The board reacts

If you are lucky and the board sees that an owner, or a group of owners, challenging them is a sign of a healthy democratic non-profit corporation, then everything should work out well enough.

Oh sure there will be disagreements but the election campaign should be conducted with a minimum of hostility, anger and bad feelings.

The board freaks out
However when the owners' group starts canvasing for support, the board may freak out. It feels that it can handle individuals—one by one—but an organized group is something else indeed.

The first thing the board may to do is to stop the group from communicating with the other owners. At the same time, some boards try to discredit the group by insinuating that they are frightening large numbers of owners.

Common tactics
Businesses use the same tactics when they find out that there is a union drive going on in its workplace. The union-busting program goes like this:
1.
The unionists are a bunch of troublemakers who are frightening large numbers of good, content and loyal employees.
2.
The troublemakers are confusing the workers with misinformation.
3.
Management has the workers best interests at heart.
4.
We have an open-door so any individual who has a problem can talk to us one-on-one.
5.
The troublemakers must not talk about getting organized with the other workers at the workplace and on company time.
6.
We know who these misguided people are and what they are up to.
7.
Management starts treating the workers better until the danger is over.
8.
Once the scare is over, the retaliation starts.

Condo lawyers have learnt these tactics from the union-busting lawyers.


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