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- Union representing City of Burnaby workers re-elects Bruce Campbell as president
Union representing City of Burnaby workers re-elects Bruce Campbell as president
The re-election process for president of the union representing workers at the City of Burnaby has wrapped up, and the man who won in April once again won the contest.
Bruce Campbell was elected president of CUPE Local 23 last week, with results of the weeklong vote being published over the weekend.
Members of CUPE 23 voted for their local’s president between Oct. 12 and 18, after the vote for that position was nullified due to problems with the voter list.
The union originally held an election in April of this year, and Campbell, the incumbent president, was successful in his bid to hold onto the position.
But issues were raised with the union’s chief elections officer and with CUPE national that at least one person who shouldn’t have voted was able to vote, while several people who should have gotten to vote did not.
The local had asked CUPE national for advice on how to move forward, and the national president, Mark Hancock, ordered the local to hold a re-election for the position of president.
While there were only a handful of people who should have gotten a vote but didn’t, the national union found that number was larger than Campbell’s margin of victory, so only that position required a re-election process.
However, Local 23 pushed back on the matter, later returning to CUPE national with a report detailing the issues with voting, saying they were able to explain away most of them.
However, Hancock wrote again to CUPE 23 saying the local would have to hold the re-election process, or it would be put under administration. In other words, a representative of CUPE national would come and run Local 23, overriding the existing executives.
CUPE 23 agreed to redo the election process for president but made clear to its membership that it was doing so “under duress.”
With the re-election process finished, CUPE said the national president is “confident that the elections were conducted appropriately and in accordance with the local’s bylaws.”