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本帖最后由 无线马达 于 2010-5-16 12:04 编辑 4 B2 t' Z3 U# i$ O
" k7 G# e3 d/ {* i$ V4 TAn Open Letter to the Chinese Electrical Workers Association 1 b1 x1 A* I7 B& l4 f, `
from Kevin Levy2 k3 H, s* i1 u) C2 c- \
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First, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to express my views on your Website; I was very pleased to receive this invitation and I will do my best to explain my election platform in a straightforward honest manor, so that there can be no ability to twist my words to support some of the ugly rumors that have started since the Election campaign began. 5 i6 f; Z( B7 ^! `3 h3 e% n
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I believe that every qualified electrician should have the opportunity to become a member of the IBEW regardless of their nationality, or country of origin and I will work tirelessly to try and convince these electricians to join our union. ) L, r# P: z3 ]' M
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Since 2007 I have been out in the field working side by side with many of our Chinese members. I have found most of the Chinese Electricians that I have worked with to be hard working conscientious individuals who are eager to learn and to excel in our trade. But unfortunately since returning to the field I have also come across an increasing number of individuals who have no business calling themselves Electricians. Some of these fraudulent electricians have been Chinese and some have not and their nationality should not matter, what does matter is that these individual’s lack of knowledge and skill make them a hazard to themselves and everyone who is required to work around them.
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Our Union first became aware of the problem of fraudulent Electricians of questionable background gaining membership in our Union as early as 2004 and at this time almost none of these fraudulent Electricians were of Chinese decent, but our Union decided to ignore the situation. This problem was brought up as a concern that our Union should be dealing with at almost every staff meeting that I was involved in from 2004 until I resigned my position with the Local Union in 2007 but our current Business Manager felt that getting more members was more important than the health of our Local Union. In 2008 our Local Union Executive Board basically forced our current Business Manager into dealing with the problem of screening new applicants and the testing booth was opened. Please remember that I’m currently working in the field and have not been dealing with this situation on a daily basis, but I’m told that your association had major concerns with the way this testing booth was being run. I would be very interested in having a member of your association explain to me what these problems were, as it seemed like such a simple solution. I don’t agree with the System our Union has implemented now. Leaving it completely up to your field supervisor to evaluate an individual’s performance seems far too arbitrary to me. As far as I understand the process the field supervisor is not given any additional training to conduct this assessment, and he is not given a strict criteria of what to base his evaluation on. Basically the way it has been explained to the membership is; if the supervisor likes you he gives you a good evaluation and you are in, if he doesn’t like you, he gives you a bad evaluation and you go to the testing booth. I just don’t see how this can be considered fair. ! {# C: _9 z' g0 H3 X9 v
5 E) J r6 Q$ r6 f- @' |7 m4 MWhen elected I will immediately implement a system of screening new applicants that will ensure that only qualified electricians are admitted into our membership as Journeymen Electricians. I will ensure that this system will apply equally to all applicants for membership regardless of their nationality, or Country of origin and will also ensure that the only thing we are trying to determine in this screening process is the applicants ability to pick-up the tools of our trade and safely and competently complete the job assignments they are given. If you have checked out my Website www.kevinlevy4424.ca you will also know that I’m fully committed to consulting with and implementing the memberships wishes and this commitment applies just as much to our Chinese members as it does to any other member, so I look forward to working with our Chinese members to ensure that this new screening process is fair and reasonable and takes into consideration any special cultural needs that are identified. : ~+ i4 Z& A9 c4 @3 C$ J; _2 Q
# k; p; j+ V8 \6 N) v! m d) zI have already acknowledged that not all fraudulent electricians that have gained membership in our Union are of Chinese decent, but because the Chinese worker must still be considered a visible minority on Alberta Construction sites, it is far to easy for some of our membership to stereotype all Chinese members as having inferior skills and I fear that is what is happening today on our Jobsites. Our Local Union has in its membership Chinese electricians who have been members for many years and have previously proven to the rest of membership that they are exceptionally qualified electricians. These members have reported to me that since 2004 when the problem of fraudulent electricians started appearing on our jobsites that their skills in the trade are also being questioned and looked upon with suspicion when they are dispatched to a new job. This is why I believe that the Chinese community must support and take an active role in implementing a new screening system which will ensure that only qualified Journeymen are admitted into our Local Union. I believe that our membership is basically good and will be accepting of any new member, regardless of what country they were born in, but this is not likely to happen until the membership has gained confidence in our new screening process and know that only qualified Journeymen are being recommended for membership. Only then will most of the above stereotyping will be eliminated, and as Business Manager I will then be able to firmly deal with the members who are objecting just because of the members nationality, or country of origin. ( u2 c3 Z q' `1 c5 ^
9 l% G3 o4 |7 [: [, {; V4 CThere is also an ugly rumor being circulated that when I’m elected that I will begin throwing all the Chinese Electricians out of our Union, this rumor is entirely untrue. Our IBEW constitution guarantees all members the same rights, these are not selective rights, they are rights granted to every member and these rights are granted to every member as soon as they take the oath of membership. So unless the member is found guilty of a major violation of section XXV of the IBEW Constitution, they should have no fear of being thrown out of our Union) Y# R5 b K( J4 W R+ n* P$ S
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I believe the fraudulent electricians who have already gained membership in our Union will have no choice but to upgrade their skills once the Mega projects we are currently building come to an end. On these Mega projects our contractor’s scope of work is so large that they have the ability to absorb these unskilled workers and find productive roles for them to perform on the project. But on smaller hard dollar bids our contractors will require tradesmen who are qualified in all aspects of our trade and their just won’t be room on their payrolls for workers who can not compete in this environment. When this starts happening our Union will be ready with a variety of resources for these workers to get the help and upgrading that they will need.
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I know this letter only deals with the qualification and admittance of new members and that your members have many more issues they would like answered. If permitted I would be more than willing to share my views with you on those issues as well, or any member can always e-mail their questions to me at kevin@kevinlevy4424.ca and I will try to answer them one at a time. 6 X$ b$ K8 g2 O5 d2 g; K
& A0 X* m1 q: b) e4 N# jIn closing I would like to congratulate the Chinese Electrical Workers Association for the accomplishments they have already achieved. Unions were formed to provide workers who share common interests and goals the ability to join together and as one voice improve the situation for all of its members. In many ways your association has done a better job at this than our Union has. Recently one of your members forwarded to me Mr. Zhou’s endorsement of Tim Brower for Business Manager and I would accept this decision if not for the lies that were told about me.
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FOR THE RECORD: ! W( P% u3 x I. C* Z3 u5 {# F
" ~, D4 V4 b5 r5 h& Z, CWhen I met with Mr. Zhou I told him that I would meet with him after the campaign started and detail my platform to him and answer any questions he might have. Two weeks before the campaign started he E-mailed me asking me to detail my platform to him, but he did not share with me that he had just accepted employment working for my competition. I E-mailed him back saying that I thought this was very unprofessional of him and that he could find out about my platform once I made it public, but I was not prepared to let my competition preview my platform prior to making it public. 8 [2 y( B, O: ?4 C
! w6 X% k9 O$ o- C& ]2 g; R7 ]I know nothing of the in fighting that might be occurring within your association. I have not, nor do I know of anyone who has used 10 IP addresses to post on your website. I have never made a post on your website and this post will be made by one of your members that until a week ago I did not know, until he E-mailed me and invited me to make this submission. I challenge Mr. Zhou to explain to me what false rumors I have spread about him, or your association, because I have not done so. " F) ]( Q% D, U
8 d9 e% [. H6 e# z, l& S7 hI work for Bantrel at Scotford as their Instrument Loop Tracker, I’m not even in the Electrical department any more, so how could I have anything to do with the 80 lay-offs, firings etc. This is just a lie and an attempt to slander my reputation; I feel Mr. Zhou owes me an apology for this accusation. Over half the workers on that site are wearing my campaign stickers, but that doesn’t mean that they speak for me, or that they consult me before making their decisions. If these lay-offs and terminations were unjust why isn’t Mr. Zhou and the rest of the paid staff of our Local Union doing something about it
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1 R: \0 y1 w7 f' ?: V% S* MI had nothing to do with the members voting down 57 new members at the April Union meeting, this is just another lie. I often council members against such actions as I don’t believe it benefits anyone. I believe this action by the members was just an indication of the frustration the membership is feeling at the present administration for their inability to deal with the issues I spoke about in this open letter to your association and in all likelihood this activity will continue until we make the changes necessary to give our membership confidence that every member that is recommended for membership is fully qualified to perform at a Journeymen level. . `, z8 Z m9 s" E2 M8 |
( w# x h/ e6 @( n3 l' \I feel that ridiculing the “white voter turnout” is a very bad choice by Mr. Zhou; this letter has already been widely circulated amongst our membership and has created much animosity amongst those who have read it. It seems that Mr. Zhou has already adopted his new boss’s strategy of pitting member against member, in order to deflect attention away from their own weaknesses. This should not go unchallenged, as it should be our leadership’s top priority to bring our membership together, not try to divide them.
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3 A" N* w) c6 w% C4 TI’m not a vindictive man and will be willing to overlook this slander once an apology is made. I feel your association has much to offer both your membership and the membership of our Union. Once elected I hope to build a Union that is so effective at representing all of it’s members needs that your association is no longer needed, except for social functions, but until we reach that point I look forward to working with your membership to make our Union the Union we can all be proud of belonging to.
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Yours in Solidarity, O7 c% f3 F9 M! e' S
Kevin Levy |
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发表于 2010-5-15 18:48
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楼主
发表于 2010-5-15 19:13
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兄弟
唉，学好英文，确实是一件需要长期抓好的革命（注）任务啊。
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