Your negotiating team met with SAIT on November 4 and 5 to continue bargaining.
The employer withdrew several of their initial proposals after taking additional time to review our summary document. This allowed us to sign-off on 11 more articles and an LOU as current or with minor changes.
The discussions with SAIT were generally constructive but we do have outstanding non-monetary items that we couldn’t reach full agreement on.
We have not been able to agree on changes regarding position abolishment, layoff and recall. The employer does not want seniority to be the primary factor when deciding on layoffs or recalls.
This proposal is a significant rollback. Your team believes we should keep the current practice of “last in-first out.”
We proposed language that creates a new harassment, discrimination, and safe workplace article. Our current collective agreement does not have an article addressing these issues, which is unusual for any agreement.
We have also proposed creating a separate article for seniority by pulling it from existing language, with no enhancements or additional gains—just a reorganization. Despite this, the employer insists it is a significant change, a stance we believe is unwarranted.
Workload remains a key concern during this round of bargaining, and we currently have a proposal on the table to address it.
We are closely watching other bargaining tables as we prepare to share our proposals for raises and other increases. AUPE members are facing the same challenges across the province, no matter who they work for, and we are all united in the same struggle for better wages and benefits.
Next Steps
Your negotiating team is meeting on November 26 to discuss our next steps. Given where things stand, we believe the next step may be informal mediation. However, we are open to scheduling one additional day of talks to attempt to finalize the remaining items before bringing in a third party.
Wear red to support bargaining! Show your solidarity by taking photos of you and your coworkers wearing red and sending them to photos@aupe.org; they will then be posted to AUPE’s social media.
Please contact a member of your negotiating team if you have any questions or feedback about this bargaining update.
AUPE NEGOTIATING TEAM - SAIT
Lauren Payne
chairlocal039@aupe.ca
Chris Griffin
griffinc007@shaw.ca
Janine Miiller
janinerobyn@gmail.com
AUPE RESOURCE STAFF
Christian Tetreault Negotiations
c.tetreault@aupe.org