Election of Regional Directors
Scope and Content Note: The most common request of the membership that did not make it through the Executive Council was for the election of regional representatives who would serve on the Executive Council. This system was fairly common in other CIO unions, but the TWUA never implemented it because it was never sure where regional boundary lines should be drawn and also because of the system of industrial divisions. The practice of guaranteeing Council representation to industrial divisions seemed to have come about through verbal promises to these divisions at the time of TWUA's founding. Watson felt the industrial division representation on the Council should have been abolished, and a strictly regional representation should have been implemented. Also, since he had sponsored the constitutional amendment providing for election of the Canadian director, he would have supported election of all regional directors. This, however, would have meant taking more power from the President than he was prepared to relinquish. On the other hand, Watson opposed the suggestion that half the Council be elected regionally, and the other half elected at large from amongst division directors and other International staff. He opposed this because that would limit Canada's representation, since there were no division directors in Canada, and the industrial divisions did not represent Canadians.