Bargaining Update: Revera Our Parents’ Home—Local 047, Chapter 061
Bargaining has begun at Our Parents’ Home, on schedule. Your negotiations team met with the employer for our first bargaining dates on Jan. 25 and 26.
During that meeting, we exchanged our ingoing proposals with the employer, and received their proposal. There is, of course, a lot of work to do to reach a deal, but your negotiations team is happy that the process has begun.
As we wrote in our last bargaining update, your negotiations team drafted our ingoing proposal based on the results of the bargaining survey from last Fall. Because nearly the entire worksite participated in the survey, the team has a very clear picture of what your priorities are in bargaining. Some of those priorities are:
- Improving benefits for part-time and temporary employees
- Staff parking
- Improved safety measures on the worksite—especially monitoring the front door
- Improved scheduling practices, particularly around filling vacant shifts and vacation/time-off requests
- Improved sick leave
- Fixing the too-frequent payroll errors that you currently deal with
- Respect and communication in the workplace
- Higher wages, shift differentials, RRSP contributions, and benefits.
These priorities will continue to guide your negotiations team through the bargaining ahead. In the meantime, before we sign our first collective agreement, you still have rights and ways to assert them.
The most important of those rights is the right to union representation—which means that if you’re facing any type of problem at work, including potential discipline, pay issues, or bullying, then you can always have representation from your union.
Your Membership Services Officer (MSO) is Guy Quenneville. You can email him at g.quenneville@aupe.org, or you can call AUPE’s Member Resource Center at 1-800-232-7284 between 8:30 and 4:30 on weekdays.
Our solidarity is the most important tool that we have as workers. That means standing united behind our negotiations team, and asserting our rights at work every day. When we stand together, the employer loses one of their most powerful tools against us—the power to divide us and pit us against one another. It’s only through solidarity that we can achieve a fair collective agreement, and improve conditions at Our Parents’ Home.
Don’t hesitate to reach out to your negotiations team with any questions, comments, or feedback. Together, we’re going to win a fair deal for Our Parents’ Home.
Bargaining committee:
Catherine Flamiano flamianocatherine@gmail.com cell 780-901-6474
Zeus Ng zeus_ng@mail.com - cell 780-710-1539
Jennifer To jenniferjj.to@gmail.com - cell 780-709-3812
Renalene Zarate norlhen.lc@gmail.com cell - 587-873-3824
AUPE Resource Staff:
Merryn Edwards, Negotiations – 780-952-1951 m.edwards@aupe.org
Michelle Szalynski, Organizing –403-634-8262 m.szalynski@aupe.org
Guy Quenneville, Membership Services Officer – 780-237-8253 g.quenneville@aupe.org
Jon Milton, Communications Officer — j.milton@aupe.org