We don’t like to give the membership the bad news, and it pains us to have to report on the awful state that the union is in. This is not the first class union it once used to be, in a mere few months it has been turned into a troubled union. The latest layoff news just confirms everything we feared about the TWU Local 100. TWU Local 100 is failing its membership by not securing job protection which is extremely important to the membership, and this news is not good.
The layoff figures don’t lie, by any measure, this is awful. Considering the reputation of TWU Local 100 within the labor movement as among the best and most desirable in the country, we can clearly see why we specifically characterized TWU Local 100 as ‘sub-par’. Why - because that what we are now. We could sugar coat the layoff situation but that does not change reality. And we must face reality and develop strategies to make things better. Fixing the problem means beginning with the truth. Not the truth of Samuelsen and the current leadership who have failed the membership in a profound way, but the truth that comes from admitting painful facts and making a hard and careful analysis of the current sorry state of affairs.
How did we get so bad so fast? We have failed leadership that is running our Local 100 headed by Samuelsen. There will be a price to be paid - mostly by the membership.
And certainly the membership are paying the price. There are hundreds of members who have been laid off. This is a crisis for every member. Local 100 was a key indicator of successful labor movement in the country, and currently ours doesn’t reflect well. The ugly truth is that we have become ‘sub-par’ and this must not be lost on us. It is the sound of our prestige once held which is slipping away.
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