BA Strike - Your Thoughts & Questions V

[mrpony]

Let's hope peace breaks out soon. If and when it does BASSA members may care to question some of the following fundamental principles about the way things work that are dictated by the rules under which it operates:

1. Key positions in the branch hierarchy can be filled by the same people indefinitely.

2. The Branch Secretary, though paid as a full-time employee of BA, is entitled to an honorarium (payment) defined only as 50% of the 'Branch Administration Allowance'. NOTE: This should not apply currently as DH is now not employed by BA.

3. The branch accounts are audited by two people appointed internally from the CC community. This is entirely irregular and is specifically prohibited by Unite in its rules, as well as in the relevant legislation.

4. The branch committee has wide-ranging emergency powers - it decides which circumstances allow these to be invoked - that permit it to do virtually anything it wants e.g. perpetuating the tenure of the Chair and Branch Sec despite the requirement for postal ballots every two years eslewhere.

5. Changes to the rules proposed by every-day members are only possible in the most unlikely circumstances. A change motion has to be submitted with the support of 100 members, 28 days before a meeting that takes place every 2 years. At that meeting the change has to receive a 2/3 majority vote before then being tested by postal ballot which, again, has to return a 2/3 majority. Change can be introduced by the Branch Committee far more easily and in emergencies without reference to the members.

6. The key meeting that is open to all members, and at which a lot of the 'business' is done, is the one that happens every two years mentioned above, The Biennial Meeting. This is how it is apparently defined in the branch rules:

There shall be a Biennial General Meeting of all the members of the Fund by means of a specific Branch item at the first meeting of the Branch in each Biennial period.

Is that clear??!! And how many members ( out of 8-9000 or even 10000) ever attend?


I wouldn't be happy if my tennis club were run like this. Particularly if the club committee could self-declare an emergency which removed the need for democracy.