Nathan VanderKlippe
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Sep 04/02) - Faced with a ballooning cash surplus, delegates at the Union of Northern Workers convention have pledged to take a little less from the union's members.

A policy voted on at last weekend's convention means the union will completely halt collecting union dues for a month after it reaches $400,000 in surplus revenues in any given year.

For a worker who makes $75,000, that means an estimated $106 in savings a year -- based on the 1.691 per cent union dues fee adopted this weekend.

But at least one member wasn't happy with the policy.

"It's just smoke and mirrors," said Paul McAdams, a delegate from Fort Smith.

"The issue is, the members are paying on overtime and retroactive pay and they shouldn't be. Period."

Suzette Montreuil, a delegate from Yellowknife, disagreed.

"It's a really equitable way to keep the dues low for the entire membership and also give some flexibility for responding to issues and making sure the union is secure," she said.

In the past two years, the union has collected more than $2 million above its budgeted expectations.

That leaves it sitting on a cash reserve of $2.89 million dollars -- or almost exactly twice its annual budgeted expenditures.

Unique among affiliates of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), the UNW collects union dues on overtime pay and retroactive pay. But it drafts its budgets assuming dues collected on members' base salaries. That policy has led to the huge surplus.

The Union of Northern Workers represents 3,700 workers across the North, and is made up of 16 locals.

Most are employed by the GNWT. This weekend, it held its 12th triennial convention, which was attended by 30 delegates from across the NWT.

But the surplus was only one of a number of issues delegates discussed during the three-day convention held at the Explorer Hotel.

Back to basics

Chief among discussion topics was getting back to the grassroots.

Delegates passed a number of motions in an effort to enhance participation from locals.

Local presidents will now meet annually, funding given back to locals by the UNW will increase substantially and locals now have access to a slush fund for unforeseen activities.

Much of the debate centred around minor grammatical and typographical issues. Despite a one-day procedural education course last Friday before the start of the convention, delegates also frequently argued about points of procedure. At one point the chair, former president Georgina Rolt-Kaiser, rejected a challenge to the chair, only to be told she could not.

One significant vote changes the way locals send delegates to the convention, calculating the number of delegates allowed by the size of the local. Some delegates questioned whether what was passed will actually come to be, saying previous experience has demonstrated otherwise.

Others were more positive.

"I've spoken with a lot of the delegates and I think they've got a very good vision with respect to where they want to go with the organization," said John Gordon, national executive vice-president for the PSAC.

"Some of the resolutions that we have passed are aiming towards increased communication between the members, the locals, the regions and the headquarters office," said Sheila Laity, first vice-president of the union.

And that's an important shift, said Jean Francois Des Lauriers, PSAC regional executive vice-president for the North.

"In the past the locals were not as relevant in the decision-making of the union," he said.