The Commissioner Contacted You. Tell Him you Want to Bargain.
May 28, 2014
As you are aware, the Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner issued a national email notice today on the status of our bargaining.
We have always maintained that we are prepared to bargain. It was the employer that asked for a PIC, and we are following the process prescribed by the law. Once we have a date set for the hearing we'll inform everyone. As well, we have been holding bargaining information meetings with members across the country for the last two months.
We have previously posted and distributed a summary of our outstanding issues. They include job protections; scheduling; term employment situation; leave for income averaging; leave for medical appointments; acting pay; the wage scale; wages; severance pay; and the duration of the contract.
On the issue of the severance pay, our position at the bargaining table has been that we wish to protect this benefit as it has been in effect for well over 40 years. We have told the employer that if we were to agree to its elimination there would need to be a significant trade-off for our members in exchange, as the changes proposed to severance represent a key element in the government’s agenda to extract concessions from public service workers. In negotiations for a great many other groups, the government agreed to significant economic improvements – beyond the base wage pattern – as part of settlements where the accumulation of severance for the purposes of voluntary termination has been brought to an end. No such offer has been made to us.
On the issue of the duration of the contract, the reason the government (and therefore the Agency) is pushing hard for an agreement that would expire this year is because they want to get at the sick leave provisions that our union has successfully negotiated over the years. One of the reasons we are seeking a 3 year contract is exactly because there are no sick leave proposals on the table in this round of negotiations and because it is too late for the Agency to add any. The government is rejecting this position because they want to get at our sick leave benefits later this year. In addition, why would we seek to return to negotiating the next collective agreement in a mere few months time?
Our job is to do whatever we can to protect our members and what we've gained over the years, and that is what we are doing. We are prepared to return to meaningful collective bargaining at any time. We are committed to attaining a fair collective agreement for our members. It has been made abundantly clear to us by our members that they are not willing to entertain concession bargaining on any level.
The Commissioner has reached out to you personally. Why not reply directly to him with a request for them to return to the bargaining table to negotiate a fair collective agreement that respects their employees and acknowledges the hard work that they do?
Robert Campbell,
President, UTE