December 1, 2008

We have had the decision regarding the arbitration of the challenge of agency fees for the 2007/2008 period handed down to us. This has to be one of the most miniscule and insignificant victories ever handed down. The arbitrator ruled that we prevailed in our argument that organizing fees were not chargeable. This amounted to 0.2% of the chargeable amount, ruled to be within the margin of error of UPTE calculations and we will not get any more money for the 2007/2008 period.

The ruling has nothing to do with the about 1,000 of you who sent in your objection/challenge letter for the 2008/2009 period. All of you are due to get another payment from UPTE for 8.5% of your agency fees paid for the period from July 1, 2008 to June 30, 2009.

For those of you who closely follow UPTE accounting, you may notice that they agreed to pay CWA for credits taken for past periods by taking out a loan of about $900,000 from CWA at about 8% interest this April. This follows an earlier loan of about $1,000,000 to settle an previous court case, plus two years of several hundreds of thousand of dollars paid to agency fee payers and challengers in settlements.

In my opinion, UPTE has had bad counsel over the years. This advice has resulted in large payouts that could have been avoided but UPTE management seems to want to fight rather than seek reasonable accomodation. UPTE lawyers and accountants are doing one hell of a job in their defense and I expect that they will continue to give the same type of advice that they've given them in the past. This could prove to be disasterous in the long run because I don't believe that UPTE can survive close scrutiny outside of arbitration.

There is a lot to look forward to. Each year we can increase the number of objectors/challengers that get back money from the union. Each year we can increase the number of people who quit the union and get back money from the union. Each year UPTE reduces the percentage of money sent back to challengers, while their accountants fret over the reconciliation of accounts. Two previous UPTE accounting firms no longer handle their acounts. I wonder why because accounting firms don't turn down business unless they have a good reason.

You should listen carefully to the claims of union representatives, union lawyers or their accountants. Get any claim in writing, verify their claims via independent sources, then make up your mind. I don't think that they have your best interests at heart.

Werner