Central Bargaining Updates
May 23, 2023
June 3: Important Membership Meeting!
Our Bargaining Committee has gone through four days of bargaining with eight Employers at the central table.
We will be back at the negotiating table on May 30 & 31 to present our monetary proposals to these Employers and expect they will take the same hardline approach they did with non-monetary issues.
The June 3 meeting will be an update on where we are in the bargaining process and/or whether we need to take a strike vote that day.
The meeting will be held between 10:30am-12:30pm.
LOCATION
500 Granville St, Vancouver
SFU Vancouver Segal Building
Room 1200-1500 | Main Floor
May 15, 2023
As you are all aware, we have started bargaining with eight Employers at the same central table. Our Bargaining Committee has now gone through two days of negotiations that principally dealt with non-monetary issues. We went into bargaining with the idea that we would protect nonmonetary language that we had won in past bargaining so we could quickly move to discussing the monetary issues, which is our key priority.
Employers are attempting to get concessions on some important non-monetary issues we fought hard to win over the years. Below are the three key outstanding issues we will continue fighting to protect.
1) Language that protects our jobs against subcontracting.
In our proposals, we chose to have strong language against subcontracting because we know companies often bring
in subcontractors to cut labour costs and take work away from Bargaining Unit members. We cannot accept this, as it’s a matter of our job security and must be protected.
“Job security was one of the most important issues in our surveys. The use of subcontractors is something that we have been fighting against at my worksite. Employers should not be allowed to replace our work with subcontractors.”
— Mahesh Raju, C&W Services
2) No medical note until 3 days of paid sick leave.
In some of our contracts, we already have language that says a company can only ask for a sick note if you are sick for 3 or more days and that they have to reimburse you for the cost of the note. The contractors are attempting to remove this language and asking for a sick note even if it’s only one day! This is an attempt to create barriers for workers needing to use paid sick days and will put further drain on our healthcare system, which is already in crisis.
“Management wants to force us to provide a doctor’s note when we are sick for just one day to get paid. This just makes it difficult for us to use our paid sick days, and in some cases will result in members going to work sick, which is not good for anyone.”
— Elsa Paulino, Bee-Clean
3) Protecting existing privileges and working conditions.
We have language that prevents an Employer from cancelling any existing privileges and special working conditions a member may have in the workplace. While this language does not cost Employers anything extra, they are trying to remove it. They want the freedom to remove
any existing privileges unilaterally and subsequently blame the “Union’s Collective
Agreement.”
“We have had this protection in our contract for years and will not accept having it removed now. This would give Employers the green light to eliminate advantages that may have not been captured in bargaining. We need to make sure that as workers we are always moving forward, not backwards.”
— Emyll Garcia, GDI Integrated Facility Services
As your committee, we will never support or recommend any proposals with these concessions. Together, we must be ready to fight not only for all the improvements we deserve, but also to defend the significant gains we already won in bargaining over the years!
Our next bargaining dates are set for May 17 & 18.
April 21, 2023
To prepare for bargaining, our 50-member action committee met on April 21st and elected the Bargaining Committee who will be at the negotiating table. Survey results and next steps were discussed with the membership the following day at a General Membership meeting. We are currently in the process of finalizing our proposals for when we start bargaining on May 3.
Meet your Bargaining Committee!
From left to right: Rizalina Gallardo (Best-Post-Secondary), Ariel Dela Riarte (GDI), Roland Gonzalez (Alpine), Agnes Estimo (Best), Baljinder Khangura (Hallmark), Elsa Paulino (Bee-Clean), Rekha Chander (Ultra-tech), Emyll Garcia (GDI), Zenaida Pineda (BGIS), Catherine Bussey (Bee-Clean-Skytrain), Mahesh Raju (C&W)