July 23, 2013 at 3:00 PM
To: ALL CAW MEMBERS OF CANADIAN NORTH
Dear Sisters and Brothers,
On June 20, 2013 the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Services appointed
two Conciliation Officers to assist the CAW in reaching an agreement with
Canadian North.
This appointment placed both the Union and Company into a deadline to reach
an agreement no later than September 9, 2013, after which the Union could serve
the Company with a 72 hour notice of its intent to strike or the Company could
do the same with a lockout notice. To that end, your Union – through the
Conciliators – requested bargaining dates for July and August. However, Canadian
North refused to meet and instead agreed to bargain on September 10 and 11 in
Edmonton, Alberta.
The Conciliators realized we could be into a dispute by September before the
Conciliators had the opportunity to facilitate bargaining and therefore
requested the Union and Company to agree to an extension to conciliation. Both
the Union and Company agreed. This means that the deadline to reach an agreement
will now be September 11, 2013, after which a 72 hour notice could be given for
either a strike or lockout.
It is clear that Canadian North has no interest in reaching an agreement with
our membership. The CAW Bargaining Committee is presently making preparations
for membership information meetings and strike votes which will be conducted in
the coming weeks. This strike vote is an important part of the process which
will clearly indicate to the Company that the bargaining committee has the full
support of the membership in its endeavour to achieve a fair and equitable
settlement on behalf of the members at Canadian North.
In order to have the membership understand more clearly the timing of the
process, the chart on outlines the schedule that will be followed during these
negotiations, up to and including our strike deadline.
Timeline
-
June 5: Union files for conciliation
-
June 20: Conciliation officers appointed
-
Aug 21: Conciliation officer deemed to have filed report to Minister
-
Aug 22: Cooling-off period – 21 days
Membership meetings and strike vote to be scheduled
This is a very challenging set of negotiations and solidarity is incredibly
important if we are going to reach a fair and equitable settlement for you our
membership. We will report back on the progress of this process.
In the event anyone has any questions about this or negotiations please don’t
hesitate to call the undersigned.
On behalf of your Negotiation Committee,
Aida
Kirameddine
Theresa Amicarelli
In solidarity,
Bruce Snow
CAW National Representative
BS:sb-cope343