News

Additional By-Law Amendment Proposal Information

NOTE: This message is being resent to all members due to a website error which caused the link to the PDF in the previous message, that was sent on July 3rd, to stop working.  My apologies in advance for this duplicate message.

To all Local 4304 Brothers & Sisters,

As announced at the June General Membership Meeting, a comprehensive By-Law review and proposed overhaul of the Local’s By-Laws was tabled under New Business on June 19th. Links to Google Docs versions of the By-Laws have been previously provided for the amended By-Laws; the motion made in June to introduce the By-Law amendments was to get the By-Law amendment process rolling. Your Constitution & By-Laws Committee purposely tabled this package at the June General Membership Meeting in order to give the membership the entire summer to review the amendments and ask any questions of the committee before they are voted upon in the Fall.

As promised in one of the previous messages from our Committee Chair, John A. McDonald, I have completed reformatting these amendment documents into an easier-to-read, comprehensive package that lists all the current by-laws, side-by-side with the new proposed by-laws and have also included more detailed descriptions where major changes are proposed to take place and/or why the changes or additions are being proposed. The articles have been formatted in the new document so they line up side-by-side with their new or old counterpart (as the case may be) for easy comparison of the language in each and every article.

I would encourage all members to download a copy of the proposed by-law amendment package PDF and take some time over the summer months to review the proposed changes and ask questions of the Constitution & By-Laws Committee. We have taken great care, over the course of a year, to try and bring forth a package that addresses many spelling and grammar errors in the existing By-Laws, reorganizes the By-Law articles into more a more organized format, expands on existing By-Law language to make our governance structure more robust and easier to follow, addresses holes in our governance structure that the current by-laws do not currently speak to at all, pulls additional information into our By-Laws from the National Union for easier reference by the membership, and ensures our By-Laws are in full compliance with the National Constitution and related policies from the National Union.

YOU CAN DOWNLOAD A COPY OF THE NEW BY-LAWS AMENDMENT PACKAGE PDF HERE:
HTTP://BIT.LY/4304BY-LAWS

It is also our intention to also put a hard copy of this package at each workplace location in the very near future so it may be reviewed in the workplace by those members who are not online.
As previously mentioned, we do encourage questions to be brought forth about the proposed By-Law Amendments so the membership fully understands the meaning and context of the new proposed By-Law articles as well as why the changes are being proposed. Questions are very welcome and can be directed to the Constitution & By-Laws Committee at bylaws@unifor4304.org or in-person to John A. McDonald (Committee Chair), Karen Koyounian, and Warren Schnurr.

It is our hope that, as the By-Law Amendment process moves forward, that the membership will support the proposed changes and vote in favour of them at the coming General Membership Meetings; the vote on these amendments is current scheduled to take place at the October General Membership Meeting with a prior reporting session from the Constitution & By-Laws Committee at the September General Membership Meeting.

Yours in solidarity,

Warren Schnurr
Recording Secretary
Constitution & By-Laws Committee Representative
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