A Look Back on the Election

Hi,

As some of you who are reading this know, OPEIU, Local 30, just had an election of officers. David Kessinger, Donald Murphey and myself ran on the same ticket. It was we who were the first candidates within our local Union to create a website and utilize this tool in order to try to provide easily accessable information about all of the candidates, for Members. In contrast, those in charge of our Union's official website, Walter Allen Jr, essentially provided ZERO information about the election on his website. Next, we bought "Vote for..." pins and were able to hand out a few of them as well as a few of our joint flyers...before being contacted by Kaiser Permanente, Corporate Compliance Director, Donna Lupinacci, who informed us that no compaigning of any kind was permitted on an Kaiser campuses (either during the candidates working time or during their non-working time. Before, during and after that time (and in fact throughout the weeks leading up to to the election end time) we were aware of the 'Winning Team' which was doing exactly that - and in fact campaigned at nearly every Kasier Permanente facility in San Diego. Candidates such as Walter Allen Jr., Marianne Giordano, Carmen Corral, and Hector Peralta campaigned on Kaiser Permanente property, handing out their literature to Workers while those Workers were on 'Kaiser's Time' and commonly within their work areas, posting their flyers in break areas and non-break areas alike and Employee areas and non-Employees areas as well. Corporate Compliance was contacted but the candiates who had broken the rules had already gotten their message out.

Our Team, Team: New Directions, New Strength, is considering how next to proceed in order to best address this election process. While considering the next course of action, we will consider the many violations of the 'Winning Team' and other factors. Factors such as the fact that despite fact that the 'Team: New Directions, New Strength' forged more new ground for our Union by being the first to mail informational flyers to each and every Member's home (the 'Winning Team' then followed our lead by mailing a post card), still, LESS THAN 23% of our Members participated in the election! 77% of the Members of our Union didn't even vote during this mail-in election!!

Even though I lost, I don't regret all the work I put into this election. I learned a lot through out the process. But the one thing I learned which absolutely disappointed me the most was that with as much effort that was placed into letting everyone know about this election and trying to provide them with easy access to as much information about it as possible, 77% of the Members didn't even vote. As much as I love what Unions are supposed to stand for, the question that begs to be answered is, "If they don't care, why should I?"

Dustin