There will be two general membership meetings for Unit 1 members to vote on the tentative collective agreement reached in the early morning hours of March 3rd.

About the ratification process:

Once the terms of the newly negotiated agreement are singed by members of the negotiating teams, the document must be presented to the respective governing bodies for a vote. The employer will present the tentative deal for ratification to a Board of Trustees committee on March 9th. We will wait for the employer to conduct the ratification vote first, given our negative experience in 2012  when they intended to remove an article from the tentatively signed deal and ratify thus conditionally. This illegal move pushed Unit 3 to go on a 10-day strike to force the employer to adhere to the Labour Relations Act.

Members of Unit 1 will be presented with the new language of the tentative collective agreement  on

Wednesday, March 15,  5:00 – 7:00, Room: Academic South 204

Thursday, March 16 , 12:00 – 3:00, Room: Thistle 240

At each meeting members will be free to ask questions and engage in a discussion. The meetings will conclude with a secret ballot vote. The question on the ballot simply asks members to indicate by ‘yes’ if they accept the terms of the tentative collective agreement, or to signal by ‘no’ if they do not accept it as is.

If a majority of votes (50% plus one) accept the terms of the tentative agreement then it is ratified and becomes a legally binding document.  Only members of Unit 1 can vote.

The UNIT 1 Bargaining Committee has reached a tentative agreement.

There is NO strike.

Ratification meeting will be set up to vote on it.

THURSDAY, MARCH 2 at 5 pm in Thistle 255

On agenda: bargaining update and potential strike.

Unit 1 legal strike position is one minute after midnight (12:01) am March 3. On March 1st and 2nd the bargaining team will be in mediation with the employer.

By now members should have signed the Strike Pay Application form. If you haven’t done so yet, print it out and drop it off to the union office (or the mailbox next to MC C 402). It is super important that you sign it so CUPE National approves strike pay for you. If the strike is called and you show up at the picket line for your regular 20 hours a week of picketing without having the form signed, you may experience serious delay in pay.

Sign up for your picket shifts. See how on our bargaining website’s page.

Venceremos! Let’s win better working conditions for workers and better learning conditions for students!

For #BetterBrock #BetterUniversities!

Ministry of Labour’s ‘no board’ report arrived this morning with a strike deadline set for March 3. This means that Unit 1 of our local would be in a legal position to strike one minute after midnight on March 3 (on the night from March 2 to March 3). This does not mean that the union will call a strike but it indicates that a permission is granted to withdraw our labour from that time on until a mutually agreeable collective agreement is reached. 

In the 17-day period leading to the strike deadline the two parties still can negotiate. There will be a mediation before March 3.

About the major issues on the table read here.

We need to build a strong union especially in exceptional times like this. For a successful resolution please consider joining one of these committees:

Strike Preparation Committee

Strike Benefits Committee

Communications Committee

cupe4207@brocku.ca

February 13th at 5 pm in Sankey Chamber

Agenda:

The Election of the Recording Secretary position advertized on our posting boards will be elected at our March GMM.

• Bargaining, strike deadline, Strike Preparation Committee
• Election of Unit 1 Bargaining Team Member (to fill in vacancy, duration from Feb 13 to ratification of new collective agreement)
•  Election of 2 Delegates to the Canadian Labour Congress Convention, May 8-12, Toronto.
• Bylaw amendment 16.3 Election of Delegates, amendment in bold.

Continue reading →

The Executive Committee is calling a SPECIAL GMM to discuss and approve STRIKE BUDGET. The tree days of Unit 1 conciliation held in January yielded no successful resolution to the differences between the union and the university.The two sides remain to be wide apart. In order for negotiations to move ahead we need to prepare for a labour action.

There will be no other item on the agenda.

THURSDAY FEBRUARY 2nd at 5 PM

Location: Sankey Chamber

On January 18th after our special GMM, and the whole day on January 19th, members of Unit 1 voted to send a message about their position on negotiations of Unit 1 collective agreement with the university.

  72% members voted YES and 27% voted NO.

Clearly, great majority of those who cast their vote disagree with claims that Brock is one of the top 10 employers in the region. The 72% indicated that they authorize the local to call a strike if necessary. How necessary depends on the employer. So far Brock refuses to equal the playing field to get our members closer to working conditions standards held at other universities for their contract instructors and TAs. Our non student members are without a health plan and graduate student members face zero compensation for rising cost of tuition, a provision in place at other campuses. Our pay severely lags behind the rising cost of living and falls short of provincial average in our sector. To add insult to injury, there are three tiers to Unit 1 pay scale. Our members work the same type of work for three different pays. The university thinks this is ok and should stay the way it is. The university also thinks not paying our members statutory holiday pay is ok.

There is no clear end in sight to this round of negotiations but we hope that the message is sent and the university will take it seriously.

Thank you all who participated in the vote. We have heard plenty of your concerns and encouragement today!