. And you know how that goes, right? How one bad apple can spoil other apples, the whole bushel -- and the entire universe? _________________ www.ultimatecultureclash.com |
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How Undemocratic Is CUPE 3903 -- The Story Of Val
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