Local 050 ratification vote saw increased turnout

Secure, confidential process delivered accurate results quickly

Your negotiating team has been asked by members to release more detailed numbers related to last week’s ratification vote and we’re happy to do so.

To ensure we had the most up-to-date contact information, AUPE staff used e-mail addresses provided by the employer via two secure lists. The first, totalling 725, contained all members on active service. For those members we used their AGLC email address (with permission of the employer). The second list, 63 names in all, were members not on active service [maternity leave, illness, etc.] but still entitled to vote in affairs of the union. For those members, we used the personal email address the employer provided. Of the 788 email addresses we submitted to Election Buddy, 786 had successful delivery of the email containing the unique link allowing each member to vote once; two of those emails bounced back. Of the 594 people who voted, 376 voted in favour (63 per cent) and 218 were opposed. The final Election Buddy report indicates that an additional 32 members opened the link but closed it again without casting a vote.

As was explained in a previous bargaining update, Election Buddy’s secure voting system allowed members to cast their vote anonymously and enabled us to confirm each member casted only a single vote. AUPE has used Election Buddy successfully for several ratification votes recently. If you would like to find out more about them, please visit their website which shows they are also approved by the US Department of Labor for union certification votes. We trust their integrity.

The voter turnout for the vote last week (slightly over 75 per cent) is a significant improvement over the 51 per cent of members (403 in total) who cast their mail-in ballots in the previous ratification vote. This improvement in member participation leaves us optimistic about the utilization of electronic balloting in the future – not just for ratification votes but, perhaps, for other important votes that face our Local.

Increasing the opportunity for our members to participate in the decisions we make will only lead us to making better decisions and your negotiating team will be encouraging the Local Executive to explore the use of electronic balloting for other purposes on a case-by-case going forward. We thank all members for voting and encourage those who chose not to to reach out and let us know why, if you choose.

We have reproduced the Election Buddy report for your information here (graphic below) and hope this update answers any outstanding questions you may have. If not, please reach out to a member of your negotiating team.