Greetings CUPE 391 members,
Yesterday, your Bargaining Committee met for a third time with the Employer and their GVRD Bargaining Representative. To help the Employer better understand our “Joint Agent of Record” proposal, the Union invited Dave Portious of Working Enterprises to attend the meeting and explain the concept of having a Joint Agent of Record to oversee our benefit plan. Currently, our Employer is the sole manager of our benefit package (except for the LTD plan, which the union administers).
At the end of the presentation, the Employer asked a few questions, but gave no indication of their interest in this particular proposal.
For the rest of the morning, the Union’s National Representative, Jim Gorman, further explained our position on several of our important issues, like improved language for P/T Aux workers, pay equity, and having a Joint Agent of Record to help manage our benefit plan.
In response to our last exchange of proposals, the Employer spent time going down their list of proposals, without significant change to any of their proposals.
Our next meeting with the employer for next Monday, April 16th, has been canceled by the Employer. However, we did manage to get a commitment from them for two more tentative bargaining dates in June, in addition to our next scheduled meeting on June 1st.
Regionally, several other locals are further along in negotiations. In Delta, CUPE Local 454’s talks are stalled, and their Employer is reluctant to discuss anything other than their own issues. Local 454 has now been forced to go to mediation at the Labour Relations Board and are gearing up to take a strike vote.
CUPE Local 389 (North Vancouver), CUPE Local 23 (Burnaby). CUPE Local 15 (Vancouver Inside Workers), and CUPE Local 1004 (Vancouver Outside Workers) are also having difficulty making any significant progress, and may also find themselves in the same boat as Local 454.
Further regional updates will be coming as we know more.
Remember to come out to the General Meetings for a regular Bargaining updates. Also, members can e-mail the bargaining committee with any questions at bargaining@vpl.ca or bargaining@cupe391.ca. On behalf of the Bargaining Committee, (Aliza Nevarie CIRC, Laura Safarian Level 6, Doug Klohn Systems, Marya Gadison Marketing, Alex Youngberg President. ) Ed Dickson Bargaining Chair & Vice President CUPE Local 391.