Memorandums for our Sister Locals
Most of you will know by now that our Sister Local CSU 52 has signed a Memorandum of Agreement with the City which they will take to their members for a ratification vote. About 2 weeks ago, IBEW ratified a Memorandum. And a month before that CUPE Local 30 ratified a deal. Last month, ATU Local 583 ratified a deal with the City of Calgary. Of the 5 Coalition Locals, only ATU and Fire are still negotiating. It’s starting to feel lonely here.
We’ve believed all along that a better deal can be achieved. ATU and our Sister Locals in the Coalition have born the brunt of the City’s financial debacle for far too long. A series of increases of zeros, ones and twos has left us far behind inflation. We don’t expect to catch up all at once, but fair is fair. We’re paying the price for a problem that is not of our making.
Discussions Heading into Mediation
After nearly a year and a half of bargaining, we are finally at impasse without a memorandum. We’ve ended negotiations and will commence mediation on May 21. In the meantime, there is a one-on-one dialogue underway between my office and the Senior negotiator. We’ve made a proposal to settle. The City has countered. We’re reviewing their counter and will continue in good faith until either we have a deal we can bring to you or we enter mediation.
What Happens Next?
Once in mediation, we either get a deal or we get frustrated and order the mediator to “write out” – he files a report indicating no agreement has been reached. Filing of this Report begins the 14-day “Cooling Off” period. After that, we apply to the Board for a Board Supervised strike vote – the real thing. Once we have an approved Strike Mandate, we can serve 3 days’ notice on the employer of commencement of strike action. At NO POINT in this process will ATU refuse to negotiate.
You’ll recall that the City HAS refused to negotiate with us on separate occasions because they didn’t like who we had at our bargaining table. That matter is still at the Board awaiting its decision, but we’ve continued bargaining in good faith every step of the way. Even getting to mediation has taken over a month as the City gave priority to settling IBEW.
More Information to Come…
We’ll publish a more concise version of this discussion as a Q & A sheet, to be up on our website ( atu569.ca ) over the next couple of days. Stay tuned, as we get closer to a deal we’ll keep the communications lines open.