FACES AND PLACES: The UNA Convention: our last hurrah? (05/26/02)

FACES AND PLACES

by Myron B. Kuropas

The UNA Convention: our last hurrah?

If the UNA Home Office has its way, this year's convention in Chicago may prove to be the UNA's last hurrah.

On the docket for by-laws changes are a number of recommendations that reflect a mindset urging survival, not revival. "We need to keep bailing," we are being told, "or we'll sink." Isn't that what we've been doing for the past few years? Bailing?

Think of the fraternal benefits we've thrown overboard recently. We no longer have a 15-story building in Jersey City or a government relations office in Washington; or Ukrainian cultural courses for teenagers at Soyuzivka; or a children's magazine; or a book store; or a printing press. Svoboda, the oldest, continuously published newspaper in the world, is no longer a daily. The Svoboda Index has been abandoned as has our sales office in Toronto. The UNA members no longer receive dividends and compensation for branch secretaries has been reduced. The popular "UNA Day on the Hill" is a distant memory. The event was a highly effective political action initiative during which UNA members visited their senators and representatives after which all attended a UNA-sponsored reception in the U.S. Capitol building.

Are we finished bailing? Maybe not. We still have Soyuzivka and our two publications. Are they next?

According to articles in The Ukrainian Weekly, a number of by-laws changes are being recommended by the Home Office. Many of them are the result of suggestions by Ihor Hayda and the Connecticut District Committee.

The first recommendation is to reduce the size and significance of the General Assembly. If approved by the delegates, there will only be one vice-president instead of two, three auditors instead of five, and nine advisors instead of 14. Honorary members of the General Assembly whose experience and institional memory has proven invaluable in the past, will no longer have their travel expenses to the annual sessions or conventions fully reimbursed. Since honorary members are all retired with limited funds, this provision will effectively curb their participation.

A second recommendation will mandate that all future conventions be reduced from four days to three. In order to accomplish this feat, a third suggestion is that all convention delegates limit their questions to two minutes and suggestions to five minutes. This will severely limit discussion by delegates even more and will eventually render their input irrelevant. There is no suggestion, of course, to limit the amount of time current elected officials have on the floor.

A fourth by-laws change will mandate that all future UNA conventions be held at Soyuzivka. This will abolish the kind of local presence and political significance which conventions in a major city provided our organization in the past.

A far more significant by-laws revision would require paid UNA executives to present reasons at the convention regarding previous convention resolutions that have been totally ignored under a current provision that allows paid executives to do what they deem best. Today, most convention resolutions are disregarded by the General Assembly. Is it asking too much to require paid executives to offer reasons for their indifference? Otherwise, why have resolutions? Why have conventions for that matter?

An Illinois delegate suggests the elimination of a current provision barring honorary members from elected office even if they resign from their honorary position. This stipulation is offensive to convention delegates. It was put into place for no other reason than to prevent Joseph Lesawyer from running for president at every convention. I am no great friend of Joseph Lesawyer, but I say let the delegates decide if Mr. Lewsawyer or any other Honorary Member deserves to be elected to a UNA post.

There are other issues that need to be discussed on the convention floor. One concerns the Ukrainian American Coordinating Council, established on October 1, 1983, in Washington. I was once a strong supporter of the UACC, served as its first vice-president, and had high hopes that its creation could serve both as a unifying force and as healty competition for the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America. That hasn't happened. The UCCA grew in significance, while the UACC has become a much diminished paper organization. The UNA lost many members and a cadre of dynamic organizers as a result of its support of UACC. It is time for us to withdraw from the UACC and to remain neutral.

There are other recommendations that have been discussed by UNA delegates in Chicago but have not been approved by the home office. One is to hire organizers from the Fourth Wave who will enroll their own people. They must be paid well or they won't succeed. Fourth wavers know fourth wavers best and can better convince them that membership in the UNA is in their interest.

Another recommendation is to emulate fraternal organizations that are successful. The Polish National Alliance is one of them. Edward Moskal, PNA president, has recently purchased two banks for his organization. Mortgages are offered by the banks along with PNA membership.

Every UNA convention is important but this convention is especially so. As anyone familiar with the history of the UNA knows full well, our organization has experienced many ups and downs during its 108-year history. Membership decreased when 13 branches broke off from the Rusyn-dominated Union of Greek Catholic Ruthenian Brotherhoods (now called the Greek Catholic Union) in 1894 and established the Ruskyi Narodnyi Soyuz (RNS). More members left when 17 branches exited the RNS to establish the Ukrainian Workingmen's Association (now the Ukrainian Fraternal Association) in 1910. When the RNS became the Ukrainian National Association in 1914 a number of die-hard Rusyns cashed in their policies. The Great Depression resulted in a temporary membership decline between 1929 and 1933. With the exception of this four-year period, however, UNA membership has consistently increased every year from 1894 until 1974, when our total membership reached 89,107. Every year thereafter our membership has steadily declined.

Will we continue to bail in order to survive, or will we revive? Only the convention delegates know the answer.

Myron Kuropas' e-mail address is: [email protected].

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