Bargaining breaks down
Bargaining with your employer has broken down as of our last meeting on January 22. Your negotiating team has decided that more bargaining meetings with the employer would not be productive. As a result, we will begin the Essential Services Agreement (ESA) process for our worksite, which when finished will allow us to ask a mediator to assist with bargaining.
There are some major issues that caused this breakdown in bargaining, and each show just how little the employer respects us.
First, your negotiating team wants to protect our jobs, but the employer has said they would never agree to the anti-contracting out protections we proposed. In fact, the employer would only ever accept their version of contracting out language; they won’t even negotiate it.
The employer says we shouldn’t worry because they don’t plan on contracting out our jobs… but if they don’t plan on contracting out our jobs, why would they never agree to having strong protections included in our collective agreement?
The employer has offered a 1.25% monetary increase for our next collective agreement. But what does this mean? Considering the employer says they will only agree to a 3-year contract, that means the average spending increase per year would only be 0.416%.
So 1.25% is all the money the employer is willing to spend on increasing our wages, weekend premiums, or any other investment that would make our jobs better and properly compensate us for the important work we do, especially in the middle of a pandemic. Even if all of this went towards our wages, it would still amount to a salary cut because our wages wouldn’t be keeping up with inflation! When you add it up, only increasing all or some of these things by 1.25% over three years is insulting.
But here’s the thing: the employer isn’t even saying they can’t afford to pay more. They're not making an inability to pay argument. Instead, they think we should just be happy with what we’ve got while they keep all the extra money that could be used to compensate us, much of which is our own tax dollars given to them by Alberta Health Services.
The remaining items we need to settle with mediation include:
Article 1 — Term of the Agreement
Article 11 — Shift Differential
Article 12 — Weekend Premium
Article 21 — Sick Leave
Article 22 — Leave of Absence
Article 26 — Employee Benefits
Schedule “A” — Salary Schedule
Schedule “B” — Employee Benefits
NEW — Professional Fees Article
NEW — No Contracting Out Article
Starting the mediation and essential services process
Your Negotiating Team and AUPE Resource Staff will soon begin the process for getting an Essential Services Agreement (ESA). While all of our work is essential in the usual sense, an ESA will determine what work is technically essential to protect the residents we care for in case bargaining results in a strike or a lockout. Once we have the ESA, we can ask a neutral mediator to help us reach a new agreement at the bargaining table.
We will need to work together to create an ESA. Your negotiating team and AUPE resource staff will be reaching out to you soon to help you get involved in the process and answer your questions about what happens next.
Remember, your negotiating team is here to represent you! We’ll keep you informed all throughout the bargaining process. Visit aupe.org/user/register to make sure you receive our bargaining update and other important union news.
Please reach out to your negotiating team or AUPE resource staff if you have any questions about bargaining.
Points West Cold Lake Negotiating Team
Lianne Dumais, ldumais@telus.net
Alison Anstruther, ally_anst_88@hotmail.com
Amanda Whillans, whillans@yahoo.ca
AUPE Resource Staff
Terry Luhoway, Negotiator, t.luhoway@aupe.org
Jaime Urbina, Organizer, j.urbina@aupe.org
Alexander Delorme, Communications, a.delorme@aupe.org