Bargaining Update: Local 39 – SAIT
After eight months of delays, your negotiating committee exchanged proposals with the employer on March 1, 2021. We did this before our first meeting on March 4, 2021, so we would be prepared to focus on reviewing each proposal, provide rationale and engage in constructive conversation. We had agreed, prior to submitting the proposals, that any monetary items would be submitted at a later date, so this initial proposal only included non-monetary items.
We were surprised by the employer’s ingoing proposal, which opened multiple articles. Though we did not see a monetary proposal, we saw numerous language rollbacks—such as limiting members’ seminars, conferences, and going to convention. This was interesting considering the employer had a small army at the negotiating table.
When we challenged the employer on certain proposals, such as rolling back flexibility in classification changes, they agreed these issues are not actually problems at SAIT. We made it clear that if the employer wants to renegotiate articles to address perceived problems at SAIT, we are willing to do so—but needlessly opening every article is a bad use of our time. In the last round of bargaining, we negotiated multiple articles seeking improvement and we were told it was too much work, and that we needed to focus on three to five priorities. We reminded the employer of this and asked them to “narrow their focus.”
To provide direction for this round of bargaining, we gathered the proposed changes directly from members, consultation with our Membership Services Officer (MSO), and through a survey of the full membership. We are looking for modest improvements and have not yet tabled our monetary proposal, which would include any wage adjustments as well as changes to articles such as Article 14 - Hours of Work, Article 15 – Overtime, Article 16 – Shift Differential/ Weekend Premium, Article 15 - Overtime, Article 26 - Casual Illness, Article 30 – Health & Wellness Plan Benefits.
We do believe there are a few articles that both parties wish to improve and clarify, and with more discussions we can come to agreement.
We have not yet seen the employer’s monetary proposal. At other post-secondary institutions, employers are tabling rollbacks to salaries, benefit cost-sharing and searching for any place to nickel and dime AUPE members. The monetary proposals are nearly identical, as if there is another hand on the steering wheel—a mandate which is clearly from the UCP government.
We are not prepared to accept any rollbacks! We understand that this is going to be a difficult round of bargaining given the current austerity from the Government of Alberta.
There are several remaining articles that we believe we and the employer can resolve soon, and many in which we are far apart—specifically where the employer has proposed rollbacks.
We have been able to secure additional bargaining dates and our next meeting with the employer is scheduled for full days May 3 & 4, 2021.
If you have any questions, or would like to provide any feedback, please contact one of the members of the negotiating team and we will be happy to respond.
Your Bargaining Committee
Rose Read - roseread@shaw.ca
Lauren Wood - laurenwood_15@hotmail.com
Gerson Charmell - gersoncharmell@gmail.com
AUPE Staff Resources
Negotiator: Christian Tetrault, c.tetrault@aupe.org
Organizer: Darcy Thiessen, d.thiessen@aupe.org