Canada: Merged CAW/CEP union puts gender quotas in constitution

Submitted by Mastodon on Sun, 2013-05-12 11:41

Article here. Excerpt:

'The merged CAW/CEP superunion is taking the rare step of including a gender quota in its constitution, mandating that the number of women on the National Executive Board “is at least equal to the proportion of women among our membership.”

“We’ve had affirmative action polices, but this is the first time that it will be referenced specifically in a constitution,” said Peter Kennedy, the CAW’s national secretary-treasurer. “It’s the next logical step in the progression.”

“We know we are a male-dominated organization, and we thought it was important to have a positive action like that,” said Gaétan Ménard, the national secretary-treasurer of the CEP. “It’s easy to say just ‘We hope’ or ‘We’ll try.’ We said, no, we’re going to put it in the constitution.”

The new union will be Canada’s largest in the private sector, boasting 300,000 members including 86,000 women. There are 25 positions available on the Board, six that are full-time and 19 that are filled by rank-and-file leadership, including 11 industry positions and five regional chairs. Under the new rules, at least eight of the 25 spots must be filled by women.'

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“is at least equal to the proportion of women among our membership.”

At least? So that means that women board members can EXCEED it's membership proportion. What this is effectively saying is that male board membership is equal to or LESS than it's proportion... and we keep getting told feminism isn't about hurting or tearing down men.

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Submitted by Kratch on Sun, 2013-05-12 23:21

In this case, it should be only seven seats reserved for women, if you follow the rules for rounding.

86000/300000 = .2867777...

.286777... * 25 = 7.166667

7.16667 would round down to 7, but not as far as they're concerned.
So, 7.166667 rounds to 8 apparently only when feminism is in charge.

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Submitted by xtrnl on Mon, 2013-05-13 02:45

I find it extraordinary that an organisation claiming to want to stop disproportional representation is taking the step of building disproportional representation into their constitution. Some people just don't learn from their mistakes.

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Submitted by stevesteve on Tue, 2013-05-14 10:49