Memorandum Vote, Shields, Retirement Banquet and Pension Update

The monthly Membership meeting scheduled for Tuesday, May 26, 2020 has been cancelled due to meeting restrictions imposed by Alberta Health Services.

Vote on Memorandum of Agreement

In February this year, the Union negotiated a Memorandum of Agreement with the City of Edmonton on behalf of the members employed in the ETS Main Bargaining Unit. A ratification vote was scheduled, but later postponed because of the need to focus on the confusion and uncertainty caused by COVID-19.

At the Telephone Townhall meeting the Union hosted on May 13, one of the poll questions was “Should we proceed with the Ratification Vote?” The clear answer from the respondents was “Yes, let’s get on with it.”

With that in mind, the Executive Board, at its regular meeting this week made the decision to take the vote on Tuesday June 09. The vote will be held in the workplace, as usual, with a ballot box at the Union hall. All precautions will be taken to ensure the safety and compliance of voters. Information about the Memorandum is available on the Local’s website under Agreements and will be distributed via email shortly.

Security Shields and A/C Units

Regarding buses at ETS, we can report that A/C Unit installations – are about 50% done. Roughly 300 are done with 300 are still do be done. They are doing anywhere from 4 to 6 a day. All 7000s series already have A/C. The installations are being done at Paterson. Transit Fleet Maintenance expects that everything should be completed by the end of August. Efforts will be made to assign AC equipped buses as much as possible, especially on hot days. That should be easier to achieve as time goes on and more installations are completed.

Postponement

The Annual Retirement Banquet is now officially postponed. There is no expectation that the rules of lockdown will be sufficiently relaxed by September to allow a meeting of 700 or 800 people in close proximity. In any case, many of the attendees are people in demographic categories that put them at high risk of severe symptoms should they contract the virus and it would be irresponsible of us to put them at risk. This is a postponement only and we’ll look for opportunities soon to honour these retirees.