Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1203636
16 C I N E M O N T A G E G E T T I N G O R G A N I Z E D constitution, where the phrase appears. That's okay, though. Because the crux of good faith and fair dealing isn't about the ability to reference chapter and verse; it's about the ability to embody those values in one's conduct. There are sometimes ideas one un- derstands — believes, intuits, feels, groks — without actually having conscious knowledge of them. To paraphrase the fa- mous epistemological musings of Donald Rumsfeld, we might refer to these ideas as unknown knowns: the stuff we don't know that we know. Thinkers from Plato to Chomsky have posited the existence of innate knowledge — ideas that are inborn rather than acquired experientially — but our unknown knowns need not rely upon innatism. In his address "This is Water," the late author David Foster Wal- lace offers a parable in which a fish, asked "How's the water?" by an elder, could only respond, "What the hell is water?" Even what we know most intimately through experience and environment may elude our awareness. We're of ten encouraged to wrest ourselves from such automatism — the unexamined life, yadda, yadda. But, for the most part, our unknown knowns serve us remarkably well. Etymologists labor away at unearth- ing the occult genealogy of everyday words, attempting to reconstruct how " u n d e rs ta n d i n g " e m e rge d f ro m t h e spatial metaphor of standing beneath. Immersed in a sea of samples and allu- sions, an environment brought into being through millennia of cultural production, we've constant cause to wonder, "What the hell is water?" O ur culture of unknown knowns, though, isn't comprised simply of mu- sical snippets or idioms or words; we also internalize values and modes of governance without much attending to the origins in which those concepts are rooted. I ' m g u e s s i n g y o u h a v e o p e n e d a newspaper or tuned in to broadcast news at some point over the past few months, and, if you've done so, you've probably learned a thing or two recently about the process of presidential impeachment. I'm certainly not myself a constitutional scholar; like many middling minds of my generation, my education in civics never progressed much beyond a couple of catchy ditties from Schoolhouse Rock. So I've gleaned a few tidbits about the mechanics of the process from recent coverage. But, while I might not have previ- ously been hep to certain nuances and technical details about the separation of powers, I already had a foundational understanding of what impeachment was all about. Which brings us back, circuitously, to good faith and fair dealing. You know all about it, even if you don't know you know. Like the United States Constitution, o u r G u i l d C o n s t i t u t i o n p ro v i d e s a n institutional mechanism for dealing with grievous abuses of trust. Our con- stitution's Article XIV, Section 1 is titled "Good Faith and Fair Dealing" and spells out that The members of this Guild shall at all times and under all circumstances deal fairly, honorably and in good faith with their fellow members to the end of improving and advancing the interest of this Guild as a whole as well as that of the individual members. The remainder of Article XIV goes on to lay out in detail the quasi-judicial mechanism to address charges that a member is in breach of this policy of good faith and fair dealing. Members so accused have the right to a fair trial and an appeals process, and those ultimately found guilty of having violated the "good faith and fair dealing" mandate may be subject to disciplinary action, including f ines, suspension of membership, or expulsion from the Guild. Our constitution may tuck away its reference to good faith and fair dealing back towards the end of the document, but that duty — the obligation members have to other members to stand together to advance common interests — is actu- ally central to what union membership is all about. When folks apply for Guild membership and thus "solemnly pledge to accept and abide by the provisions of our constitution and by-laws .. and here- by express my consent to be governed thereby in the conduct of my craft and in my relationship with our Local," that quaint bit of language is no mere for- mality. It's a profound commitment that members will have their fellow members' backs. Like the "high crimes and misde- m e a n o rs" a b o u t w h i c h we' ve h e a rd much lately, the phrase "good faith and fair dealing" doesn't have a detailed definition in our constitution. Nowhere, fo r i n s ta n c e, d o e s o u r c o n s t i t u t i o n explicitly state that crossing our union's picket line constitutes a breach. That's because, as is the case with "high crimes and misdemeanors," the potential abuses of trust envisioned in our constitution are defined in terms that are moral and political rather than merely legal. If the existence of Guild tribunals for wayward members is news to you, there's good reason: our union has gone decades without bringing up anyone on formal charges under Article XIV. Other unions take disciplinary action against their members from time to time, but it's an extraordinarily rare occurrence for us. Partly that's because Local 700's leadership has generally not been of a particularly prosecutorial inclination. But mostly it's because our membership has internalized and abides by our shared values of good faith and fair dealing. People might not have studied Article XIV, but they understand — implicitly, perhaps intuitively — that union mem- b e r s h i p i s p re d i c a te d u p o n m u t u a l respect and solidarity. And they uphold those values not because of any potential disciplinary consequences, but because upholding those values is the right thing