November 6th to 12th, 2022
856,
At the well-attended general membership meeting on November 5th, I mentioned that we would see everyone in January as there was no meeting in December. Um, whoops, that’s not true. I was getting my locals confused. There is no December meeting in Kelowna, but there is one here in Winnipeg! My apologies for the confusion my confused brain caused. If you would like to attend the meeting on December 14th at 7:00 p.m., please email connect@cupwwpg.ca to be sent a registration form.
Other than that piece, the meeting went well. We had many WMPP members in attendance and Archie Dimaano was elected to be the internal chief shop steward for the local. We would like to thank Ed Schwartz for his years of service in the roll.
Short weeks mean busy weeks at the local, and this week was just like that. The trustees were in looking at the financial records for the first half of the year, and we hope to have their report ready for you at the next meeting.
$1.68? REALLY?
Yes, really. That is what the corporation figures is an appropriate payment for COLA for the time period mentioned.
A few weeks ago, I reported that there was some argument about the timeframe for which the corporation was to use for determining what the CPI index is.
A national grievance was filed on October 11th. “The Canadian Union of Postal workers files this grievance against the Canada Post Corporation’s violation of clause 35.09 of the collective agreement, which provides that a Cost of Living Allowance (COLA) shall be paid quarterly if a certain threshold in the increase in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) is met. The Corporation is violating the collective agreement by refusing to pay the COLA in accordance with the method provided for in the collective agreement.”
That’s the grievance statement. We also request corrective action in these, “The Union seeks for the Arbitrator to:
(a) Declare that the Corporation is violating clause 35.09 of the collective agreement by refusing to pay the COLA as calculated applying the method provided for in the collective agreement;
(b) Order the Corporation to pay each full-time regular and part-time regular employee, one cent per hour paid during the quarter for each full zero point zero five zero four (0.0504) of a point increase in the CPI above the adjusted index which is five point three three percent (5.33%) greater than the CPI published for January 2020;
The union reserves the right to amend this grievance and request additional or supplementary corrective action.”
For RSMCs, who don’t get paid by the hour, the corrective action requested was, “The Union seeks for the Arbitrator to:
(a) Declare that the Corporation is violating clause 33.06 of the collective agreement by refusing to pay the COLA as calculated applying the method provided for in the collective agreement;
(b) Order the Corporation to pay each route holder and permanent relief employee, zero point zero three seven five percent (0.0375%) of the activity component paid for each full zero point zero five zero four (0.0504) of a point increase in the CPI above the adjusted index which is five point three three percent (5.33%) greater than the CPI published for December 2019;
The union reserves the right to amend this grievance and request additional or supplementary corrective action.”
Those are the grievances that were filed on this, and the paltry payment you saw on your cheques is the answer.
Obviously less than two bucks is not an appropriate COLA payment. We are one of the few unions that is strong enough to have a cost of living allowance in our collective agreement to help our members with rampant inflation. Two bucks, though? Something is wrong with the corporation’s math, and I don’t think this will be the end of this story. But that’s just a guess. Stay tuned.
The union’s national bulletin on the matter is here: https://www.cupw.ca/en/inflation-triggers-rsmc-and-urban-cola-payments-again
WMPP SHIFT BID ROUNDUP
The schedules are being sent to the work floor and bidding will start next week on the 2023 schedules for the Winnipeg Mail Processing Plant.
This year’s consultations were a challenge. We didn’t get everything we were asking for, and we made some gains.
As many people know, the Saturday morning shift for people who regularly work evenings was eliminated. The Sunday morning shift for people who normally work evenings remains, and the union argues that when people have a shift at a certain time, all their shifts should be at that time. We have mused about requesting that next year’s consultation be scheduled for 1:00 a.m., because essentially that’s what the employer is asking our members to do week in, week out.
There are some sections that have had a fixed schedule that are moving back to a rotating schedule this year. This is contentious. There are varying opinions of how schedules are supposed to be. The local has made the decision that when workers in a section do not have a unanimous or near-unanimous consensus on how the schedule should be, the schedule will be rotating. In this way, everyone will work everything, and that is more fair than some people getting a choice schedule while others have to work an unfavourable schedule for the year.
It is literally impossible to make a perfect schedule for everyone who works at the WMPP. The employer has demands based on numbers and we have requests based on human experience. These two things are not always congruent.
We are definitely disappointed that there are so many reductions on the number of members working during the daytime hours. We informed the employer at multiple points in our consultations this year that we will be filing grievances on this. The collective agreement does state that the employer is to make work available during the day as much as possible. Clearly, this hack and slash of the shifts during the day is a violation of this.
We also aren’t going to see the shift start times roll back an hour. Not this year, anyway. By and large, members prefer starting and ending their shifts on odd hours, 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., 3:00 to 11:00, and then 11:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. Local managers know we prefer this schedule. We’ll continue to have this conversation throughout 2023 and see if this change can happen for ’24.
We need members to use the ART (swipe) machines when they change sections during their shift. This is critical going forward. We are losing some full-time positions during the day because the employer argues the work isn’t there and the hours aren’t needed at that time, but we know from observation that those sections are stacked with workers from other sections during the day. Because the ATR machines aren’t used, we don’t have any official data to back it up.
If you are getting moved out of your section even for 20 minutes, please swipe into the new section. The only way we can reasonably protect certain positions is if we have appropriate data. The only way we can have this data is if it exists. It doesn’t exist if you don’t create it. Please help!
TEN SICK DAYS
Last Friday, we were informed that there is a proposal on the table from the corporation to increase our personal day annual allotment to 13 days in total. This is an additional six to the seven we already receive.
This is the response to the Trudeau government’s changes to the Canada Labour Code that establishes 10 sick days as the bare minimum for workers whose employment is guided by the code. This includes us.
But thirteen? I guess so. The minimum is ten, and I don’t know who said what to get the number to 13, but that’s what we’re getting.
Your personal day account will be credited with six more days on January 1st. On July 1st, 2023, your account will get 13 days added to it. You will be able to carry over up to 18 days.
For temps, it’s going to be a bit different. From the way I read it, you’ll get three days credited to your account on January 1st (or whatever first of the month comes first after you complete 30 days of service), and then one more day every month until you get to 10 days.
For more information on this, here is the national bulletin on the matter: https://www.cupw.ca/en/canada-labour-code-10-paid-sick-days
Early this week, local management informed us that there are some things happening with the flooded building on Narin, and there could be some changes coming soon. It sounds like an ambitious plan that will be beneficial for our members and we are scheduled to get details on it next week. We’ll have to report more then, but we do want you to know that something positive is in the works.
Other than that, have a good weekend, everybody. Your local delegates to the regional conference have been coming into the office all week to pick up their resolution books, excited to get reading about some ideas that will change how this union operates. Local full-time officers are heading out to Edmonton next Saturday to start their resolutions committee work, and the delegates will be coming out for the conference on the 23rd. From the conversations I’ve had with delegates, the majority of them new to the process, they are excited to participate in this democratic process and contribute to making this union bigger and better! I’m glad they’re along for the ride.
Peace,
Matthew