The AFM Observer

About that dues increase....

I hope you all noticed that I didn't write about Recommendation #1 in my last post; thinking that the first beat of any bar is "2" would be a handicap in this business.

Recommendation #1 is the result of an unexpected success I had at the 2007 Convention, when a resolution I put forward resonated (to my surprise) with Joint Law and Finance (JLF). I had been frustrated with the continuing failure of the IEB to exercise any leadership on the AFM's financial state, and thought that one way of changing that would be to require the IEB to purt forward a financial package that had to be considered by the delegates before any alternative package put together by JLF could be brought up. I expected opposition from them, as it would take away some of their power and influence. But, to my surprise, it turned out that they were equally frustrated by the IEB's failures in this area. So my resolution (with some judicious changes made by JLF) became law.

1 more shopping day till Vegas

The AFM Convention formally opens tomorrow (with many delegates already there or flying in today for various committee and social functions), yet the average delegate would hardly be aware of the fact except for reminders from their airline to check in online. My first convention was in 1994; I can't recall one since to which the run-up was so quiet.

Of course, the various wars ignited (or fanned) during Tom Lee's incumbency made the past few conventions quite interesting, with lots of election literature hitting delegates' mailboxes in the weeks before the gathering and much online discussion of elections and proposed legislation.

The AFM is trying to put me out of business

It's been bad enough to watch Ray Hair and his relentlessly collegial IEB give this blog absolutely nothing to write about over the past three years; didn't they care how damaging it would be to us online troublemakers for them to bring peace and financial responsibility to the AFM?

But now they've really gone too far; in an obvious effort to make my AFM Convention Diary blog completely unnecessary, they've announced that the Convention will be streamed live. Of course, access to the stream will be restricted to AFM members, so those four or five people who aren't AFM members who might be interested in whatever will happen at the Convention will still provide me with a reason for blogging, I guess. And, as former delegates know, staying awake during everything that happens at an AFM Convention can be a challenge even for union geeks, so perhaps my reporting will still be useful to normal AFM members as well.

But this is still a blow for those who believe that Conventions should neither be seen nor heard, as well as those of us who've made our tiny online reputations by trying to pierce the veil of secrecy provided by the era of having to send smoke signals and snail mail to communicate to those on the outside of the convention ballroom.

Transparency is a bitch.