UNIONS
April 6, 2009
TO: Canadian
Teachers Association
FROM: Roger
Callow aka ‘Revolting Roger’
MESSAGE: Included
are 5 pages outlining the lead civil case in Canada vis
a vis contract rights.
This 24 year unresolved
teacher ‘lay-off’ case impinges on all Canadians holding Union memberships and
threatens to rewrite not only employment law for teachers but for all Canadians
holding contract rights.
It would appear that the West
Vancouver School District in 1985 would seek to hide a dismissal
behind a fictitious ‘lay-off’ which has never been proven in law despite over
30 judges and two inconsequential trips to the Supreme Court of Canada.
The myth that the two most recent
judgments would stick to is that the ‘collective agreement’ process is still
intact although neither judge has stated how that may happen before a hostile
Union. In short, a coterie of judicial decisions has hidden behind the fact
that the British Columbia Teachers Federation/ West Vancouver Teachers
Association has hidden behind a B.C. Labour
Board Decision permitting the Union to abandon this case without
either returning to arbitration as so ordered by the court or signing a final
agreement with the School Board; their only other option. My volunteered option
of continuing towards a resolution with the School District (I believed I
always had that right but in my case, the courts decided otherwise) at my own
expense was not only rejected but actively opposed by the B.C. Union in the
last two court hearings.
Consequently, my Pension Rights
remain in limbo as the Public B.C. Teachers Pension Fund refused to acknowledge
my pension claim to which I contributed for many years. Apparently, although we
have no way of knowing, the rejection is based on the fact that I do not have a
valid termination date although in absence of a termination decision
from the court, I gave my retirement notice in 2006 at age 65.
Currently, I am mounting a campaign
across Canada to seek support in asking local B.C. Teacher Associations
to pass a motion insisting that the BCTF/WVTA pass unfettered control
over this case to me so that I may finalize at my own expense my termination
with the School Board and collect my pension.
Regrettably, Canada’s teachers have
stood idly by while my rights of contract in B.C. were abused to a level where
the very essence of contract language in Canada is at stake. Indeed, the whole
notion of Union protection across Canada is now in deep question.
Will the Canadian Teachers
Association stand idly by while work pensions controlled by government go
the way of a written contract?
Yours truly,
Roger Callow
July 1,2006 - sorry, no good wishes
for Canada Day or ‘in solidarity’ to you
OPEN
LETTER TO JOHN GORDON - PSAC NATIONAL PRES.
TO: John Gordon PSAC National
President FROM:
Roger Callow
MESSAGE: Thank-you for the courtesy of a
response to my letter of May 6/06; something no other major Union Leader nor
your predecessor were prepared to do under similar circumstances.
Regrettably, your conclusion is
probably shared by your colleagues: "...As for the substance of your
allegations, it is not my practice to criticize another union, and I decline to
do so in this instance...". While you didn’t state, you could just
have easily added...’besides, I’m up to my ass in alligators snapping at my
backside to such a degree that I have no energy let alone inclination to take
on any other issues including World War III’. I’m not ignorant of the
horrendous load on a modern Union leader nor do I lack sympathy on that accord.
For example, a plaintiff letter from the Amalgamated Transit Union pleading for
more grass roots support in North America (I am a retiree) is reflected in this
capitalized statement from a local Teachers’ Association: ‘YOUR SILENCE WILL NOT PROTECT YOU’. And yet it is silence of a type
you and your ilk would demand which I submit is of a contradictory type to your
over-all cause.
Your statement ‘the Supreme Court
is the final step when legal proceedings take place’ parallels the thinking
of Senator Romeo D’Allaire’s response to me (see web
site) and my rebuttal to him that if he wished to retain his credibility, he
could not ‘suck and blow at the same time’. Not for him, nor for you also it
would seem is Professor Martin’s dictum on the Supreme Court: THE MOST
DANGEROUS BRANCH: How the Supreme Court of Canada Has Undermined Our Law and
Democracy - Canada’s top court is so highly politicized, that it has abandoned
legal principals in making decisions, preferring instead to decide matters on
the basis of "values" that reflect the judges personal preferences. Even
the generally conservative media on attacking institutions has this to say: Ottawa
Citizen columnist Brigitte Pellerin;(caption)"COURTS
SHOULD UPHOLD THE LAW, NOT FASHIONABLE OPINION" and columnist David
Warren’s more pointed observation:"Tyranny of Fruitcake Upper Court
Judges". And yet to think your response to the above is to say and do
nothing...not very encouraging for your members for a Union movement with its
collective back to the wall in North America.
Unions have always realized that, to
be effective, they must have a ‘closed shop’ and be able to defend any of their
individuals targeted by management excesses. A little known truth beyond Union
management is that the Unions have lost that legal ‘billable time’ battle to
the better entrenched management. Hence the birth of the ‘sweetheart deal’
which is paramount in the ‘Employee’s Case (Canada)’; the publicized
existence of which has in other cases in the past destroyed individual Unions.
In that regard, a weak Union is better for management purposes than no Union at
all. In the above case, the scenario goes as follows: 1) government passes
Union busting legislation - Union publicly condemns their action, 2) targeted
individual or group is selected for a legal case, 3) Law states in above case,
for example, that in the case of a lay-off and in the succeeding event of a
successful petition by an employee, a second named employee will be laid off
and so on until the appropriate employee is dismissed. Sounds logical but here
is the reality. At $100,000 a crack for the Union’s participation alone, it is
a no-brainer for the arbitrator, the West Vancouver School Board employer, and
the Teachers’ Union as they all have a vested interest in seeing the scapegoat
‘scaped’. In the above case, the fact that in all
probability I was not indeed laid off by the West Vancouver School Board in
1985 (‘habeas corpus’) doesn’t fizz with you. Union leaders should be made of
sterner stuff! The further fact that the Canadian Justice System imploded over
this case (no legal answer cannot be a legal answer in this Kafkaesque
situation) would, it appears, also be condoned by you. In the words of B.C.
Supreme Court Judge Hollinrake; ‘You have a right to
a court decision but not in his court.’ UNIONS‘If not yours’, I asked, ‘then in whose court’?... ‘I don’t
know’... ‘In other words, not ‘your department’....’Not my jurisdiction’.
Unfortunately, as a Leader of a National Union, it would seem that you would be
cognizant of such ‘mind games’...and you would do nothing?...not a very
comfortable message to your members.
Recently, I paraded with my protest
placards by a rather effete group of PSAC protest workers picnicking on the
Sparks Street Mall being watched over (rather pathetically, I might add) by two
RCMP constables sent for the purpose. My placard which seemed puzzling to some
PSAC workers in an earlier demonstration: PSAC EMPLOYEES PUSSYWHIPPED
came to mind.
While at heart I count myself a good
Union supporter, nonetheless, PSAC should be very grateful I am not working for
management considering the kinds of view on unionism that their president and
no doubt other Union leaders hold...but then, management really doesn’t need me
as the Union movement has shown it is quite prepared to hoist itself on its own
petard.
Regretfully yours
Roger Callow
Preamble
to Supreme Court of Canada Appeal
(This
Appeal denied in June/04 – explains why Canadian Justice System imploded)
This
preamble makes an unusual request regarding habeas corpus
The
correctness of the lay-off of teacher Roger Callow from his teaching position
in West Vancouver in 1985 has never been properly tested. That fact flies in
the face of the law and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms of Canada and yet
over 30 judges up to and including the Supreme Court of Canada has not seen fit
to insist that Mr. Callow be provided the key evidence of School Board meeting
notes pertaining to the matter of his lay-off. To that extent, the judicial
system is a part of the conspiracy charge which Mr. Callow has laid against the
Teachers Union and the School Board and yet, due to the nature of the law, can
only be referred to obliquely. Should the Supreme Court of Canada proceed on
the frivolous and vexatious charge by which Mr. Callow is estopped from being granted a legal hearing without
insisting, in this most unusual of cases, for the necessary disclosure
of evidence to be provided to him; namely, the School Board meeting notes of
1985, then all Canadian law is at an end. Conversely put, it may be asked, how
may Mr. Callow defend a negative which is a logical impossibility; namely, that
he was not indeed laid off by the West Vancouver School Board in June of
1985?
There are
good grounds to conclude that Mr. Callow has been the object of a massive
conspiracy to deny him access to the laws. In 1986, Justice Mary Southin, in quashing the arbitration favouring
the School Board claiming, as she did, that the arbitrator had been patently
unreasonable in his conclusion favouring the
School Board, had stated that ‘nowhere did the Board express a willingness to
lay off a teacher under the new statute’ implying the fraudulency of the School
Superintendent’s letter to that effect. Mr. Callow from his experience from the
condemned arbitration in which no School Board member was called to the stand
to explain how an increase of 16 teaching positions – any number of
which Mr. Callow was capable of holding – submits that, while knowing
otherwise, he is being denied any hearing which would give him an opportunity
to voice his dissent. Certainly no such reference to the lay-off was publicly
made in the monthly report in June of 1985 where the additions were noted in
arbitration. No mention is made of any lay-off.
Considering
that Justice Southin in 1986 ordered that all
material pertaining to the lay-off of Mr. Callow be made available to the court
and no doubt serves as the basis of her conclusion, then we submit such
information would be the property of the Union and therefore should be made
available to Mr. Callow even though the court has decreed that the Union has
full control of this matter as far as questioning the matter of his lay-off.
Both the Union and School Board steadfastly refuse to hand over this vital
information. Indeed, it would appear that it was the laying of a conspiracy
charge against the two parties which prompted the current frivolous and
vexatious charge by which those two have successfully evaded having to
produce the vital ‘missing link’ information. The failure of the two Appeal
Court decisions of the B.C. Supreme Court to address that concern is at the
heart of this appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.
Simply put,
how can the justice system of Canada in all good conscience deny Mr. Callow
access to the court to resolve an unresolved legal matter which even the court
has declared should have been re-arbitrated. The fact that the original
arbitrator passed away under a law which would not see the appointment of any
other arbitrator calls into play the courts role of inherent jurisdiction
in order to finalize this case. Failure to do so up to and including one appeal
already to the Supreme Court of Canada is a denial of the letter and spirit of
the law in Canada.
- o
-
UNIONS - drop Union/Association
membership as it is counterproductive to the interests of individual employees.
(Seniority provisions and hence contract language, for example, are redundant
due to management-union leadership plus Labour Board
complicity sanctioning the 'sweetheart deal')
'It is better for any employee to be
sent to the Tower of London than to go before the B.C. Labour
Board.' Black Roger
The fifth attempt to get a hearing
before the B.C. Labour Board in which witnesses can
be called to contest B.C. Teacher Union action has been shot down once again;
this time by Vice-Chair Laura Parkinson on April 9/2002 after a l5 month delay.
Her document is a support of a question raised and answered earlier by B.C.
Justice Sigurdson; "If the Union and Employer
agree to settle for 5 cents, is there anything Mr. Callow can do about it?
Response from both the Union & Employer lawyers - 'No.' Hence all employment
contracts including those for B.C. Teachers are meaningless pieces of paper in
the light of sweet-heart deals. The pertinent sections of Parkinson's decisions
on this point are as follows:
51. As the summary of the law
reveals, a union does not have to abide by the wishes of an employee in
deciding the fate of the employee's grievance. The duty of fair
representation does not oblige a union to accept an employee's request to
reject an offer of settlement...
58. As I have previously observed in
another Section 12 (lack of fair play by the Union) decision where a
complainant rejected a settlement and the union abandoned further efforts, one
of the risks of the strategy of holding out for a better deal is that the offer
may be gone...
In so many words, the above
statements give sanction to the 'sweetheart deal' in which the employee is made
powerless to protect his own rights. That is the case for all Union/Association
members. It is not the case in the Employee's Case (Canada) as this
matter is a court as opposed to Labour Board matter.
The Labour Board was only asked to adjudicate the
'status question' created by the courts by me as there was no other body
available for the purpose. The case, therefore, continues to sail on a sea of
red tape.
FAILURE TO STRIKE AN APPROPRIATE
BALANCE BETWEEN EMPLOYEES RIGHTS AND INTERESTS OF THE UNION (Callow appeal of LB Parkinson
document above - Sec. #3)
There is no
conflict in this case between Callow's interest and
other Union members interest. In fact quite the reverse is true. It is in every
teacher's interest to demonstrate that School Boards not be permitted to
circumvent the statutory protections against dismissal for alleged
incompetency.
It is well
understood that collective bargaining schemes require employees to give up
certain individual rights, such as the right to sue employers for disputes
arising out of the collective agreement, and that in giving up these rights to
the Union, the Union is charged with an obligation to represent the employee
fairly. However these schemes were never intended to prevent a union member
from dissenting or disagreeing with his/her union's position. The effect of
Vice-Chair Parkinson's decision is to do just that
In the
circumstances of this career ending grievance, there has been disagreement
between Callow and his Union representative. Granted the Union has the right to
conduct the grievance on its terms, within accepted parameters. It does not,
however, have the right to compel the Union member to agree with its conduct of
the grievance. Further, it can not abandon a
grievance simply because the griever disagrees with the union's conduct of the
case or disagrees with a settlement he believes to be unfair. It must proceed
to settlement, and can not compel the union member to
agree to the settlement. To do so would abrogate the union members right to
dissent. The union, being the only party competent to settle the grievance,
must do so in a manner that comports with its fair representation mandate. The
Union member is entitled to the benefit of that settlement even if he/she
disagrees with it. Further the union member has a right to whatever
remedies are available to complain (sue - RWC) about the ultimate
settlement. Surely individual rights in the trade offs
inherent in collective bargaining schemes have not been suppressed to the
extent that individual Union members rights to protest nave been eliminated.
Here the
Association after telling Callow it would settle his claim whether he agree to
the settlement or not (March 18, 1999), did a complete about face on June 3,
1999 and said it would not proceed to settlement without Callow's
authorization. Vice-Chair Parkinson approved of the Union's decision to abandon
the grievance because Callow refused to approve of the proposed settlement. By
so doing she effectively reduced his right to dissent to meaningless token
status by saying in effect, that he could disagree but if he did he would have
no remedy.