September 25, 2009 at 12:00 PM
SEPTEMBER 25, 2009
Greetings,
In the Jazz Tech world, there has only been one issue that has overshadowed all others - that was of course our recent collective bargaining process. We filed for bargaining with a goal of following the new Federal Regulations that laid out timelines for mandatory conciliation and mediation, and achieving a deadline to bargain. Paul MacDonald was appointed Conciliator in early June. By the middle of August we had an impressive 95 per cent strike vote. The final week of August was an intense week-long bargaining session that culminated with the Bargaining Committee reaching a tentative agreement. The Bargaining Committee utilized bulletins, the Local’s website, and emails to keep the membership informed. The contract was ratified by 61 per cent of the membership September 12th. Although there were gains made for all the members, it is obvious that the tentative contract fell short of many of our member’s expectations.
A side bar to negotiations was an attempted raid to join a new association. This was a treated as a real threat that could derail the bargaining process. A petition went out that confirmed that the membership was behind the Bargaining Committee and there was no appetite to delay or jeopardize bargaining. Once this distraction was removed, the Union focused all attention on the bargaining process.
In May of this year our Local launched a new website (www.caw2002tca.ca) that featured each unit having its own micro-page. This is a great new feature that has been well received. Each unit has its own calendar of events, plus all the relevant news items for that unit. In addition, we have added a newsletter component to our section that lists the minutes from the monthly conference calls. Unfortunately due to technical difficulties, the new pictures that were taken of all the reps did not come out, and the old website pictures were too low of resolution to be transferred to the new site. We will redo pictures at a “photo shoot” during the next Jazz Tech Regional meeting in the fall.
The CAW has a great training facility located in Port Elgin, Ontario. Like many CAW contracts, ours has the company contribute to something called Paid Educational Leave (PEL). The PEL fall/winter schedule will have over 40 weeks of officer training which will take place at CAW’s facility in Port Elgin. Although we will have many officers trained, it will leave our PEL funds depleted. While this stems from a push to utilize our training funds, it will leave us in a position where we will have to be more frugal on sending officers on training next year.
This summer, the CAW National held its Constitutional Convention. A couple items that I’d like to point out to the membership is that Ken Lewenza was acclaimed as President of the CAW National. He was elected National President in 2008 when Buzz Hargrove retired, so this will be his first full term. For more information, please view Contact online.
The other item of interest (particularly to our local) is an amendment to the CAW Constitution. The Constitution governs all the CAW Locals, which we are one of. In fact our Local 2002 has become the second largest local, but that is not from us growing, but an unfortunate byproduct of the crisis in manufacturing and auto sectors that has seen many plant closures and massive job loses.
While many Locals have only one employer and usually only location, ours is an amalgamated union with 22 units stretching across Canada. The Constitution was written with the one location Local in mind. We have had to go several times to the National to get exemptions to some of their rules that don’t work on a coast to coast to coast Local. Our Local introduced some language that would recognize the special needs of Locals that are in our position, (Rail Workers and Air Traffic Controllers come to mind), and gave us the latitude we need to best serve our members. It received unanimous support.
Ee continue to have end of the month conference calls, but the one in August was totally engrossed in ratification vote planning, so there were not any minutes posted.
In Solidarity,
Don Ross
CAW VP Local 2002
Jazz Technical Services
(800) 932-4564 ext: *5004