We’re heading to informal mediation
Your negotiating team met with the employer on August 8 and 9 and are disappointed to have to report that bargaining has come to an impasse. Despite our best efforts, the employer will not budge and refuses to offer us the improvements, wages and benefits that we have so clearly proven we deserve.
As we reported in our last update, the outstanding items are primarily monetary, and we remain quite far apart on that front.
The employer continues to offer shift differentials and weekend premiums that are far below the rates paid to workers at Alberta Health Services and other employers. Weekend premiums and shift differentials are intended to compensate workers for working outside normal business hours. They are recognition that we are sacrificing time with our families and pursuing outside interests to show up to work. That sacrifice is the same regardless of who your employer is, and your negotiating team feels that the recognition for that should be the same for anyone doing the work.
Your negotiating team has been working hard to improve overtime pay so that all hours of overtime worked are paid at two times the basic rate of pay, while the employer is insisting the first two hours of overtime be paid at just time and a half (1.5 X the basic rate of pay).
We have been seeking improvements to the employer’s contribution of five percent towards our Registered Retirement Savings Plans (RRSPs). At our rate of pay, none of us will ever be able to retire unless the employer improves the matching rate they contribute to our RRSPs.
We remain quite far apart when it comes to salaries.
The employer has proposed:
2022 - 0% on the grid
and 1% Covid lump sum
2023 - 1.25 %
2024 - 1.5 %
While a marginally better offer than the last insulting offer they presented, it is not even close to the 3.5% per year for each of the three years that we are seeking. Even that amount doesn’t keep up with inflation; what the employer is proposing is out of step with the realities we are all facing.
We work hard. We’ve been bent until we’ve almost broken over the last two-and-a-half years and did an impressive job keeping LCHF facilities clean and their residents safe. We’re beyond frustrated that the employer couldn’t be bothered to meet us in the middle so that we could negotiate a fair collective agreement that compensates us appropriately for the important work we do.
As the employer clearly isn’t going to do that, we will be applying jointly with the employer for informal mediation. We will update you further as that process unfolds.
If you have any questions about this bargaining update, please reach out to a member of your negotiating team.
AUPE Negotiating Team - Lamont County Housing Foundation
Ben Dubitz bddubitz@gmail.com
Laura Pederson laurapederson8@gmail.com
Cathy Dueck c.j.dueck@shaw.ca
AUPE Staff Resources
Chris Dickson Negotiations c.dickson@aupe.org
Tracy Noble Organizing t.noble@aupe.org
Mimi Williams Communications m.williams@aupe.org