My name is Douglas M. Cornett. I am a 23 year member of the UBC. Three generations of my family have belonged to Local Union 1635.
Why me? I have always defended the rights of the membership. I have served in numerous positions in the last 23 years. I have served as Financial/Secretary, Treasurer, and Recording Secretary for Local 1635 for 20 years. I have served as a Council delegate for the Missouri state E-board, delegate to two U.B.C. conventions, and I was the first Mill-Cabinet organizer to represent Local 1635 in more than 30 years.
Greed is not my motivation, service is. Honor means everything to me. I am fed up with the self-serving dictatorship of Terry L. Davis, his Council employed family and his appointed staff. They have continuously worked against the working men and women as well as retired members of this District Council for their own benefit.
I am a working man and damn proud of it. I am financing my own campaign despite having been black-balled and unemployed numerous times over the years. All because of my fighting to get yours and my rights restored.
Here is what to expect if I am elected to office on August 26, 2006. I promise before my term is ended I will:
- Freeze dues check off at the current rate and order a complete financial audit of all District Council funds. The results will be reported to all local unions to inform the membership of what has been taking place prior to me taking office.
- End nepotism in the Council and cut waste. None of my family will EVER be on the payroll. Hiring will be done based on abilities not genetics.
- Return the membership’s right to vote.
- Encourage the membership not to elect anyone employed by the District Council staff to a local union office or as a Council Delegate. The council staff should have a voice but no vote in matters that directly benefit them.
What will this do? Replace Dictatorship with Democracy and return power to the local members, and ensure the offices are filled by rank and file members and not paid staff. The officers would truly represent the will of the majority within their local union memberships.
Here is what I am not. I have never been arrested for chasing minors in my car firing a gun; I have never pistol whipped my wife or her son; I have never been charged with sexual harassment, assault, or battery; I have never physically threatened or assaulted a UBC General Convention Delegate; I do not have an extensive police record; I have no complaints against me with the Department of Labor going back 20 years; I am not an egotistical bully who would condone members of the District Council staff to threaten, harass, slander or injure anyone, much less an entire local union in order to handle one member that has been deemed to be “troublesome” because he fights for what he believes in.
Doug Cornett