CUPE role in NDP race an abuse of process

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 05/02/2015 (4138 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Just a month away from a historic party gathering, where a sitting premier is being forced to defend his job against two challengers, the bloody civil war in NDP ranks has suddenly taken on an decidedly absurd tone.

This week, CUPE Manitoba, one of the province’s largest unions representing more than 25,000 employees, somehow convinced the NDP executive to award it nearly 300 delegates to the leadership convention. This is newsworthy because CUPE has never had this many delegates at an NDP event; at the 2009 leadership at which Premier Greg Selinger became party leader, CUPE provided about 100 delegates. Its numbers were lower because it is not officially affiliated with the party; unions that are affiliates qualify for larger delegate allotments.

Through methods that remain unclear, CUPE now controls the single largest bloc of delegates at this convention, and twice the number of delegates of the largest constituency. This prompted leadership candidate Theresa Oswald to file an official protest, alleging CUPE and Selinger’s campaign are abusing party rules to gain an advantage.

How did this happen? It appears someone from CUPE used an unprecedented interpretation of the party’s constitution to calculate a higher number of delegates, and someone from the party concurred. Unfortunately, neither the party nor CUPE officials will explain what happened.

However, the fact CUPE Manitoba officially endorsed Selinger on the same day we learned about the sudden delegate windfall gives us a clue about what’s going on behind the scenes.

CUPE leadership, including national president Paul Moist, has spoken out in support of Selinger since a group of NDP ministers and party officials called for his resignation. Moist would not comment on the delegate situation. Also not talking is Moist’s daughter, Kelly Moist, the head of CUPE in Manitoba. She was quoted in a news release officially endorsing Selinger, but has not been available to reporters to explain CUPE’s role in the leadership contest, or even how the union went about determining which candidate to support.

When you add it all up, it seems Selinger, who has been less active battling for delegates at the constituency level than his two challengers, will use union delegates as his ace in the hole. Even so, it’s an odd strategy for a couple of reasons.

First, it is still far from certain CUPE can actually find warm bodies to fill those delegate spots. To serve as a delegate, union members must also be party members. And these days, it’s not certain CUPE’s membership base holds party memberships.

That’s largely why nearly a quarter of CUPE’s allotment in 2009 went unused in that leadership vote.

It’s also odd because it assumes Selinger is the slam-dunk choice of union activists in the province. Given the wage freezes imposed on government workers in recent years, and a growing number of disputes with public-sector unions, that could be a premature assumption.

Provincial liquor store workers nearly walked off the job just before Christmas, and after testy negotiations, Winnipeg Regional Health Authority health-care workers voted in January to strike. Public-sector unions with no recent history of strike action are suddenly talking about dusting off picket signs to protest the Selinger government’s approach to bargaining.

That context doesn’t translate into a wellspring of support for the current premier.

Of course, it’s also not clear how CUPE will award the delegates among its members. Will the Moist family steer delegate credentials only to those who support Selinger?

So much about this new development stinks. A powerful union misusing the party’s constitution to pad its delegate numbers, and then using them improperly to support a single candidate chosen not by the union members, but by union leaders.

Selinger and his supporters, particularly the Moists, seem to have forgotten that being prepared to do anything to win the leadership will do nothing to help them win the next election.

Voters in the broader electorate will see this is an abuse of process. A small cadre of union leaders using their influence with party brass to corrupt the delegate-selection process. That transgression may leave a lasting impression on voters when they go to the polls in early 2016.

If Selinger had nothing to do with this abuse of process, he should immediately support Oswald’s protest and encourage the party to return some integrity to delegate selection.

However, it seems unlikely he will do that. Selinger is in this race to win, apparently at any cost. So much so he is not calculating what he will lose by allowing this to happen.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca